A Case For Feeling It All

what happens when we don't numb ourselves, however badly we may want to

TW: mention of abuse, not explicit.

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I think we learn a lot about ourselves when we find ourselves in that place where we would do anything to push our pain down, and numb it all away. We learn a lot when we don’t numb it away.

• We learn that we’re capable of feeling a lot and surviving

• The truth bubbles up; both our biggest fears and truths arise.

• We get to know who we really are. Who our real, authenticic selves are.

One of my favorite people on Substack,

Donna McArthur

, wrote a great essay about being hungover as a Sunday school teacher. We talk about it in her interview on my podcast - back in the days before I was even calling it a podcast.

What Authenticity Means to Donna McArthur

Good Girl Bad Girl

Beware, your child’s Sunday school teacher may be really hungover.

In fact, she may have arrived at the church straight from the night before, intoxicating your lovely child with her breath while reading a bible story and having them ‘color’ because she has nothing prepared for the lesson (again).

-Donna McArthur

While I was only ever hungover as a Sunday School teacher a few times, as a teenager, I was emotionally numb a lot of the time. Most of the time. Just not with alcohol.

There are a lot of ways to numb yourself.

On the outside, I was the perfect church girl; pious, polite, and unassuming.

On the inside, I was wrestling with things that I was barely aware of on a conscious level. Keeping up that perfect veneer was my subconscious form of numbing.

I was smiling and waving at and even hugging the same church elders who had abused me and others years prior.

You can never tell anyone. You will never tell anyone. That’s what they told us, that night in the woods.

I told people, but those people didn’t quite come to my rescue. And so, the perfect veneer remained flawless. I told myself everything was fine. I love to tell myself that everything is fine.

Coffee and Dresses

I’m untangling so many things I don’t talk about, that I’m just starting to write about.

And as I untangle those things, the urge to numb myself all over again increases.

I reach for the wine. I reach for the food.

And I also want to starve myself. I want to be empty.

I want to drown in a clear ocean where I am weightless and none of my problems exist.

You better believe I’m trying to keep climbing

But the higher we climb it turns out we’re both none the wiser

So I hope I learn to get over myself, stop trying to be somebody else

So we can love each other for free

Everybody wants something, you just wanted me.

I want to be okay.

And I will be. In reality, I already am.

I don’t need to be numb. I don’t need to be empty.

The gift of this thing called being human is that we contain multitudes. We can be messy, and complex, and full of feelings we fear will rip us apart, and survive. Maybe even live.

We forget all that when we numb ourselves. Or at least I do.

And so we sit. And cope. And hope.

And if we numb ourselves, hopefully, we find it within ourselves to give ourselves grace.

And if we don’t numb ourselves…

1. We learn that we’re capable of feeling a lot and surviving

2. The truth bubbles up; our biggest fears and truths arise.

3. We get to know who we really are.

*We feel it all and survive.

We feel it all and survive.

*Thanks for giving us this manta, Glennon Doyle.

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You’re so much stronger than you think. And certainly a hell of a lot stronger than the Sunday scaries (or any other day of the week scaries.)

In the meantime, I’ll be here cheering you on from San Diego.