Today, I was scrolling through tumblr to find some ideas to write about... and I found an extremely good post that I wanted to share with you. It's a bit lengthy, and I'm not certain who to attribute it to since it's been passed about on tumblr for so long. In any case, here it is- I'll give my thoughts on this bit of writing directly after.
“Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need. First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door. Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door. Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind. Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.” I found this to be a great way to look at coping with pain. It explains the stages of grief well, too- at least in my opinion. When you're first impacted by grief, particularly after loss... sleeping is definitely something you do a lot of. When my mom passed AND when my grandmother passed, I was drained for weeks after the fact. I had little to no motivation to do absolutely anything, and I let the sadness and absence control my life. It was awful. The "door of forgetting" is one I seem to never quite fit through, metaphorically speaking. I get to the edge of forgetting, and lose the memories I wish I could remember. I rarely can remember anything happy from my childhood, but that's a post for another time. At the end of the day, my memories are mainly composed of negativity and past traumas. It isn't fun... this is a stage in coping that I wish I could apply to my life. I feel that the door of madness almost refers to addiction. There are people who turn to alcohol or other drugs to help them forget what has happened to them, and that in and of itself is madness. Addicts can and do often lose themselves in a world of their own, shutting out those who care for them. It's sad to watch, and worse to lose someone to addiction. That much I do know, and that's why I will never go near door #3. Door #4 is a door that cannot be avoided by anyone. Everyone dies at some point. Sadly, some people choose this door as an answer for grief... it's not. It just passes the grief onto someone else, if not multiple people... and that just resets the entire cycle. I don't know, I just found the entire concept of this piece to be compelling, and I wanted to share it along with my thoughts. - Maddie
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
September 2021
Categories
All
|