How many times have you heard someone tell you to “just get over it” or to “stop complaining”? Whether you’re going on about something as ‘small’ as your shitty job, a toxic relationship, a messy argument or something ‘greater’ like witnessing a disaster or the death of a loved one, you can’t seem to find yourself being able to let it go. But why do you keep speaking about it to anyone who will listen? Why do you continue to relive it? Why can’t you just get over it?
First of all, the reason we continue to rave on about a traumatic experience is to try and understand it. The desire to understand why it happened and how we fit into it sees us becoming infatuated with it. To try and understand - we analyse the situation intently by dreaming, imagining and talking about it. Thinking about different outcomes, different endings and ways that the event could’ve been avoided. We begin analysing our involvement, whether we could have done something or said something differently. In roll the thoughts of “was it my fault?”
So why are we so adamant to put together the pieces of the puzzle?
This is because we are social bonding animals and when our ‘bond’ or ‘connection’ to the groups around us is threatened our defence mechanism of FIGHT or FLIGHT is activated. When a traumatic experience occurs that we do not understand, we begin questioning this bond, feeling threatened and as though our survival is at risk.
Now with our survival feeling threatened and our inability to comprehend the experience, we begin questioning who we are. Our beliefs on who we are after the trauma are altered and if we don’t understand who we are, we’re unable to understand how to be in our world, how to respond to the world around us. Questioning ourselves leaves us realising that there are pieces of the puzzle missing, pieces that we so desperately need to put the puzzle back together. So what do we do? We talk about the experience. We continue on, and on, and on with the desperation of regaining understanding. We feel as though this understanding of how we fit into it will allow us to find those missing pieces.
All of this is a manifestation of unresolved trauma and experiences. As our inability to understand courses through our body, leaving us in a sustained FIGHT or FLIGHT response. We are then unsure of ourselves and there is a lack of trust in our ability to respond appropriately. Our ability to respond and keep us safe. Our ability to survive.
We crave this understanding so desperately that it becomes consuming. Without being able to understand the experience, we are unable to let it go. To just “get over it”. We lack trust in ourselves to move forward with life. We become stuck.
So next time you hear someone raving on about the same experience that you’ve heard about time and time again - just remember that they are trying to understand it, trying to understand themselves and they cannot simply ‘GET OVER IT!’
Original Content written by Carolyn Farnan and sourced from Resolve Beyond Neurology
Blog post designed and edited by Allie Michelle Aitken
Have you encountered an undesirable or traumatic experience and you want to "get over it"?
Get in touch with Aaron today!