Leverage your support system

Are you one of those persons who likes to keep things to herself rather than sharing with someone? If yes, then please go through this post till the end.

Many a time, it happens that when we are in grief, we shut ourselves entirely from the world. We don’t share the bad news even with the closest of our friends and family. No, we don’t think that they can’t understand the pain, neither do we believe they can’t make us feel good about ourselves. But the real reason is that there’s no real reason. We don’t want to be with anyone at that point.

But should we do that? Well, yes and no. Sometimes it helps if the impact of the grief is not much and can be handled alone. But sometimes it’s not, especially when you are going through a bad phase in your life where nothing good seems to happen for a long time. To quote an incident from my life, I remember when I wasn’t able to get through CAT despite working hard. Little did I know that another terrible incident was lurking around the corner. My relationship came to an end within that week. To add to the pain, many of my friends at the office who had joined with me got promoted, but I didn’t. I was devastated. For a few weeks, I was not in my senses. I just used to go to the office, do the work half-heartedly and absent-mindedly, roam around the house like a zombie, and tried hard to sleep at night.

Sooner I decided to channelize the emotions, and I started running and going to dance classes. It surely helped. And then, when I was finally able to recollect my broken pieces, I told my best friend about this entire incident and how I was feeling. To my amazement, he just joked about the whole thing, and I laughed my heart out for the first time after so many weeks. Suddenly, I felt a lot better and thought, why didn’t I tell him about it earlier.

When we are in misery, we try to cave in, thinking that it’s bound to hurt for long because it was crucial for us. We think maybe everything will be fine as time passes. We fail to understand that during that grieving period, which sometimes can even last for months or years, we lose many essential things. We stop hanging out with friends; we get de-focused from work which hampers our career, we stop smiling and living our lives. We don’t understand at that moment is that all of us have a strong support system. It doesn’t matter if we are extroverts or introverts; we all have a few people in our lives who has answers to all our problems, and if not, they can at least understand and stand with us in pain, which eventually helps us to come out of it faster.

Also, few people can quickly come out of the grief, while it is challenging for a few. Some are stuck with insecurities for their entire life, which is dangerous.

If you feel hurt about something, meet up with your friend, share it with your brother, sister, cousins, or anyone you are close with. If you can’t go physically, then do a video call or text them. Try to share everything that you are feeling at that moment. Don’t be afraid even to cry. It’s okay. Talk to people with whom you can be vulnerable. It can be extremely helpful. It will indeed shrink your grief period had you faced it alone.

So the next time you come across something that itches your heart, before secluding yourself from the world, don’t forget to leverage your support system. Your happiness should always be your top priority :)