100 Little Cuts

It is interesting how human makeup varies so much externally vs. internally.

When our bodies are injured, it is almost always one significant injury that our body can't cope with. When we are faced with little wounds all over, our body has an amazing ability to repair itself. Only when one thing is so damaging will our body normally give out.

When it comes to our hearts and minds though- our emotional well being, the opposite is completely true. Though some significant events such as the loss of a child, etc can be crippling, we are more likely to collapse under the weight of 100 minor stresses. When we face a seriously traumatic experience, our mind has many defense mechanisms that kick into place to keep us afloat. Though sometimes these are only stopgap measures that must eventually be dealt with, we have an amazing resilience to bounce back and not stay mired in internal pain.

Unfortunately what often creeps up on us and we are far less capable of handling is the small things that sneak in under our radar. Nearly everyone I have ever met with clinical depression comes as a result not of a significant trama, but from a life filled with tiny debilitating stresses.

Beyond our own inability to recognize and defend ourselves from these small but multiplicative strains, we often can't reach out to our greatest source of healing: each other. When a major catastrophic event happens in one's life, they are able to turn to their friends and family in a way that sometimes they never have before. Sometimes, this even creates light out of the darkness. This closeness and this aid helps us heal in ways that we never could have on our own.

The problem with the smaller stressors is two-fold. One, we often don't recognize their effect on us, so we don't reach out. Secondly, when we do reach out, it is often met with very little sympathy or support. "Yes, yes, you have problems with you're kids. Don't we all?" or even worse "Oh, I totally agree about your money problems, listen to how bad mine are." When we are confronted with our friends' and families' smaller problems, we find it easy to dismiss them or to compare them to our own problems. This not only doesn't allow someone the comfort and support that we need, but also helps them undermine their own process. If we don't think that their problems are important, it shows them that they aren't important either, forcing them to be swept aside, until that pile of discard is so large it collapses on top of us.

This is the crux of the problem. We don't focus on the small details, our friends encourage this behavior, and yet as such we aren't prepared for the deluge when it hits us. Even worse is if we already have a pile of unaddressed issues and then we are faced with something larger. Perhaps the reason that our body is so much more effective at dealing with the small problems is that it always deals with them. Imagine if every time you got a cut, your body just ignored it. After all it's only a small problem. How long would it be before you had so many "tiny" injuries that you bled to death? How much worse would a major injury be if you're already bleeding from 100 smaller cuts?

When someone goes through a divorce, or is faced with a major problem or huge disappointment, our ability to deal with it is severely handicapped if we are struggling under the weight of all the things that we have forgotten are problems in our life.

So what's the brilliant solution waiting to be revealed? Strangely even psychologists don't have a brilliant answer to this one. Dealing with our problems is always a healthy solution, but when that isn't a viable option (money issues, etc.) it can be hard to let a wound heal. One thing for sure is to make sure that we give strong consideration to what our friends are going through. And whenever possible, we need to try and see if there is a solution to any of our problems. Putting a band-aid on may cover it up, but if the splinter is still in, it will just go deeper and deeper until it gets infected. Try and see if it is within your power to remove the splinter, and of course, ask for help. Letting people help is us one of the surest ways to make our own loads lighter, and hey! That's what friends are for. Don't let yourself be convinced that just because your problem is small, it shouldn't be dealt with. Life may not be perfect, but we sure can try to make it as close as possible!