"Don't feel sad."

[Ronni_W]

At a dinner-theatre birthday celebration last weekend. Lots of fun and laughter and...BOOM! An overwhelming "grief burst".

And some (stupid-ignoramus-who-doesn't-know-the-first-thing-about-me-or-my-life-history) person tells me, "Don't feel sad."   And, even after I tell her, "Please don't tell me how to feel," still feels the need to keep going, and asks me,  "What's there to feel sad about?" (To which, even feeling as I was, I at least had the presence of mind to say, "You don't know my story.")   Full disclosure: I really just wanted to say, "Eff off and die; just leave me alone!!!"

It really irked me so much that all week I've been working on having a better response/retort the next time something like this happens to me. I have the words that I want to be able to remember to say, but I still have to memorize it...which, as you'll read, may take another month or three <lol>:   "I am processing and releasing some of my sadness and grief right now, including its emotional charge or energy. It's normal and natural, and I am fine; so please don't interrupt or try to interfere. If you really want to help me, though, all I need is compassionate understanding and positively-supportive thoughts."

But so, gals and guys:  "Don't feel sad!" Or, more accurately, if/when you do feel sad, just keep it all bottled up inside. [Because] If/when you give any type of expression or release to your own sad feelings (even if you're doing it as privately as is possible, and not really or at all bothering or interfering with anyone else's enjoyment of life), then it just makes other people uncomfortable, so then they end up even more stupid than they were before you got to the point where you could feel, process, release and express another piece of your sadness, loss and grief. {Obviously this paragraph 100% tongue-firmly-in-cheek.}

We really do need to start advocating and 'marching' to have proper and age-appropriate 'death, dying, loss and grief' education as part of the main syllabus, starting in the earliest  grades. (Along with 'personal finances'...but that's a different forum.)

Love'n hugs, Ronni