Holding Back the Pain

Sometimes, no matter how hard we try to ignore it or press it down further, the sludge erupts with the force of a geyser.  There it is, bubbling up like a dark brown fountain.  It's ugly and unexpected, but strangely a sight of relief.

I am talking about times when deep pain and hurt finally press it's way upward to be exposed.  Maybe we didn't know how to process it when whatever happened that caused the emotional ball of pent up sadness, fear and anger.  Maybe we kept avoiding it.  Maybe we were intensely aware of it, but kept pressing it down trying to keep others from seeing what we are doing.

When it does burst out into the light, it seems it can be embarrassing.  Yes, we often believe it will be embarrassing to admit that we didn't handle things very well in the past, that we are human, that something mucked up the plumbing for so long, and we tried to hide it.  We are embarrassed that we couldn't handle it.  What should we be embarrassed about, though?  I think satan appeals to our sense of pride so that we won't heal sooner, and so that we will try to continue to swallow something that was never meant to stay inside of us.

This reminds me of a funny yet pretty disgusting story.  When I was in college, my best friend and I decided to visit Chicago.  We took my old car on our little adventure halfway across the country. 

On our way back, I started feeling awful.  Later, we realized we had caught a nasty bug from the family we stayed with.  By the time we had crossed Ohio back towards Virginia, I was sweating profusely, but I had to keep driving since my friend was from out of the country and had never gotten a license.  We had to stop continuously so I could vomit on the side of the road if there were no bathrooms close by. 

My friend, on the other hand, seemed perfectly fine.  She even got chili cheese fries and an orange from Sheetz on one of my mandatory stops as we got closer to the place we were staying for the night.  I seethed at her in disbelief as she peeled that orange.  My need to hurl grew with every peeling that came off.

I just kept driving, though.  I had to find a bed.  I had to lay down.  About thirty minutes before we arrived, she said she felt nauseous.  By this time, I still felt nauseous but most of my bodily fluids had left one way or another.  We got to the home we were staying at and crashed.  I finally fell asleep.  A few hours later, I woke up to my friend asking me to help her in a voice of dire desperation.  I didn't know what to do...I was starting to gag hearing her starting to gag.  She ended up painting a nice white carpet the color of chili cheese fries while I ran into the kitchen to dispel the remains of my stomach which was mostly water.

For hours, my friend had been holding in what all came out at once.  She thought it would go away.  It certainly didn't.  It kept coming back stronger and stronger until finally, she couldn't control it any longer.  If we swallow the hurt, it's going to grow and make a mess of things, but if we learn to recognize when it is there and dispel it in the right places to the right people, it can't grow into a monster that will embarrass us when it unexpectedly comes out.  I learned from that trip the importance of just letting it out!