In recent years, awareness of mental health has been growing. It’s been badly needed. Finally, people are getting help. This couldn’t be more crucial than with pandemic trauma — especially for the youth of the world.
The impact of pandemic trauma cannot be overstated. Once, I helped a woman overcome anxiety during a job search. We traced it to trauma she’d had as a 5-year-old growing up in 1980s New York City when the AIDS epidemic broke out. She developed a pattern of fear, anxiety, and helplessness that repeated throughout her life whenever she was faced with matters of “survival” — such as searching for a job.
No matter what your source of stress and trauma, everyone can benefit from relieving even mild symptoms of depression or anxiety. That’s because it’s common for emotional pain to be buried and hidden in the unconscious. (Psychology Today) Until it’s uncovered, symptoms will persist, wearing on your emotional well-being — and your health — and inhibiting you from living your best life without you knowing it.
Watch this explainer video
With Los Angeles as the movie capital of the world, an award-winning movie can illustrate how this happens. Spoiler alert!
The movie is Ordinary People. Released in 1980 and directed by Robert Redford, the story is based on Judith Guest’s novel of the same name. Teenager Conrad (Timothy Hutton) returns home from a stay at a psychiatric hospital. He’s attempted suicide after surviving a boating accident in which his older brother did not survive.
Conrad is suffering from depression and anxiety. He has insomnia and has lost his appetite. He’s quit the school’s swim team. Prompted by a caring father (Donald Sutherland), he begins therapy with Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch). Conrad is hurt knowing that his detached mother (Mary Tyler Moore) loved his brother more. Conrad also loved his brother and is suffering a terrible loss.
But it’s not until another tragic event happens — a friend from the mental hospital taking her life — that Conrad uncovers the hidden source of his anguish: Unlike his brother, who didn’t stay with the boat during the storm, and his friend, who took her life — both dying — Conrad stayed with the boat, and lived.
“You can live with that, can’t you?” Dr. Berger asks Conrad. Facing his guilt and pain, Conrad realizes that he can.
Watch the scene in which this unfolds. It’s powerfully emotional. Conrad has just found out that his friend has committed suicide. Reflexively, he prepares to take his own life, but instead rushes to Dr. Berger’s office to deal with his pain.
It’s not until Conrad is triggered by his friend’s death that his painful feelings about his brother’s death surface from his unconscious, making Conrad aware of them and providing him with an opportunity to heal them.
It’s an older movie but a current and constant battle.
I’ve developed a targeted tool for uncovering buried feelings in the unconscious when you’re triggered, called The Method. In sessions, it’s common for clients to begin believing that they already know what’s bothering them. Often, they do — consciously. However, they don’t know what’s hidden in their unconscious mind. My clients’ reactions range from surprise to shock and awe when they uncover what was buried — which often is more painful than they’d thought — and the realization that they’ve buried anything at all.
Burying painful feelings is more common than you think. We employ it as a coping mechanism for self-preservation, helping us avert too-hard-to-bear feelings.
This burying serves a useful purpose, provided that we unbury the feelings, eventually. Because until we do, they’ll trigger us again and again, causing us to relive the same initial pain, without our knowing it. This induces stress, impacting our health, and whether temporary or lingering, the emotional setback can inhibit us from moving forward consistently and living our best life.
Instead of avoiding painful feelings, we need to reframe a trigger as a point of power. It gives us an opportunity to heal buried painful feelings — by feeling them — when we couldn’t initially.
Psychotherapy is the most common way of examining what’s in one’s unconscious mind, conducted under the guidance of a trained professional. Journaling is a popular technique, where thoughts and feelings are explored in writing. There are a number of other self-help and spiritual tools available. I offer The Method in guided audio, which can be used on one’s own or when working with a professional.
Now more than ever, if you are experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety, obsessive or paranoid tendencies, or addictive impulses, you could be masking painful feelings that are buried in your unconscious and waiting to be known. The time is now to unbury them so you can stop them from hurting you.
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