Go Ahead and Complain
Whenever I think about my story, about all the symptoms I have carried with me for years and decades, and especially now that I am beginning to write about them and openly share my experiences with others, I feel guilty. It's interesting how I dismiss my own thoughts and feelings as complaining or whining.
The word "complaining", and especially "whining", has such a negative and dismissive meaning. But I want to see it differently. I believe it is important, and that I have every right to acknowledge and lament what I have been through. All the symptoms, the psychological and physical problems I have struggled with for decades. Decades during which my life was shaped by an almost constant mental and physical battle.
What I find particularly interesting is that this feeling of grief, this compassion for my inner child, for the young woman I once was and for the adult woman who had to endure so much, is still accompanied by shame. A shame I no longer want to carry.
I don't want to feel ashamed of it. Not today, and not for what happened twenty years ago.
It was okay that I was weak back then. That I couldn't go on. That sometimes I stayed in bed until midday and barely had the strength to walk to the fridge to get myself something to eat. That I was signed off sick from work for months and spent my days lying at home. That the only thing I could just about manage was taking care of my children when they came home from nursery or school. And that in the evenings, I was simply relieved when they were back in bed so I could lie down again myself. Because I was so incredibly exhausted. So depressed that every single day had become a real ordeal.
During those times, I also neglected my social contacts. Sometimes even a brief conversation with someone on the street was such an enormous challenge that I simply couldn't manage it. I'm sure some people thought I was unfriendly because of it. The truth was that I simply had no energy left.
Even when I told others about my health problems, I often felt ashamed. Back then, I knew nothing about the connections between my many symptoms. I could only talk about the individual problems that were troubling me at the time. And even then, I often felt the need to justify myself. What right did I have to complain about a cold that had lasted four weeks and still wouldn't go away despite two courses of antibiotics? I was simply more prone to illness than other people. More susceptible. That was just how things were.
Sometimes I even apologised to people when I talked about how I was feeling. I often began a sentence with the words: "I don't want to complain, but I'm really not doing well." I even heard myself saying those words again and again when sitting with my psychologist or psychiatrist.
As though I first had to apologise for not feeling well. As though I had to explain why I had any right to talk about my suffering at all.
Who decides when suffering is worth complaining about?
Today, I believe it's perfectly okay to complain sometimes. Everyone experiences pain, anxiety and depression at their own intensity. For each person, getting through what they are experiencing is an individual challenge. It isn't about comparing yourself with others. The fact that someone else may be in greater pain, have a more difficult story or face bigger problems doesn't make your own suffering any less real.
Suffering doesn't have to be compared with someone else's to be valid.
When I look back at my life today, I sometimes think that other people might even say to me: "Yes, it's okay to complain. You're allowed to cry."
But why is it so difficult for me to allow myself exactly that?
I'm someone who always wants to pick herself up again. I want to be strong, keep going and set a good example for my children. But children are also allowed to see that their mother sometimes can't cope. That she is sad, that she suffers or even complains sometimes. That there are periods when things take longer or simply don't get done.
It's important for children to see that we don't always have to be strong. That weakness is nothing to be ashamed of and that we don't have to manage everything every single day to still be a good mother.
Today, when I write my texts and list all the symptoms, illnesses and psychological problems that have accompanied me for so many years, I am only just beginning to realise how much there actually was. Back then, I looked at everything separately. An illness here, an anxiety problem there, a depressive episode, another physical complaint. I noticed the individual symptoms without understanding how they were connected.
Only now, when I look at everything as a whole, do I realise how long I fought, how much energy this life cost me and how often I still tried to appear as though everything was fine.
And yes, when I think about all of that, I believe I am perfectly justified in complaining about it sometimes. In feeling sad or even angry because so many things could have been different.
Of course, not everyone has to listen to my entire story of suffering. If it's too much for someone, that's okay too. After all, we never know what experiences another person has had, what memories our stories might trigger or how that person is feeling themselves. The way someone appears on the outside is often very different from what is actually going on inside.
So this isn't about expecting everyone to listen to my story or understand my suffering. It's about no longer wanting to feel ashamed or apologise when I talk about how I'm doing.
I was taught not to complain
In my family, I often heard things like: "Oh, stop complaining." "Don't make such a fuss." "There's nothing wrong with you."
Words that taught me that my feelings were exaggerated, that my problems weren't serious enough and that I should pull myself together instead of talking about them.
Eventually, I adopted those words myself. I no longer needed anyone else to tell me not to complain. I was already doing that to myself. I criticised myself, played down my symptoms and felt ashamed whenever I couldn't cope.
I don't want to do that anymore. Because painful experiences, difficult memories and uncomfortable feelings deserve just as much acknowledgement as the good things in life. We're allowed to be happy when things are going well, proud when we've achieved something and excited enough to talk about it. But we're also allowed to be sad, desperate, exhausted and overwhelmed. And we're allowed to talk about those feelings without first having to explain that we don't actually want to complain.
Sometimes complaining is simply compassion
What I have called complaining for so long is also an attempt to finally acknowledge just how difficult some periods of my life really were. It is the compassion I so desperately needed back then and that I now want to offer myself.
When I think about the young woman who lay awake at night, full of fear, who barely had the strength to get up during the day and who still kept trying to somehow carry on with her life, I no longer want to judge her for being weak. I don't want to tell her to pull herself together or explain that other people have it much worse.
I simply want to acknowledge that it was damn hard. That she had every reason to feel sad and desperate. And that she has nothing to be ashamed of in any of those moments.
That is where another part of my healing begins. Not in constantly playing down my story or trying to sound strong when I talk about it, but in finally acknowledging what those experiences did to me.
I don't have to minimise my past suffering just because I have now learned to understand so much of it better. And I don't have to end every difficult memory with a positive thought. Some things were simply terrible. Some years were incredibly hard. And some things still hurt today.
I don't know whether there will come a time when I no longer feel the need to talk about it so much. But until then, I want to allow myself to feel sad about what I experienced and about everything I missed out on because of it.
Because the little girl I once was, the young woman and the mother I later became have heard often enough that they shouldn't complain.
Today, I want to tell them something different:
Go ahead and complain. You've spent long enough trying to be strong. Now the things that hurt you deserve to have their place, too.