This is rarely talked about, considering India considers talking about emotions a taboo and blames the person for being weak rather than helping them out.
Very few of you might have experienced grief. we are young, we haven’t seen many moments of grief, but there are some connections, some relationships, some closed ones whose loss can mean the world tearing up on you.
And like we don’t talk about emotions, we also don’t talk about grieving.
We were never taught about processing our emotions, neither from our parents nor from the great schools we are all so proud of.
3 months and 19 days ago, I lost someone really close to me, no, the person didn’t die, but we broke up, and it felt different, unlike any other emotion I had ever felt, it was heartbreaking (quite, literally. We will discuss this later).
Since I didn’t know how to accept and process my emotions, I just let them be and ignored them for as long as I could, but even the slightest thought of that person would destabilize for days.
Wanting to be productive, I started popping meds for anxiety and sleep, and they worked to some extent, but yet, I was just trying to get away from the emotions and not processing them.
When the meds won’t work, I would “eat my emotions away”, just a fancy term for overeating, I would eat things I loved, like chocolates, cakes, bread, and generally everything I would find until I could calm myself down.
On one of the days, I almost ate 10 5-stars to stay stable and well, it helped me stay calm but this slowly became a coping mechanism and I started gaining weight, with work from home, restrictions on movement due to corona, and long working hours of my new job, I found it difficult to even think about what I was doing to my body.
I had gained over 7 kilograms in 35 days, and that is when I started seeing my body react differently, I started having short periods of attacks, chest pain, heartburn, speech problems, and sleep troubles, this used to happen on days when I was very stressed and then slowly the frequency increased to a state where I was having it twice a day.
Adding to it, I started having itching and hives (raised itchy red spots) which would keep me awake all night and at times it was intolerable.
I went to 4-5 different doctors who would suggest I take acidity meds and let me off, which wasn’t working and that kinda made me hate doctors at that moment because none would listen to what I had to say.
Luckily I found a good one who sat me down, asked a lot of questions, heard what I had to say, analyzed what wasn’t working for me, and then suggested that the emotional stress that was built up, resulted into weight gain and the kind of foods I ate during that period spiked up the acid production in the body and it gets worse when I am stressed.
Stress and depression also reduce the amount of saliva production, which makes digestion difficult, and in response, the stomach produces more acid to compensate for it.
Looking at the symptoms, he was quite worried about my heart health and ordered an ECG (Electrocardiogram) which isn’t even recommended to people my age, I am 22, ffs.
ECG revealed myocardial damage, which loosely translates to some damage in heart tissues, which definitely is reversible, but this got me interested into if this could even be real and doing a bit of research, I realized that it does occur, its called stress cardiomyopathy or broken heart syndrome.
Turns out that the break did really break my heart both metaphorically and literally and now I know how to not process my emotions, about processing them, well that’s a learning curve.
I will go to the same doctor in 15 days to recheck my heart health and see how severe the damage is or if it does or doesn’t require medical attention.
About that gained weight, I have got rid of almost 3 kilos in the last month and I am making progress.
If you are unable to deal with your emotions, please consult a therapist and a cardiologist, things can be more severe than they are visible on the outside, don’t wait for it to pain.
Take care.
