I have a few coping techniques that I’ve developed over the years—techniques that have served me well and that have helped me through difficult periods. By far and away the one that has served me best is ‘plugging on’— head down, one foot in front of the other, until I’m through. It’s kept me functioning through really stressful times.
It’s also meant putting a stopper on any feelings that try to surface. Pushing them down, and hoping they stay there …
It got me through my childhood. Standing stoic and firing back, pretending I wasn’t hurt. Fighting with my mother on the way to school, then slamming the car door and walking into the classroom with a smile on my face.
It worked. I got there. It had side effects—my worries surfaced in other ways, like when I was drinking …
Sometimes, it’s necessary to put your head down and get on with it. Marathon runners, even sprinters, ignore the pain, the fatigue, the injuries, and ‘just do it’—head down, bum up, relying on adrenaline or autopilot or whatever it is that gets them to the finish line.
The first day of the Cradle Mountain trek I had to do it—we all had to do it. Head down into the sleet to get to our destination. We couldn’t collapse or we wouldn’t have reached our campsite. So we held on …
This photo does not show the sleet or wind or the cold in which we were trekking …
And collapsed when we got there. I did anyway, and very loudly …
There have been other times when I’ve had to keep on keeping on. Exams as a medical student. With a toddler and a newborn when my husband sat his Fellowship exams. I just had to do it, or give up, and I don’t give up.
I did it, too, when my father was sick. I used to stand at his door, watching the grown, bearded man in a nappy, lying sideways on the bed, skinny legs dangling over the sides, writhing and twisting.
Mid-2011
At times, I wanted to turn around and not have to face it. Instead, I braced myself and stepped in because it was my Dad and I wasn’t about to abandon him. I put a smile on my face as I greeted him, and acted as if I hadn’t noticed how much he’d changed—I didn’t want him to know how upset I was.
I plugged on until we reached the finish line—Dad’s death—and I didn’t have to pretend any more. I could allow myself the luxury of feeling, and of crying.
It’s served me well, this ‘plugging on’, but right now, I’ve run out of steam, or strength, or resilience, or whatever it is that’s kept me going in the past. I want to collapse in a heap on the floor. Minor incidents are setting me off, penetrating the gap in the armour, triggering memories, and I’m crying, sometimes not even knowing why.
It’s all right, I’ve been told, to cry. I don’t have to soldier on. I don’t have to deny the sadness I’m feeling, or the grief, or the hurt—especially the hurt.
So I’m trying to let myself feel it as it comes, to acknowledge it, to accept it. To accept that my feelings are valid, that they’re not wrong. Nor are they a luxury. I am safe.
I’m hanging in there and getting by, hoping that by going with it and allowing the tears to flow, it will pass. But it’s hard to break the habits of a lifetime.
How I can identify. Somewhere along the way, I learned that showing feelings was a sign of weakness. I have yet to cry at my mother’s death. My voice cracked as I read a poem at her funeral but I did not cry. I think the tipping point for me will be the death of my horse that my mother bought for me 26 years ago.. My mare has Cushings they can treat it but there is no cure. So the clock is ticking…
As always your post rings true to me, and I’m guessing it will for many others. Thanks Louise.
I’m glad you related to this post, Penny. I’m still trying to sort it out in my own mind. I know I react abnormally stoically at times, when I all I want to do is collapse in a flood of tears. I know stoicism serves us well, too, but sometimes we should allow ourselves time out, in order to just feel …
I know how special your horses are to you, and to have had one for twenty-six years—half your lifetime. It will be very hard when she is no longer around.
Thanks again for your kind words, and for your emails yesterday. xx
Thank you for another wonderful post, Louise, the selfies of your Father and you are beautiful. I think if you’re a stoic person, a strong person such as yourself, I think it’d be very difficult to take off that “hat” and become someone who depends on others, someone who satisfies their own needs before others—especially when you have children! And thank God for that otherwise your family might have come to grief on Cradle Mountain, and maybe, just maybe you wouldn’t be a writer, the one true place where you can express your emotions. xx
You are right, Marlish. There are lots of reasons why we are ‘stoic’. As a friend reminded me last night, we have to be when our survival, or that of our family, depends on it, such as on Cradle Mountain. We’re the one being relied upon, so we must be stoic.
To be honest, I don’t know that I should have published this post yet—it’s still a work in progress as I sort myself out.
Lots of love!
Thanks. And to you 🙂
Please be kind to yourself Louise, you are surrounded by well wishes and hugs xxxx
Thanks, Rae, and hugs right back to you. xx
Hi Louise – as a fellow personal and professional stoic, I have learned, albeit dismayingly slowly, not to keep going until I fall over. Maybe I’m still learning that one – it’s always a work in progress! I know it has been a challenge at times to stop stoicism calcifying into hard-edged-ness, and I know (as I expect you do too) plenty who haven’t managed to keep the balance of ‘getting on’ and being able to be informed by their feeling self. When we lose our feeling selves we’re a sorry and dangerous bunch. I try to remember the rock and the river – and which endures. Keep flowing!
Karen, you’ve summed it up perfectly. There are times when we do need to be stoic and plug on, like when our survival is at stake. The difficulty comes when you’ve grown up constantly feeling threatened, constantly feeling your survival is at stake—it’s hard to let down your guard. The minute you disagree with someone, you expect a battle and go in with guns blazing. That’s what people see, but really, there’s fragility and fear underlying it.
I grew up in a very unsafe environment—conflict, anger, our feelings invalidated and dismissed. We had no right to feel hurt when we were punished—we were the bad ones, we deserved it. I determined not to let it stop me from getting to where I wanted to go, and to do that, I had to be stoic.
The thing is, most of the time these days I am in a safe place—no one is trying to harm me. I usually run a mile from anyone who I perceive as threatening me or my children, but I can’t always do that. Sometimes, we’re forced to deal with these people and that’s hard. That’s when the guns start blazing …
I wrote this post before I realised all of the above—that’s why I love writing, and why some of these blog posts are a work-in-progress.
Thanks again for your insightful comments.
Hearing you…
Sending gratitude and warmth xx