A patient came to session and insisted that he had an anger problem. I consider myself to be a practical counselor first and foremost, so at first I was puzzled.
“You’re not violent, you don’t break things, you don’t curse, and the people around you often can’t even tell that you’re upset. Where’s this anger problem?”
He replied, “The problem is how I feel.”
As he put it, although he looked calm and unflappable, inside he felt distraught, unheard, and as if his thoughts and feelings didn’t matter.
That was useful information, as it gave us something to work with.
I think about our PLACE members, the parents and grandparents moving forward with their lives while trying to cope with estrangement from their children.
Let’s not kid ourselves: To go through something as challenging as this and not be upset wouldn’t make much sense. As a counselor, I’d be concerned if someone showed up to a session and reported that they had no emotional response to estrangement.
Your suffering is as much a part of your human experience as your happiness. And just like happiness, suffering comes and goes. As George Harrison put it, “All things must pass.”
If this is the point at which you expect a panacea, some cure-all for that internal strife we in the PLACE community know so well, I don’t have it.
One thing I can be certain of is this: You got through it last time. You’ll get through it today. Some people choose to look at such emotions like surfing, and in the worst of it, know that their job simply becomes to ride it out. At some point, the wave goes on, and you remain.
If, like the patient, you feel distraught, unheard, and as if your thoughts and feelings don’t matter, know that you are welcome with us in our PLACE community.
