Why You Shouldn't Judge Yourself For Not "Getting Over It"
This cannot be said enough: systemic oppression has a major impact on mental health, internal and external resources to cope, and self-esteem. It is hard to trust your instincts, appreciate yourself, and rest when there are policies attacking your existence, where the media negatively portrays you as something less than, and access to resources requires jumping over so many barriers.
I am emphasizing this because it is important to know that it is not your fault for feeling hurt or angry at the way you have been treated, both on a personal level and on a systemic level.
The Cycle of Getting Angry At Yourself For Having Feelings
It can be exhausting having the internal battle over whether or not you’re allowed to feel angry, sad, disappointed, hurt, or any of the uncomfortable feelings. In fact, you may have been judged for such feelings in the past by caregivers, friends, and people in the community. There is this idea that you should not, nor are you justified, in having these “bad” feelings spoken directly to your or indirectly. As a result, you often get mad at yourself for essentially having feelings. It can feel like this is the common question you judge yourself with:
Why can’t you get over it? You should be over it right now.
The Reason Why You’re Not “Over It”
It’s hard to work through and process experiences and wounds when there were never an opportunity to actually process to begin with. Think about it as if you have a broken bone in your body:
you break your bone
it hurts intensely because your body is letting you know that something is wrong
you go to the doctors or ER to have it set and put in a cast to heal
once it heals, it may still hurt, but it does not hurt as much or as intensely
There is more grace to allowing physical injuries to heal (but not always, but that’s a discussion about ableism for another time), but there does not seem to be as much compassion towards emotional wounds. The expectation for emotional wounds is: get hurt —> get over it. It is hard to get over something when the wound is still there and being ignored. That would be equivalent to breaking your bone and refusing to have it set in a cast while expecting it feel better. In fact, that would probably lead to the bone healing poorly which could result increased damages.
Give Yourself Permission to Be Upset, Even If It’s From a Million Years Ago
The only way to get “over it” is to let yourself work through the painful experiences and wounds, validate those experiences with compassion, and possibly connect with your support system to help you process old wounds.
I am not endorsing that you force yourself to sit with the pain, but let yourself be curious about the feelings that come up, tolerating the discomfort, and balancing it with self-care and self-soothing. It takes time to build up that unconditional self-compassion skill as well as to tolerate the discomfort of old wounds, so give yourself grace in doing this process imperfectly.
You’re allowed to have wounds. In fact, most of society actively creates them without even blinking an eye. You’re allowed to feel whatever feelings you have about it.
If you are in California and are wanting to work with me, you can learn more about individual therapy or group therapy by clicking on the links, or you can contact me for your free 15-minute consultation.