Recently, I've been visiting the hospital quite a bit. Not because I work there or because I'm sick or because I'm overly fond of hospitals, but because my mom has been sick, and she was in the ICU and then another ward and is now finally in rehab. All of this has taken about a month a half, and it's been stressful, to say the least.
At first, I didn't really know what to do. My first instinct was to cry and to cry a lot. But my second instinct was to sit tight-lipped while the doctor explained that she had MRSA and meningitis and it was too early to tell whether she would make it or not.
Thankfully, she's gotten better, and the doctors are looking to get her out of the hospital within the next few weeks.
But spending so much time in the hospital has given me a lot of time to think and even some time to people watch, and I've come to one conclusion: we, as a society, are terrified of letting anyone see us even a tiny bit upset.
As I mentioned, I had an internal battle with myself when my mother was first admitted because all I really wanted to do was sob. But I looked around the ICU and I noticed how many people were there, and I came to the conclusion that crying would be something ridiculous to do.
Let me repeat that: my mother was in the ICU, and I decided that showing some type of negative emotion was absurd.
It wasn't just myself though. Other people were doing the same thing. I noticed while sitting in the waiting room that everyone was hiding their emotions. Mothers weren't crying even though their children were sick, wives were trying to smile even though their husbands weren't breathing without a ventilator. Everyone was trying to mask the fact that they were hurting.
Here's the thing though: it's okay to not be okay. It's okay to sit in a hospital and want to cry. Its okay to show negative emotion when something traumatic happens.
We spend a lot of time as a society nowadays talking about how important it is to be happy. I know that I put an unreasonable amount of pressure on myself to stay upbeat. Even before my mother was in the hospital, I was always trying to put a positive spin on things.
And I did that for a variety of reasons, but the main one was because I was terrified of people seeing me even a tiny bit upset. I didn't want anyone to know when life was getting me down. I didn't want anyone to know that I was having a rough week.
And that was mainly because I thought I had to. It was so important to me that I put up a good front. Because being upset, showing the world that I was not 100% happy, was showing weakness, and that was unacceptable.
I didn't want to be thought of as fragile, I didn't want to be thought of as needing help.
It's taken me these several long weeks in the hospital to realize that showing emotion is not weak. It takes courage, insane amounts of courage, to admit to the world that you need help. It takes courage to admit that you are not okay. It takes courage to let the world see you at your most vulnerable and hope that they accept you anyway.
There is no future in which bottling up those emotions is a good thing. You cannot just pretend that everything is okay and hope for the best. The "fake it till you make it" mentality doesn't work in situations like this.
I'm not saying to not try to put a positive spin on things that are difficult or to not look for a silver lining. That's important. But what's also important is crying when you're upset. What's also important is voicing the fact that you hurt. What's also important is letting people know when you aren't okay.
It's okay to admit that you aren't okay. Admitting that you need help or need a hug when things aren't going your way is not weakness, it is a strength, and it's about time we looked at it that way.
