‘They just don’t get it!’. If you’ve said some version of the aforementioned phrase in your lifetime, it’s likely that you’ve experienced the very real frustration that comes with the expressing the emotional pain your going through – whatever form it takes – and being met with bemused looks from even those you’d considered close to you, the ones that have always ‘got you’ as you’ve travelled through the seasons of your life.

But here’s the thing you have to understand. Pain is inherently personal. Our experience of it is shaped by everything from our cultural reference points to our unique DNA to our varying levels of sensitivity to our environment, hormones, our unique family make up and so much more. ‘But three friends in my friendship group are also single mums who are navigating co-parenting, so why do I feel like I’m screaming into the wind?’ you may exclaim. Yep, what you’re going through may seem to be played out in different households, but the pain of this ‘similar’ experience is uniquely yours, and has its own flavour. This the reason why some people can find small T trauma such as redundancy an empowering experience that helps fuel a shift into a more aligned way of work, and others experience it as a soul-crushing blow, a further evidence point of their perceived unworthiness and have to climb a veritable mountain just to get themselves back into the state of equilibrium needed for self esteem to rise and CVs to be sent out.

So what’s to be done? Do we just keep talking using words, words, words and maybe the occasional exasperated set of hand gestures to kotow our nearest and dearest into a level of empathy they don’t really connect with but try to muster up to placate us and keep conflict at bay. The short answer is no. First we need to release any guilt for feeling the way we do, it really is ok, all of it. Second, time is needed for self-reflection and processing – perhaps with the help of a therapist – as much as needed to be able to articulate the pain problem in our own words and to understand it in our own minds before we speak it out into the world.

The better you understand your pain, the less you’ll need external sources to validate it. Even if you choose to disclose it to a select few in your inner circle, you’ll be less triggered by responses which you may not feel match the magnitude of what you’re going through. It’s important you try and express gratitude for any attempts at support anyway from: ‘I’m sorry to hear what you’re going through’ to ‘can we talk about it more when we meet for coffee?’. Those we love are trying to close the gap between your pain and their perception of it/you in general lest it become a chasm.

Pain, as personal as it is, doesn’t need to lead to isolation and disenchantment. Let it instead be a pathway to version of you that has been waiting in the wings. Bruised, wise, conflicting, unchained, emboldened, fearful. The door is open; welcome what comes.