It’s Time To Stop Covering Up Your Pain And Finally Allow Yourself To Heal

Ever since we were children, we learned to cover things up.

You bruise a knee; cover it up with a bandage. Your parents find out something unacceptable, make up a lie and cover it up. Your arms are too fat, wear lose fitting clothes and cover them up. Before we know it, covering it up became an answer to everything. It might not solve anything but we cover it up anyway.

We don’t learn to take precautions, to own up to mistakes and to tell the truth. We don’t learn to exercise, to keep ourselves fit, or whatever else is necessary, essential and what the situation demands, because we have an option that is less risky – one that makes us look less idiotic, which is to take a short cut. That is our “cover it up” option.

But what happens when you are bleeding inside? When you are hurting inside?

When all you want to do is scream and cry and feel like a piece of shit? What do you do then? How do you cover that up? When your heart is hurting from a betrayal or abandonment? Or simply because you finally realize that you place your worth in the hands of someone who was absolutely worthless – what do you do then?

How do you cover that up?

Is it through smiling at those shutterbugs that you later post on your social media to give them a message that you’re much better without them? Or is It through finding a rebound just to give your heart a solace that maybe they come back to you seeing you happy with someone else? Or is it through finishing bottles of vodka tonic that you wake up with terrible hangovers having no idea about the people you spent your evenings with?

Why are we so afraid of reality? Why do we have to cover it up?

Okay, you are sick to the bottom of your stomach, it’s disgusting to feel this way, you feel like you are going to die with the amount of sorrows you are dealing with – I know that. But you cannot be overly joyed and happy throughout your life, every single day, and every single second. That’s not mental health, that’s crap. And covering it up with the wrong means is a bigger load of crap.

I am not saying that covering it up isn’t required. Your wounds will make you bleed to death if you do not do something about them. But, you have to realize the difference between temporary and permanent covering. There is no point, absolutely no point, doing more damage than good. There is no point smiling and laughing doing things you hate doing, just to cover up your sorrows or to prove something to someone.

It’s like doing a heart transplant on someone who needs a brain surgery.

There is no point. And the sooner you realize that, find the source of your pain, do what is actually necessary, the sooner you take responsibility and decide to cover it up positively, permanently and sustainably, the better you are going to get every day. I promise. Until then, you are going to have to feel like this.

There are times in life where you have to stay put during the worst of the storms. You have to sit it out and hope for the best rather than running in the opposite direction and hurting yourself. My advice – START SMALL. I am not going to give you a load of therapy talk saying read your favorite books, or go for a walk by yourself, maintain a journal or take up a hobby that’s painting or music etcetera etcetera. That’s for you to decide, however you want to proceed.

All I am saying is , start small, have patience and courage, and do not give up. You don’t build up mountains in a day.

Start small and continue the gradual slope. It’s going to take a lot of time, a hell lot of time, but hey, at least it is towards something that will be worth it in the end right? Something that will count? Like doing a brain surgery on someone who actually needs one? You see what I mean?