3 - Peeling back the layers

3- Peeling Back the Layers

Well, things have not gone according to plan even this early in the blog post. But that’s OK. I’m going with the flow. I’ll explain more below.

I sent a message to a friend a few days ago. Yesterday she texted me back. I was annoyed and somewhat offended by her reply. I waited for a while to respond, but even a few hours later it still irked me. So I wrote back a snippy response. She was understandably confused by my reaction and tried to clarify what she had meant. That didn’t soothe my feelings. So I sent another snippy reply. The conversation stopped there.

Now keep in mind that she is one of my best friends, one of the people that I feel closest to in the world. She is a profoundly kind and goodhearted person. She would never knowingly hurt my feelings. What was going on there? What could she have possibly said in a brief text that would offend me so much?

It’s true – I had been a bit “off” yesterday morning. I could tell as soon as I woke up that I had gotten up “on the wrong side of the bed.” Things irritated me more than usual; I was a little more compulsive in my behaviors than usual.

I hadn’t slept well the night before. Maybe that was why I was off. I had woken up from a nightmare about 3:30AM and it took me a while to go back to sleep. I almost never have nightmares, and I almost always fall right back asleep if I wake up during the night. But this one haunted me. I attributed it my foul mood yesterday to that event. I eventually worked up the nerve to send her an apology and explain away my unhealthy behavior with the bad dream.

When I woke up today, however, I was still unsettled even though I had slept well. As an introvert, I need to be alone with adequate time and quiet to process my feelings. I need mull things over. I also have learned to be careful because “mulling things over” can quickly turn into rumination and repetitive thought patterns. The difference seems to be that “mulling things over” often leads to a different conclusion than you were expecting, uncovering the real reason why you were upset. Ruminating typically just leads you to the same conclusions over and over again -- often convincing you of your righteousness in the process (more on that in a later blog).

This morning I was able to peel back that final layer. Turns out it wasn’t the nightmare that threw me off after all. It was writing an essay for this blog. To be more specific, I had started to write about Arnold’s illness. It made sense. I had just introduced his death as “the Catalyst” for all my subsequent changes. Why not write about his illness?

I had started a post about the difficulties of being a physician with a sick partner. In particular, I was writing about a mistake I had made at the very start of Arnold’s illness -- way back in December 2007. It was a big mistake. It didn’t alter the ultimate outcome of his illness, but it certainly could have smoothed over the initial phases of it.

I’ve already done a lot of work around forgiving myself for this mistake. But apparently not quite enough. Even after 16 years, this topic turned out to be a live wire for me. I grabbed it and it shocked me. I’ll come back to this topic in a later essay, but the shock from writing about it has been informative. First, it still holds a tremendous amount of resonance for me, and second, I still have work to do around it.

It also clarified for me the importance of looking at our feelings and our responses to everyday life. If you feel “off,” there probably is a good reason for it. What is that reason? Can you dig down and find the feelings that lie behind the feelings on the surface? Can you dig down below even those deeper feelings? What will you find?

Sometimes this is an incredibly uncomfortable process. Often people don’t want to dig down because it becomes too painful. I completely understand that feeling. The knot is often too twisted, and it takes too much effort to unravel. However, what is the alternative? Is it worth snapping at a friend and potentially damaging a healthy relationship just because you’re uncomfortable looking at yourself and how you respond to others? Isn’t it better in the long run to do a little uncomfortable digging so that you can understand some of the patterns that have maybe gotten you into trouble in the past?

I know what my answer is, but I know that it isn’t everyone’s go-to response. Maybe the first step is just acknowledging that there may be some deeper feeling that drives your current feeling. Awareness is the start of any behavior change. Maybe try a different approach when your feelings are triggered. Maybe don’t take a deep dive the first time, but just recognize that you’re off and begin to wonder why that might be. See where it leads you when you start to peel back the layers.

Up Next: “What are YOU Going to Do About It?”