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The only sound I was hearing in the room was my hanging wall clock. The eerie quietness in my brain depicting that my mind was shut down and not giving me the clue to find out the reason behind that emotional disconnection. I was trying harder to contemplate a blog topic, but my frontal lobe hindering the process of thinking due to unknown reasons. Recently, I have lost my father and going through a bereavement period but I did not shed light on that part rather just focusing on the silence in me. We do not give importance to mental health since we feel ashamed of consulting a psychologist. Why?
Because being a psychologist my society thinks I cannot visit a mental health counselor as I can unravel my tangled mental reel by myself. People in our society have stigmatized mental health and hardly accept psychological problems and they label them the words “insane”, “dramatic”, “lunatic” and so on. This stigmatization makes mental health problems worse and creates a hindrance from getting professional help. It is highly significant to disseminate the awareness of mental health among people who are ignorant of this important element.
When there is a flood of emotions you experience after you lose your loved one then all of a sudden you feel you are emotionally numb and cannot feel anything and that is a killing silence in you. I will coin the term for this feeling as “silent dark” in the mind where you stop feeling anything and unable to understand the awkward tranquility in you. People hardly talk about grief and do not process the emotions and they block themselves to save themselves from the hurt they can experience if they process that grief. It becomes crucial to dig deep when you feel you are unable to hear yourself.
How can you pull yourself out of this silence?
The majority of people in our society are unaware of grief and its stages that how one can go through those five stages where you jump on a first phase i.e. Denial (where you do not want to accept the reality), then you go through Anger (where you blame the person that he/she did not take care of oneself), after this stage you enter the phase which is known as bargaining (where you think if I would have done this so he/she wouldn’t be gone) then comes the phase which you must be aware of already i.e. Depression ( where you feel emptiness and thinks everything is worthless) eventually, you reach to the level of Acceptance (where you accept the fact that the person will remain in your memory). All the stages can be overlapping with each other since it’s not necessary that you go through all the phases one by one.
HELP YOURSELF
- Peek Into Yourself: Dig down deep that what exact emotions are you going through? If you are down and want to cry then it’s good to roll down the tears.
- Make Yourself a Priority: Do not overlook your mental well-being during this toughest phase. Try to follow a healthy diet plan and talk about your emotions with those who are professionals rather than talking to those who make you feel down.
- Process the Feelings: Accept the fact that you are in grief and allow yourself to mourn and seek help from a social support system. Do not shy and hide your true feelings.
- Seek Professional Help: Do not hesitate to talk to a mental health counselor or a grief counselor if you think your grief is lasting longer and impairing your daily routine work. If you will not learn to manage your grief so it can lead to depression which itself is dangerous in the long run.
I will conclude it by laying down the last thing that tries not to overlook your emotional numbness or if you think you are silent from inside. Do not leave yourself in the flow of time as it is important to save yourself from the darkness which comes in us due to the suppression of emotions. Break the grief silence in you!
SCREAM !!!!!
By Hina Fatima