Angry? Sad? Go on, and BITCH about it!
We can go through our whole life, never recognizing the intrinsic value of bitching and moaning. How many times when you’ve asked a friend or stranger how they are, have you heard ‘em say, “I don’t wanna complain, ‘cause what good will it do?!”
Well folks, the truth is, it does humans a LOT of good to verbally unload their emotional burdens to another, or ‘psychotherapy’ couldn’t have become such a popular pastime. Sorry, but by now you might be acquainted with my views on traditional therapeutic interventions and how insight-based work rarely heals the HEART that’s been wounded since infancy and early childhood… but I’ve digressed.
Our ability to commiserate with each other over our shared pain, anger, frustrations or fears can feel extraordinarily validating, and function as a mood lifter! Maybe this is the actual meaning behind that old saying, “misery loves company” ~alas, could this archaic phrase carry a positive connotation??
We might at times, even giggle together during our bitching sessions, because the rational part of us knows how absurd it is to freak ourselves out whenever we feel a twinge of pain in our aging body, and we instantly assign the most terrifying, worst possible medical diagnosis to that short-lived sensation. (Plenty of people with Anxiety Disorder traits are hypochondriacal. This is resolved, with the right kind of help.)
Feeling like one or two people in our life we care for and connect with intimately are precisely on the same page with us, is more emotionally nourishing than what most of us ever got to experience growing up with our (largely clueless) parental units. And might this fact help us understand why there are so many lonely, depressed, fat kids on our planet, who’ve found respite from their lifelong emotional agony with food, frenetic gym workouts, booze, drugs, sex, etc?
If we experienced isolation, loneliness and no sense of ‘belonging’ when we were little, we never seem to outgrow our disdain for relying or depending on anyone else besides ourselves, to meet our needs (fertile ground for the formation of pathological Codependency, and the narcissistic features that accompany it). In truth, isolation feeds isolation. It turns into a vicious cycle of self-exile from society at large~ because how many can truly identify with and relate to us and our inner demons? And aren’t we understandably slow to trust anyone who seemingly CAN?
Growing up, weren’t your closest friends those kids who had very similar home lives as yours? Didn’t you grow closer to these other children by mutually sharing and commiserating about your alcoholic dad, or half-crazy, volatile mom? Didn’t it feel comforting to realize this shit at home wasn’t just happening to YOU? Of course it did~ and it very likely saved you from becoming another childhood suicide statistic, ‘cause you didn’t have to be all alone in your misery!
Perhaps you and your little buddy even found ways to mock your parents, and laugh together about the awful stuff that happened almost daily in your homes. Comedians for the most part, have had tortured and tragic childhoods. Their capacity to glean the absurdity and humor in their existence and joke about it, is what saved them. (I was one of those funny kids.)
Today’s social media platforms (with the exception of a few misdirected agencies) give us the opportunity to vent our frustrations, fears, rage, and (often sardonic) humor. Thank God there are free-speech venues still remaining in our online world, where we are not yet totally censored and threatened with governmental overreach and extinction, for stating our opinions and perspectives!
Those who agree with us, follow and repost our rantings. We get to feel a sense of belonging and community within these venues, or we’d probably crawl under a rock and isolate for weeks or months at a time, before it felt emotionally ‘safe’ enough to re-emerge and connect with other like-minded humans.
Friends, and even business associates who share our views and values are like GOLD to us right now! Two gloomy, disheartened individuals can connect in person or by phone, bitch, moan and commiserate about their health or aging issues and even politics, and something truly magical may erupt. Within a short time, that conversation ends with both parties feeling lighter (even uplifted), because they closely relate to exactly what each other is feeling and having to deal with! In short, we end up feeling less alone, and impotent to change our situation.
This is called EMPATHY, my friends. It’s an essential ingredient that humans need in life if we are to survive, and ever hope to thrive. When ya can’t receive genuine empathy from someone you’re close to, the world starts feeling like a lonely, hostile place~ much like many of us experienced as little kids, when our mom and dad didn’t ‘get’ us, no matter how hard we tried to explain to ‘em the struggle that was going on inside us.
You know where I’m going with this, don’t ya? When you’re involved with a Borderline who’s incapable of identifying with and relating to your perspectives, feelings and struggles, and they won’t retain what you’ve verbally repeated to ‘em from one day to the next, you’re smack dab in the middle of your Loneliness Zone, like you were as a little kid! And folks~ the very worst kind of ‘lonely’ is that which ya feel with a significant other~ or when you’re surrounded by people you’ve considered “friends,” who now vibrate at a whole different frequency than You.
Bottom line, if you have someone in your life with whom you can share your difficult feelings and experiences, and they commiserate with you and you with them, you’re WAY better off for it~ so go ahead and bitch! Shed some tears, if ya can! It’s healthy and good for ya! You DO have the right to complain. It DOES make a difference. It absolutely CAN bring relief~ and as long as you’re both willing, have yourselves a Bitch-Fest!
Ain’t that just bitchin?