I was born into a home that was filled with pain. My earliest childhood memories are of my mother’s screams echoing off the walls of our house, while my little sister and I hid shaking with fear in the bottom of our wardrobe and waiting for the eerie silence that would signal our alcoholic father had passed out. No one ever spoke to us about what had happened. Instead, we were taught that “good girls” should do their best to avoid trouble and silence their pain or risk being called “melodramatic drama queens.”
Although this advice had horrible consequences for all of us, when first offered, the intention was to protect us. My mother lived in fear that if people knew what was happening in our home, the authorities would take my sister and me away.
When I was 4 years old, my parents divorced, and our home became much quieter after my father left. But, by then, my little body and brain had learned that at the first sign of pain, it was best to run and quickly hide yourself away until your emotions had been silenced and the danger had passed. I grew up never building the confidence I needed to manage my most uncomfortable emotions.
For decades, when I was scared, overwhelmed, or hurt, the bottom of a cupboard remained my preferred place. But, other small dark spaces could also work. At school, when kids were mean to me, I’d tuck myself away under a desk stinging with rejection and humiliation. At home, when I felt misunderstood, I’d hide out in the bottom of the shower aching with betrayal and abandonment. Later at work, when I was criticized, I’d lock the toilet stall door and curl up flooded with insecurity and shame. For others, my hiding was often confusing, sometimes amusing, and occasionally damn frustrating.
“Are you OK in there?” the worried voices would ask through the doors.
“She’s been in there a long time,” muttered the bemused onlookers to the reinforcements they’d called in.
“Come out now ‘Chelle! You’re only making things worse,” demanded those who had grown completely fed up.
While I could see that my hiding created unintended melodrama, I rarely crawled out until everyone had given up and left. I didn’t know how else to silence my pain.
The older I got, the more embarrassing my hiding became. It’s hard to explain to your kids why mummy needs to be alone in the cupboard. I longed to outgrow this behavior, but each time my traumatized nervous system was triggered, my good intentions were hijacked. Until I stumbled across Dr. Kristin Neff’s self-compassion practices.
“Emotional discomfort is your body’s way of letting you know that something important needs your attention and action,” explained Kristin. “Think of it like an alarm ringing inside of you with important information. What’s your body trying to tell you? Can you listen with curiosity and kindness, instead of judgment?”
I’d been so focused on trying to make the pain go away, I’d never stopped to consider what my feelings were trying to say.
“As you listen try not to over-identify and define yourself by the pain,” Kristin said. “Rather than saying ‘I am angry’ create a little safe space by noting ‘I am feeling angry’ and see what happens. Remember that emotions are just momentary feelings passing through your body, not permanent states.”
Wait! Every time I crawled into a cupboard, I battled my darkest thoughts: “I am too much. I am broken. I am unlovable.”
What if these were just feelings passing through my body, and not emotions trying to devour me?
My curiosity sparked, the next time I found myself hiding in a cupboard, I asked: “OK, body, what do you want me to know?”
At first, there was silence. I sat there and waited. After a little while the voice in my head said: “I’m feeling horribly ashamed.”
Hmmm. This was new.
“Is there an action you need me to take?” I gently probed. “Just sit here with me until I feel safe,” came the whispered reply.
Oh. I could do that.
I felt my body instantly soften, as though just the act of listening had immediately soothed some of the pain. Who’d have thought?
After a few minutes, I asked again, “OK, body, what do you want me to know now?”
“I feel a bit silly hiding in the bottom of a cupboard at 34 years of age,” said the voice in my head. Fair enough.
“Is there an action you need me to take?” I kindly nudged.
“Can we sit outside in the light and keep talking?” came the hopeful reply.
For the first time, being asked to leave the cupboard felt like a perfectly safe and reasonable request. That day I discovered that the sooner we feel it, the faster we heal it.
The sooner we feel it, the faster we heal it.
This was the start of an ongoing conversation between my body, my feelings, and my brain. It’s a conversation that continues to soothe my nervous system and helps me to grow the confidence and skills I need to navigate emotional discomfort and pain.
While there is much I am still learning, it has been 6,394 days since I hid in the bottom of a cupboard or any other dark space. Some of those days included helping to nurse my father through terminal cancer and unraveling our family’s sexual abuse traumas. But, it turns out that naming our pain with curiosity and kindness, rather than judgment, has resulted in less melodrama than the years of avoiding and silencing ever did.
A version of this post also appears on Substack.