Emotionally Stuck | No Way Out

I have been in this situation for a long time in my life, and the most recent one was last week. What was the situation? Emotionally and mentally, so stuck in an episode that coming out was absolutely impossible. I haven’t been able to shake it off, but I think I got a breakthrough recently. I will share the breakthrough and what happened, but before that, what was this situation like?

Let me give you a recent example – I wanted something to happen, which did not, I was obviously upset and didn’t want to speak about it. It got worse when I wanted to shake it off and move on, but the ego (I don’t think it was ego. We will come to that in this article) wouldn’t let me, and then I was angry that I wanted to move forward, but moving forward would somehow jeopardize my position of power (in truth it wasn’t a position of power rather of weakness. We will cover this too), so moving forward was not an option. So, I couldn’t move forward, I couldn’t be happy where I was, I couldn’t go to a position of happiness, nor could I do anything to improve the situation. It was a literal quicksand. The only outcome was my sinking.

This has happened before, too. I remember as a kid, I had this problem with my mom. I asked something of mom, but mom didn’t give, so I got angry with mom and did not want to speak. Mom tried speaking, but I wanted to show anger (also, this was a way to seek mom’s attention), hence I wouldn’t speak. Mom kept trying, but I wouldn’t budge. After some time, mom got busy with her work, and now I wanted to talk, but I couldn’t lose by talking to her because for me to win, mom had to come to talk to me and not the other way round. I was keen to talk to Mom, but Mom wouldn’t notice since she was busy with her chores. So, I wanted to talk, and at the same time, I couldn’t talk. And now I grew angry that I was stuck. I hated the situation and wanted to vent out, but I couldn’t. Why? Whom could I vent out on? Mom? Can’t talk to her, right? Now the anger was building up and reaching volcanic proportions, and finally, when mom came to talk, I vented out on her, and that was me being one of the worst, ill-behaved child ever!

Notice the problem? My mom, with whom I so wanted to talk, was the one on whom I vented my frustration. I completely destroyed the situation and my mom’s feelings. This is how bad it could be to be stuck. No way out leads to the build-up of negative emotions, and then it is released in one stroke on the person who tries to help, and more often than not, this person that we vent out on is the person we love, mom, wife, husband, son, daughter, or even a friend. They don’t deserve it.

This is why it is a horrible situation to be in. And I think yesterday I dealt with it.

Let’s see what I did.

Hurting Our Loved Ones’ Feelings | It Had to Stop

The childhood example I gave was, though horrible, I am certain, my mom was mature enough to handle it and then comfort me. That’s what she did. Every single time. But the problem never got corrected. It stayed on. Imagine the nightmare when, as a grown-up man, I am in the same situation and the people at the receiving end are my wife and daughter? Imagine going ballistic on them while they have no way to comfort me. Can you imagine the hurt they would go through? I am the one responsible for their safety and protection, right? And I become the perpetrator of attacks on them. What kind of protector am I?

The only good thing in these situations is that I go completely silent. Make no mistake, silent treatment is also torture on our loved ones. But at least I didn’t say things that I would regret. I had to get out of these quicksand moods and find ways to be on top of things.

I did find a way. It took a lot of introspection, but I seemed to have tackled it well. It has been just one day since I handled it, but I can see that I am no longer feeling fear of getting stuck in a mood. I think that is a great win for me.

Let me share the details of my introspection points and what faulty ideas were handled subsequently.

Path to Recovery | Handling Faulty Ideas | Childish Expectations | And To Grow Up!

I have shared in a few of my earlier articles that I had gone through depression, and now I am in the recovery phase. This problem of getting stuck is also one of the traits of depressed people. I don’t know which comes first – being depressed and being stuck in emotions, or being stuck in emotions leading to depression. But solving one thread will allow you to handle the other – be it depression or be it stuck in emotions.

So, here’s how my experience went. I will speak about the corrections after that.

1. The first and foremost point was that I found myself in the familiar spot of being unhappy with a situation. In this case, the instigator of the situation was my wife (without her knowledge. She did not intend this to happen), and the recipient of the unhappy feelings was me. In short, I did not get my way.
2. Then started the obvious anger build-up within. I wanted to stay away from her. [Flashback: This is how I behaved with my mother, too. This means I was thinking of myself as a child. But the reality is – I am neither a child nor my wife is my mother.]
3. Now, my wife got busy with her work and left sometime later, and I maintained a distance from her. I think she already knew that I had got into an episode. (She is the only one in the family who knows about my depression. So, such occurrences are episodes where I have asked her to stay away from me, lest she gets emotionally hurt.)
4. But the child in me could not accept her going away. I was ballistic and volcanic with anger. I shut down. I wasn’t talking to anyone.
5. In the evening, we meet, and I am horribly deep in the abyss of anger. I didn’t want to speak since I was angry.
6. She tried her best to speak, but I wouldn’t budge. At this point, she knew she had to maintain her distance.
7. The next day, I wanted to talk, but my ego wouldn’t allow me to. I didn’t want to be the first person to speak. She had to. But that problem was that she wouldn’t, since those were my instructions to her. So, now I am emotionally stuck and incredibly internally violent.
8. Now, I do the best that I can and avoid her. My daughter notices that I have shut down. She is sixteen and is incredibly smart to know that there’s something wrong with me. Remember, she doesn’t know I was in depression or being counseled out of it.
9. I am stuck now – I want to talk, but cannot talk out of ego and anger. My wife can’t talk because she has been asked not to (by me), and now I can’t come back to normalcy.
10. The only solution is if my wife ignores my instructions and comes and talks to me. That too is unlikely.
11. There is no way for me to relieve this stress and incredible frustration that I am in.
12. Notice whom I will turn against at the first chance of venting out my anger – my wife and, in many ways, my daughter.
13. See the futility of the situation and how I am impacting my loved ones?

This is what led me to handle this situation once and for all. I was in a situation that was debilitating for me, but even more so, impacting my loved ones negatively.

Here’s how the introspection went.

1. I could see very clearly that I was stuck. I couldn’t shake off the feeling.
2. I asked why can’t I shake off the feeling? (Asking why leads to an answer or direction of answer)
3. In my case, I realized I couldn’t shake it off because I never could do it before. Before meant that my mind was recollecting from earlier episodes. That’s when I understood it was a childhood thing. And later, I could recollect my experiences with my mom.
4. In short, I was behaving like a kid and hoping my mom would take me out of my feelings.
5. Then the question was, why can’t I shake it off on my own? Why do I need anybody else?
6. Here’s something interesting that came out. The only way for me to shake it off was to go and talk. If I go and talk, then I am conceding defeat. This is again a childish thought. Deep down, I wanted Mom to help me out. Mom wasn’t around anymore. So, no respite.
7. But there’s more. The conceding defeat part could also be ego. I suspect ego is just a front end that the ungodly use to conceal their agenda of preventing us from making peace. I have grown to believe one thing – If God is true, then the ungodly is true also. Don’t take that lightly.
8. The other aspect I wanted to check was the generational hand-down. Why did I want to check? Because I was a kid and did not want to concede? Where would I have got that idea from? It had to be something I either learned (parents and/or elders) or was just passed on to me through my genes.
9. I did feel there was a generational trauma aspect to it, and hence I had to deal with it likewise.

So, that’s the sum total of my introspection. And here were the action points.

Deal with:

1. Childish idea about myself while dealing with situations
2. Ego of not conceding a.k.a. ungodly asking me not to concede, hence growing extremely volcanic inside
3. More importantly, I had to protect my daughter and wife from these meltdowns (even if it was silent) and therefore, be in control of my emotions
4. Generational trauma of being stuck without a chance to come out of it

So, what did I do next to deal with these identified areas?

God | Ho’oponopono | And Relieving the Pressure of Being Stuck

While getting on the resolution journey, I realized one more thing. I had mentioned that venting out my emotions happened with my mom and later on with my wife, but here’s the thing, the buildup of emotions need not be because of them. I mean, I could have a problem at work because of which I am irritated, I keep it bottled up, and then vent it out on my family. See how unfair that is? They are recipients of my negative emotions for something they did not do at all.

Anyway, I got on to resolving this one too. First and foremost was the realization that I am being childish in hoping for people to come around and make amends with me. That I let go. I took responsibility for being the mature person that I am and made it a point to be responsible for my own feelings.

Second, I had to deal with the ego, which made me feel powerless in stepping down to talk to the other person. Here is where I dealt with the ungodly voices that kept asking me not to concede, whereas conceding was the true victory. There was another realization while dealing with these ungodly voices. The release of myself to be available to talk to the other person was like draining pus from an abscess. The release was physically felt, and comfort followed. With that release, I felt an automatic elevation in my feelings. I was feeling good. I could be like this forever. This is my true state – elevated naturally. This is what the ungodly voice did not want me to realize.

The third part was checking the generational hand-down in this area. I did find this idea of ego (leaning towards MCP) was indeed a trait in some of my earlier generation, and I am glad that I could get it off.

Lastly, I got a session done to reinforce that my wife and daughter were my responsibility and not my punching bag. They would be protected at all costs, and I would be responsible for their happiness. This was empowering too. I don’t know in what way, but it felt good. Also, note that I have always felt responsible for them, but with this clearing (of muck) in my mind, it felt even stronger.

In all of the above four cases, I used Ho’oponopono. I have tweaked Ho’oponopono to sound like a prayer to the Lord God Almighty, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. It works really well for me.

That’s The Story So Far | I Hope It Helps

The situation I had been in for so long made me feel that it wasn’t possible to come out of what I was facing. Now that the problem is dealt with, I am feeling so relieved. It makes me wonder if depression is all about an ungodly war waged on humans, and we succumb because we do not take the help of the Lord God?

Either way, depression can be dealt with. I am dealing with it, and so can you. All the best! All my prayers for you!

Image Courtesy: AI Generated Image by AdonisMedina at Pixabay(dot)com