highfunctioning

Drowning in Your Own Defense Mechanism

"You're exhausted—not because your life is hard, but because you're running a 24/7 PR campaign to convince yourself that you're happy." Let's look at the mechanics of the mind. Freud called it repression. When you shove a painful thought, trauma, or grief into your unconscious, you are essentially trying to hold a giant, inflatable beach ball underwater. Does the ball go away? No. It stays right there. But now you have to use constant, draining energy to keep it submerged while standing there shaking, smiling, and telling everyone, "I'm fine." As a psychologist in training, I have to tell you the hard truth: You can't swim, you can't play, and you can't connect with anyone while you're holding that ball down. The exact energy it takes to pretend you aren't sad is the energy you need in order to heal. It is time to let the beach ball surface.