Something that has occurred to me recently working with a population, who suffers from depression and/or anxiety, is this idea that no one understands what I am going through. I hesitate to even write those words, looking at my own reasons for writing this blog, part of it is selfish and part of it is to bring awareness to the person in distress. So let’s dig into how to start knowing when we are being “seen”.
First, what does “being seen” even mean? Well, I understand it to mean when someone understands our story. They get it in some way, maybe not exactly, that would be impossible, however it is somewhere pretty close to understanding that we are in pain. This person can sit with us in our pain, they don’t leave, change the subject, or try to lighten the mood due to their discomfort, and they just sit there. This person listens, whole heartedly, and for the most part wants to understand so they can know how to help you better.
So, how to put in to words something that seems to be a felt sense. Something that doesn’t come naturally to a lot of us and something that takes years of practice. I’m imagining that for so many people there are a lot of definitions or meanings. Here is something that comes to mind; when we are experiencing this “being seen” or understood, our heart might start to race, our breath might become more shallow and we might want to disappear in some way. Possibly fight; flight, freeze, or fall asleep might start to happen for us. You know that whole thing we do to protect ourselves from feeling something scary, or when we are being chased by an animal in the jungle and we have to survive.
Obviously here I am not speaking to the latter, our amygdala starts to tell us we are experiencing a threat of some sort and before our brains can assess the situation we often times have a “go to experience” such as not listening anymore, yelling at the person, and so on. Although being understood is not a threat, if it is a new experience, we might not know how to process it, so our brain tells us we are in danger. The individual who feels anxious more than depressed might be prone to use the fight/flight method. In other words during a therapy session this person might start to change the subject, get mad, start to shake, or have the thought they want to leave. This is all perfectly fine and in fact I want to encourage you to become extremely aware of your process in this situation. I think building your awareness to any sensation in your body is where healing starts to happen. Through working with others I have found that this is where you can start to stay present while being seen and know what is happening. I don’t expect this to happen overnight nor do I expect you to be able to do this in one experience. Like I stated earlier, this can take years and even then it can be scary and hard to stay with someone understanding you and sticking with you. How I look at it is, if your “go to” is to run or become anxious, I want to allow you to be anxious, experience the anxiety while being in the office. I know it sounds horrible, however I think it can be a fantastic experience. To live at the end of sitting with anxiety is a great accomplishment and you can do it!
On the other side of this anxiety is depression. Depression can be the freeze/fall asleep side of wanting to disappear. After times of freezing our brains might start to stay away from feeling unwanted emotions because that can be dangerous to our well-being in some way. When new experiences, such as being seen, starts to happen our nervous system might start to “fall asleep” to protect us, as animals start to feel under attack by another animal you can see them “play dead”, this is what can start to be your “go to”.
So what does this look like for you in the therapy office? Well, you might start to feel tired, stop listening, or stop feeling anything. All of these things are perfectly fine, in fact, like I said before, I encourage you to pay more attention when you notice these things happening. I believe mindfulness can be a great source of healing and the more you are able to stay in the present moment with all of these sensations the easier it will be to connect with your therapist.
In turn you can start to experience something new, something conscious, and something healing. When you know and can take in that someone else cares for you, you can take care of yourself more, find out what your needs are to be met, and have a sense of overall well-being. Having a clear sense of being understood without criticism can be what transforms our wounds.
