Emotional Pain, the Unseen Hurt

Emotional pain is the unseen hurt because no one knows what goes on inside us. People can see our reaction to things, but they can’t see how it affects us. And because either we don’t want to hurt others, or because we don’t want them to know what is going on, we keep everything bottled up inside and suffer untold agony.

This is part one of a series of blog posts about emotional pain.

Why do our emotions get the best of us?

Emotions are feelings we get from our thoughts and experiences. Emotions are not good or bad, they’re just feelings. For instance, when you cry you can be either sad or happy. It depends on which emotion you’re feeling at the time.

Our emotions can be triggered without us realizing why sometimes. For instance, if you smell roses, it may remind you of happy times when you used to garden with your aunt when you were a child. Or you can find yourself suddenly sad if you smell the cologne your father used to wear, but he has now passed.

Why do I feel so beat up?

Our emotions sometimes get the best of us because they can be unpredictable and intense. Here are some reasons why you may feel emotionally beat up:

Personality Type

There are many causes of emotional distress. One reason is our personality types.

If you are naturally sensitive, you feel emotions more deeply than others do. And if you don’t have a good way to release those emotions, they build up inside you and start to take a toll on you. As emotions drain your energy, you begin to feel vulnerable and beat up.

Here are some personality types who are naturally more sensitive and why:

“Nervous Nelly”

The bad thing is that nervous nellies are more sensitive to stress, worry, and anxiety. Scenarios of “what if” keep playing in your mind.

But the good news is that you’re always prepared for the worst-case scenario. You’re the one who I want to pack my suitcase for me the next time I take a trip to a remote area. I’ll be sure to have everything I need and then some.

The downside of you being so prepared? You’re exhausted! Your mind is always preparing for “the next thing”.

“Compassionate Cameron”

The good thing about you is that you are so warm and compassionate that we all flock to you with our problems. The bad thing is that you take on our problems personally. You want to fix everything, even what’s not fixable. We go away feeling our burden lifted, but you go away feeling heavy-hearted.

Your “good side” is that when something good happens to someone you are genuinely happy for them. It’s like that good thing happened to you instead.

“Perfect Polly”

Perfect Polly wants everything to be right. And not just right, perfect.

The problem? You can’t turn off your need for everything to always be right. Because of this, you’re overly critical of yourself.

You become very nervous and fear that people will find a flaw with your work, or worse yet, with you. You beat yourself up doing, and re-doing until everything is completely flawless.

But the good side is that your colleagues trust you to review their work before they turn it in, knowing that you will catch any errors they may have.

“Delicate Delilah”

Delicate Delilah is highly sensitive to their surroundings including other people’s feelings. You want to make everyone happy, so you don’t have to deal with negative emotions. Trying to be pleasing to everyone is not only exhausting, but it’s also impossible. You feel beat up externally by anyone having a bad day. And you feel tortured internally by your thoughts of failure for not making everyone happy.

But your good side is that you are exactly who your colleagues go to when they need to be cheered up. They know that they can count on you to listen and make them feel appreciated.

Busy or Idle

Another reason you may feel beat up depends on how you fill your time. If you are constantly on the go, then it’s difficult for you to stop and process your emotions. You realize this and may be doing it purposefully to avoid dealing with things that upset you.

On the other hand, if you have too much time on your hands, then it’s easy to get into the trap of thinking too much about things that distress you. You wring your hands with worry and play the problem over and over in your mind. Unfortunately, each scenario you come up with is worse than the last.

Either way, if you don’t address what's bothering you, it will continue to beat you up.  And when you feel defeated it’s hard to move in a healthier direction.

Beliefs

Our parents and caregivers taught us certain beliefs growing up. We develop our own set of beliefs throughout our lives also.

It’s distressing to be in situations where our beliefs are belittled or not valued. After all, our beliefs are what make us who we are.

So, if our beliefs aren't valued then we feel that we have no value as well. Beyond beat up, you sometimes feel like giving up.

Our past experiences shape our future experiences.

When you have happy experiences, you look forward to having similar experiences in the future.

Like that time when you cleaned your neighbor’s yard up while he was in the hospital. He dreaded coming home to the amount of work that faced him. When his wife drove the car into their driveway, he was overcome with relief when he saw that all the weeds had been pulled and the yard was mowed. And when he found out that you had done all this while his wife was sitting with him in the hospital, he couldn’t thank you enough.

On the other hand, if you have a negative experience, you dread any situation that even resembles that experience. You become anxious, exhausted, and emotionally beat up.

Remember that time when you dropped your tray of food in the cafeteria? You felt like everyone was looking at you. You were so embarrassed that you found it difficult to even eat in public for quite a while after that.

But what you didn’t know was that the others were embarrassed for you and were glad that they weren’t the ones who had dropped their food.

Grief

Another reason you may feel beat up is due to grief.

Whatever caused your grief has traumatized you. And if you don’t address your loss, the grief you feel will continue to zap your energy and may even cause physical symptoms.

They say that time heals all wounds, but so does therapy in this case. And there are many places to get help.

If you have lost a loved one, you may want to find help in a support group.

When my mom died of breast cancer, I cried and suffered in silence for a very long time. I felt lonely and empty even though I had a loving and supportive husband. But I let time heal my wounds.

Or so I thought.

Years later my very dear friend was also taken away from me by breast cancer. Not only was I crushed by the loss of my friend, but I felt like I had just lost my mom all over again too. I realized that I had never healthily grieved for my mom.

A friend who had just lost her husband and I went to GriefShare® together and there we learned how to keep our loved ones in our hearts and minds, but to release our grief for them over time.

Responsibilities

You may be beating yourself up. I mean that.

You take on responsibilities because you want to help. Then you take on more responsibilities. But you wind up doing so much that you don’t have time for yourself.

And are all those responsibilities that you’ve taken on truly necessary?

Let’s find out.

Quit doing one thing. Did anyone notice you quit doing it? If so, is there someone else that can do it instead of you?

Or, if you find that that task truly is vital, then is there something else you can eliminate? 

Can you do something less often? For instance, grocery shopping. Instead of running to the store to pick up just a few things every other day, plan as many meals as you can for the week and then go to the store one time.

Recap

So, let’s recap why you feel so beat up and some causes of your emotional distress.

Personality type: the more sensitive you are, the more you tend to take on the burdens and emotions of others.

Busyness: you may be avoiding dealing with your emotions by staying too busy, or overly dwelling on your problems because you have too much time on your hands.

Beliefs: you may become distressed if you feel your beliefs are not being acknowledged.

Past experiences: you want to repeat happy experiences but avoid negative experiences you’ve had in the past.

Responsibilities: taking on too many responsibilities leaves no time for you.

How to move past emotional pain and into healing.

Now that you know why you feel so beat up, what can you do to feel better?

First, recognize that your feelings and emotions are real.

Second, endorphins are your friends. These are natural chemicals in the body that act as painkillers and mood boosters.

Here are some ways to increase endorphins:

Laugh. Yep, laugh. Watch a comedian or a comedy show. Hang out with that crazy uncle of yours that always makes you laugh.

Exercise. Choose what you like to do and go for it. Anything from running, to cycling, to yoga can increase endorphin release.

Music. Listen to your favorite music. Or, better yet, put on a peppy song and make up your own dance. You can enjoy music and exercise together that way.

Massage. Getting a massage releases endorphins and helps you to relax at the same time.

Acupuncture. Getting acupuncture is another way the body releases endorphins.

My favorite: Eat dark chocolate, not milk chocolate. Dark chocolate has compounds like theobromine and phenylethylamine that can stimulate an endorphin release in your body.

Third, talk with family and friends about your issues. But be careful. Choose one or two people to talk to at first. The more people who get involved the more confusing things get.

In the beginning, talk to just a couple of people. From there you can decide if you need to talk to more people or someone else completely.

Fourth, talk with a therapist when you need to. Don’t feel ashamed of needing to see a counselor. After all, that’s why they're there, to get you through what you can't get through on your own.

Conclusion

Emotional pain is the unseen hurt because no one knows what goes on inside us.

Emotions are feelings we get from our thoughts and experiences. Emotions are not good or bad, they’re just feelings.

Our emotions sometimes get the best of us because they can be unpredictable and intense.

There are many causes of emotional distress. One reason is our personality types.

Another reason you may feel beat up is due to grief.

You may be beating yourself up by taking on too many responsibilities.

What you can do to make yourself feel better includes recognizing that your feelings and emotions are real, laughing, talking to family and friends, and talking with a therapist if you need to.

Read back through this article. Do you see yourself in any of the things we talked about? How do the suggestions presented here help you heal from emotional pain?

Wishing you all the best,

Kelly

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Yes, I am a nurse. No, I am not your nurse. The medical topics discussed in this, or any article on this site, are intended to be issues for you to discuss with your medical team if you feel they apply to you. None of the information you are about to read in this article is treatment advice for you from me. I do not have that authority.