Sadness Sucks, I'd Rather Be Mad

When's the last time you had a break up? A loss of loved one? A big move away from your closest people? Think about it. Close your eyes if you need to. Think of the moment you knew the person you hold so dear was not going to be where they always had been. Do you remember the way your body felt? The feeling in the pit of your stomach like you are never going to be able to keep down food ever again. The inability to stop your eyes from watering. The way your throat kind of tightened. The way your hands shook a little uncontrollably. Maybe you had to sit down. Maybe your legs immediately needed to move so you paced the room. Maybe you needed to scream. Maybe everything just shut down. Odds are, the sensations you felt in your body are far removed from you now, unless it happened fairly recently. How about remembering how you felt...emotionally? Can you remember the heartache? The fear? The anger? When these big moments come up, there's usually a mix of emotions. And a lot of times, there can be confusion between those feelings, especially if you are autistic (like me). And...I can be pretty certain that you did not want to close your eyes and remember what any of those emotions were during that experience in your life. It's okay.

But can I tell you about mine? It's embarrassing. It's human. And thankfully, it was forgivable.

I am a military spouse. And among the hardships of this lifestyle like deployments, solo parenting, and stigma, there are postings. For those who don't know, a posting for military members is an assignment to a particular unit or directive, but casually, the term is used for the uprooting of the family to another place/base. Postings are somewhat rare for my husband's field of expertise, but you know who their not rare for? My best friend's husband. Yeah. This isn't a posting year for us, but a couple of weeks ago, her husband got his posting message sending him...and her almost 2800 miles away from me.

This wasn't a surprise posting for them. And we all knew them moving here, literally a small hill and house a way from me, wouldn't be longer than a 4 posting because of her hubby's trade. What neither of us did know though, is how close we would become. I didn't know that the new military spouse moving in up the street would end up being my friend. That her kids would end up being my kids' best friends. That this family would so quickly turn into another facet of my family.

A lot of people know me. Well, I mean, they know my face...they know what I do. And yes, part of what I do calls for quite a bit of vulnerability with my sphere of influence. I am often an "open book" to people. But that's definitely not the same as someone really KNOWING you. It's definitely not the same as friendship. I really don't have as many close friends as one would expect. I have a very small circle that seems to be shrinking all the time (another story for another day), that outside a few neighbors all live far away....and my mom, who also lives in a different country. And to be honest, my "best friend" spots have had some crazy exchanges over the years. But it's a role that has always been something that I have desired to be filled properly as an adult. I was not expecting it to show up as a new neighbor in our military housing community in the summer of 2022.

We connected very quick, from the very beginning. It's kind of funny when you think about how someone so opposite from you can make such an impact on your life! In the grand scheme of life, our friendship has been a short time, but man, it's been awesome! In the last three years, we have spent countless nights crafting, drinking, laughing, and sitting by fires. We have camped together, vacationed together, and spent holidays together. People that know us, rarely mention one without the other. Our lives have intertwined and I am better for it.

Now, we've known that with her husband's trade, this was not going to be a forever posting. We "knew" it, but I can tell you, we completely forgot it...or ignored it...or pretended it was magically just never going to come up. The time finally came though, and I have been devastated. I know that this posting is something the really want and really need. I know that they are super happy and excited. And, yes, I am happy they got what they wanted. I really am. I want my bestie to be happy!! And the months leading up to it, I spoke positively. I encouraged. I was hoping for all the good stuff for them. Then, when reality set in, and they got the posting message, my heart broke. I did all I could though, to keep it together in front of her. I didn't want to her to see me cry or sad. I knew this was good for her. I didn't want the last couple months to be a crying fest or burdensome for her because I knew she had a lot on her plate with the big move. So, I shoved it all down, especially around her.

Then something started to happen about a week after finding out. I started finding myself getting annoyed at really little and dumb things that she was doing. I even made a journal entry about it. I didn't understand why these very small things were really nagging at me and bothering so much. And then it happened...a small, unintentional offense. She really didn't mean it. In the past, it wouldn't have been a big a deal. I would have normally just brushed it off. I didn't though. I let that little wound build up so much in my head, that by the end of the day I had convinced myself that she really wasn't my best friend...that she wasn't even a good friend...she wasn't even a real friend at all. I had told a story to myself that had me so upset that I had given myself peace about her leaving. It didn't matter that she was going because we really weren't that close. That she clearly didn't care about me as much as I cared about her. That I was just a filler space for the "real friends" that was going back to. I was ok never speaking to her again. Yes. It had gotten that bad. And we had discussions that ended in pretty much a breakup of our "bestfriendship".

My poor husband. He was so supportive. He let me be angry. He let me cry and put myself down for having lied and convinced myself that her and I had been "best friends" for years. He even cried. And then he said something that I didn't want to think about, let alone believe, "Do you think that maybe all of this really isn't happening because you're just really sad, Kay?"

UM...NO! I was not sad she was leaving!! She can just go! We are not best friends anymore!

But the truth was, I was really sad. I AM really sad. And what I was doing was the exact thing that find kids doing. Finding reasons to be mad over a loss than feeling the sadness. I was doing thing I did as a teenager. I would protect myself by picking about people and being annoyed by them, so that I couldn't be rejected by them. But it all happened subconsciously. I didn't even realize I was doing it until later reflection. Like, years; well after the relationships were ruined.

Thankfully, I have a husband who is constantly learning to be vulnerable and supportive, and thankfully, I am not where I used to be and have grown enough to learn humility, and most importantly, I have a best friend who also had a supportive husband telling her the same thing mine was and forgave me as soon as I came to my senses. But it was horrible! I literally put our friendship through the ringer all because I couldn't process my emotions properly! Because it was easier to work with anger.

Anger tends to be a "go to" emotion when things start to bubble up in people's lives. We can yell, break things, cut people out, shut down, blame, and all the other outward actions that is not only a more "comfortable" way to express for so many of the population, but it's also seems to be socially acceptable. Sadness isn't. It's hard. It's inward. It aches. We've been taught it's weak to cry. Society tells us that if we are sad, we will bring others down and no one wants to be around that. Where anger seems to settle after we let it out, sadness sticks around.

I have always hated that I have a lot of sadness. I have been known to tell people that there should be a meter that counts your sad tears and once you've hit a certain number you shouldn't have to cry anymore. That counter would be up for me. I grew up in a home where you got in trouble for crying. And as much as I do the opposite in my home for my children, I still have a hard time allowing myself to feel it. Like, with my bestie...I was shoving it down because I didn't want her to be depressed and I certainly didn't want to acknowledge the sadness. But this is reoccurring in my life. It's something I have been actively working on with my therapist and doctor. Being autistic and coming from trauma means that processing emotions and actually feeling them is a struggle. I have been working very hard to even recognize them and let myself feel them in my body. And I am working on "disidentifying" with fear and anxiety (another topic for another time, but check out transpersonal therapy when you can), so that I can allow myself to process a wide scope of emotions and thoughts, sadness being a big one.

My amazing doctor said something though that has stuck with me. "Crying is an evolutional call for support." Wait, what?! Yes. Read it again. From birth we cry. We instinctively use crying as a form of communicating our needs and feelings. It's how we survived. We would cry when hungry and someone would come feed us. We would cry when we soiled ourselves and someone would come change us. When we were hurt, someone would come help. Our support people knew to step up when we would cry.

When my doctor said that, he followed it up by asking about my support system. Oof! You mean we need people?! Again, we have been trained that sadness is a burden and shameful. We tend to want to be by ourselves when sadness strikes. I mean, no one wants to see me ugly cry! But when we are sad that is when we need our people even if we don't realize it, causing us to feel even more vulnerable than we already are. Which might be a reason so many people turn to anger. Anger can make you feel stronger and independent. You don't feel that you need anyone when you are angry. No wonder it's easier to get mad at the situation...the people. There's a reason why anger is the second stage in grief.

When we look at the Stages of Grief, we see that's really what was happening with me. Denial? Of course! That stage pretty much started the day I realized how awesome this newcomer was and how lucky I was to become friends with her. Postings? Nope. Wasn't going to happen. We were going to be neighbors in this military community forever. FOREVER!

Anger crept in without me noticing. I didn't even realize it happening. And I wasn't even angry at the situation. I wasn't mad at the military for the posting or her husband for requesting it. I started getting angry at her. Why did she end up the target? The situation was too big and expected. The military was just doing what the military and even better because they actually did what my friend and her family needed. And I wasn't mad at her husband for taking her away because in the end, he was just doing his job. But the the truth was, in the end, the anger "protected" me from the fear of her just leaving me behind and forgetting all about me. It was "shielding" from the sadness that I wouldn't just have her here to run to the store, to paint together, to watch movies, to get pedicures...to just be here. It felt easier to "break up" than to feel like her life was just going to on without me.

I think we are currently moving through the Bargaining stage. My way of fixing this has been us trying to get posted too. Trying to figure the easiest and fasted way to get there too. It may be unrealistic. But it's for now, it seems the only way that I can maybe have anything similar to what I have had these past few years.

Truth though: the depression stage is right around the corner. I know it is. I already feel the heaviness when I look at the calendar. My system already starts to shut down when I look at the reality of a posting for us. I already feel the weight when I think of birthdays and Christmas. This is the stage that no one wants to feel. This is the part that everyone wants to skip. But you can't. Not really. Not if you want true release. Allowing yourself to feel the sadness...to cry...to process allows for the last stage.

Acceptance. The last part of a hard process. The part that we all want: peace. We don't want to be sad all the time. And we won't. With time and allowance, we can actually have peace in all of it. Whether it's a death, a break up, a move, or a circumstance that just sucks.

Right now, it's hard. Right now, you may not see light. Right now, you may not know how life will ever get better or even be back to "normal". And you are correct. It's really ok to feel all of the emotions. Being angry for a moment is ok. In my humble opinion, try not to target that anger towards those you care about. But in order to have peace at the end of all this, is to really allow yourself to have and sit with the sorrow. To fill it in your body. To cry. It will not last forever, I can promise you that. Something even more amazing happens as well: the more we allow ourselves to truly feel all of our more difficult emotions, the easier time we will have the next time. And there will always be a next time.

Stay present, my friends. Process those big emotions. It's worth it. You're worth it.