Over-explaining yourself is often a sign that you don’t yet believe you have the right to your own limits. — Unknown
I’ve been in so many situations where I’ve felt that I had to explain myself, whether I felt compelled to or whether I was made to, I’ve found myself defending my decisions. It has been an automatic response and I always thought it was because, growing up, I was being taught accountability. Because when asked, I (was made to believe) had to be able to explain myself, I had to be able to articulate my answers to why questions. I’ve always joked that I had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and I know inside me there’s this little girl still deathly afraid of disappointing people.
As I’ve been going through this healing journey, I’m starting to learn that apart from the fight or flight response that humans have, trauma survivors have a freeze or fawn response. The trauma is something else to unpack entirely and I’m not laying blame on anyone. I know I need to deal with it eventually. But I don’t think that day is today. I do understand and recognise that I fawn more than I freeze. I think I understood early on in my life that I needed to be hyper-compliant and that I had to learn to how to quickly soothe and please other people to diffuse potentially volatile situations, avoid conflicts and be safe. Part of this was me explaining my decisions, justifying my actions and answering the why questions to appeal to reason. I somehow believed that it was my responsibility to do that.
Sometimes you don’t necessarily owe anyone else an explanation because it doesn’t matter if you have a perfectly good reason for your decisions. And, sometimes you don’t have to say anything more than no. No is sometimes the only thing you have to say because it’s a complete sentence. You don’t have to explain why your boundary is where it is. They won’t necessarily explain themselves to you. So let them set that boundary, and you can also act accordingly.
Some days carry grief quietly. Tonight, let it speak, then let it rest. — Unknown
I’ve put off dealing with a lot of things – the inevitable grief that comes from losing both parents whom I love very dearly in a span of 4 years, the end of relationships that I thought would stand the test of time and personal growth, accepting burnout, and the need to step back from toxic environments. But my body and my mind had other plans. They both demanded that I stop and step back.
The Universe also conspired to give me the time to actually start dealing with everything. Things fell into place, and I had the time and space. Also, it was deal with things or basically unravel. I was deathly afraid of unravelling in public, and there were times when it was touch and go. I had to deal with what was going on in my head, my heart, my body, and my soul, or else I really would lose it in a way that I would find it hard to recover from.
One of the things I had to sit down and deal with was the unexpressed grief I’d been carrying with me for so long. It was eating away at me. I needed to sit down, open that box, and look inside.
Grief is never linear, and the process is not straightforward. There are peaks and troughs in the rhythms of grief. There are days when it hums quietly, almost unnoticeable in the background. There are days when it feels like it’s a loud, thundering wildebeest stampede, coming to trample you. Everyone’s experience of grief is different because we move through life differently. We weave through the stages of grief according to our own capacity and capability. And however we do that is okay. It is our individual journey.
Sometimes it will feel like you’re moving back and forth — rebuilding might mean you’re moving in reverse, like you’re facing an identity crisis before you reach a point of understanding. Sometimes you need a wave to crash over you and completely destabilise you so that you can reach a point where you’re stabilised and grounded, because you have a deeper understanding of yourself and what you’re going through.
It’s okay to wail and rail and to let out your grief. That’s part of it. Let it out. Let it shout. Express it. Then let yourself rest and recover.
Yellywelly 