Emotional Distress
I have a considerable amount of time to be with my thoughts. While some of us faced difficulties embracing solitude during the pandemic, I found myself thriving. My poetry had improved, I validated my thoughts and my everlasting fear of judgement was put on hold. I did not notice it until I was informed about it. That was when I realized, having a constant connection is good but it also carries so much emotional distress.
If you are a people pleaser like me and have a hard time saying no, letting loose and dealing with overwhelming perfectionism, you know what I mean when I say, that we agree to a conflicting opinion in a text message just because we do not want to hurt the other person. I do not know if that is morally right or wrong but I live by the phrase “Everyone is trying to survive”.
Why do I like solitude while others frown upon it?
After 2 years of thinking it through, I concluded that it was my experience. One’s experiences define one as a human. I know that my state of sadness was always disregarded by my closest friends saying “Oh, you are sad about that, you don’t even know what I am going through.” It was the last thing anyone should say, no matter how close they are, because pain is subjective and I wish that we could get educated about this from the get-go. I did not expect anyone else to really listen thereafter. I was skeptical of any care I received because I knew, deep down, they do not understand and probably no one ever will.
Being in my autonomous state of emotions, without the influence of any other interaction helped me accept myself more. I did not add backups to my thoughts and I stopped thinking about the worst outcome of every scenario that was in my head. It cleared me of so much noise that I now think, every interaction carries weight. Few carry a heavier weight that might impact my well-being, and few are just that noise I should straight up ignore because it doesn't carry an impact. In the end, it boils down to the emotional distress my head created for me, breaking every loophole in a simple conversation, making time to understand someone even if I wasn’t gaining anything. Let’s be honest, our brain always wants some gratification after everything it does, be it the look in someone’s eyes, or the fear of disappointing someone.
Solitude helps me break down these emotional distresses into categories of impact. Higher-impact distress is prioritised first and I seek help for it, a low-impact one is meant to be ignored because my tomorrow doesn’t get defined by a menial opinion that someone might have about me. It sometimes gets seen as my arrogance, but any advice from someone isn’t a rule that I am strongly going to follow. Anyone with life experiences will be ready to give advice. I like to stand by the rule to trust the expert, who is educated to advise the same school of thought that I am looking into. I don’t tackle emotional distress by doing this, but I stop myself from tearing myself apart just to make someone happy.
