"Get Over It Now, Life Goes on", a Phrase That Hurts

"Cheer up, life goes on!" Expressions like these show that our society still does not understand or leave space for such harsh realities as depression or grief. Because time, for those who are suffering, remains stagnant ...

"Get over it now, life goes on and you can't always be like this." Few comments, even with good intentions, can be as counterproductive as they are unfortunate. At this point, there are still those who think that depression, anxiety, grief or simple disappointment have a limited subscription fee. As if suffering had a normative beginning and an end and the same for all.

So is. To many of us, this same phrase has been addressed to us on more than one occasion and far from receiving it with acceptance, what it has done is to further increase the discomfort . Suddenly, we are pressured by our environment to raise our faces as soon as possible and withdraw from our private corners of introspection and recovery to accelerate that healing process as soon as possible.

Because life is tightening, because family , friends or partner await our return and that we are the same as always. Society, as we well know, still leaves no room for pain in any of its forms. He does not understand it and pushes us almost by force, to have to hide the discomfort under the mental carpets to put on a mask later, the one with which to pretend that everything is going well, that everything is overcome ...

"Get over it, life goes on": why shouldn't we use these kinds of expressions?

“ Cheer up, life goes on. Get over it now, stop thinking about the past once. Everything happens for a reason . Stop thinking about it and you will see how everything passes you. The sun always shines for those who seek light. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger ” . We could give more examples of all those verbal flourishes and misguided expressions that feed many of our cheering strategies.

One thing we must understand about the issue of support and comfort is that this is one of the most difficult and complicated subjects. In reality, the ability to support someone requires intelligence and not just good intentions .

The emotional support cathartic authentic, healer and passes through the ability to know how to create a climate of confidence and serenity with which to reduce fears and anxieties (Elsass, Duedahl et Cols, 1987).

However, in our everyday language they continue to overthink those wrong metaphors that have a damaging effect on psychological health. We analyze it.

There are sufferings that can last a lifetime, even if we learn to live with them

We have all heard of the phases of grief established by psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross . His psychological model of how to overcome losses taught us that there is a five-stage process to go through: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Somehow, we have internalized that there comes a moment, almost normative, in which one ends up accepting what happened. Perhaps, for this reason, they often point out to us that "get over it now, life goes on, accept it." However, in recent decades the Kübler-Ross model has been questioned by the evidence: no duel is linear. Not all people go through these stages or do it in the same order.

Overcoming suffering does not follow a straight line; sometimes it is more of a spiral in which suffering comes and goes. Thus, and although one finally learns to live with certain things, there are facts that may never be accepted. What's more, figures like psychologist Hope Edelman offer us a tighter and more realistic view of what duels are in books like The AfterDrief: Finding Your Way Along the Long Arc of Loss.

Also Carol Travis , psychologist and author of works like Why we justify foolish beliefs , points out the following:

These types of theories incite error and suffering by imposing on us what we should feel. We must be very careful with any type of therapy that makes us believe that pain goes through a series of fixed and inevitable stages.

Everyone has their times, accelerating stages is counterproductive

How many times have they told us that “don't be sad, get over it now”? The truth is that we have been listening to it since childhood. A good part of the environment has instilled in us that need to get rid of the discomfort as soon as possible, they have even convinced us that to stop crying is brave, when courage , in reality, lies in understanding what hurts and knowing how to handle it, not running away .

There is also a fact that we cannot ignore. Each person deals with, manages and experiences emotional pain in a particular way . The last thing we have to do is insist that they speed up their times.

At the end of the day, life is not a canvas of vibrant colors and gentle pastel tones, in it there are gray and dark tones. Allowing space for suffering and accepting its presence makes us more human.

" Get over it now, life goes on ": how to respond to these comments?

How should we act before those who insist on the classic " get over it now "? Well, something we must understand is that whoever insists that we get out of that state as soon as possible is not respecting us . It doesn't matter if you do it with good intentions, your attitude is the wrong one. What we have to do is demand respect and clarify how they can best support us.

“I want you to be close but without judging me, without telling me what I should or should not do. I want to feel that you support me, but without invading my space criticizing me because I still cannot act or respond as you wish. You must give me time, because I know that my depression, my grief, my suffering or disappointment is a process, not a state. There will come a day when I will be able to do everything again, but not today. Today I just need calm.

To conclude, only one aspect can be stressed. Understanding what emotional support is based on remains our unfinished business. As well as understanding much more what sadness is, what depression is or how particular it is to face the loss of a loved one. Each person is different and we all deserve respect and infinite understanding.