Moral Injury: Inner Angst crying for external expression

“Can we please stop associating strength with someone’s ability to smile through their tears and suffer in silence?

Strength is brave enough to talk about what is hurting you on the inside.” (@dissociativediaries). Courtesy of Martin Dearlove

To smile through our pain, tears, while suffering in silence, makes life easy for many. This is how some folks like it. Don’t bother me with your problems.

I bring my exploration of moral injury to a close, for now, but many will understand it is a huge topic not disappearing anytime soon, especially when the lines between burnout and moral injury remain blurred.?

Definitions abound for MI which I have highlighted in my recent articles. If you have not read any of them, I refer to MI as an inner angst due to external reality. Angst refers to: ‘a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general.’

As earlier articles have stated, MI does not only occur within the context of war. Wherever? one’s values, and self have been violated, MI is not too far behind.?

Strength is needed to find courage to talk about what is happening to your inside as a result of what you have experienced. This quote by Gabor Mate sums it up: “Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside of you as a result of what has happened to you.” It is the inside stuff we need to deal with.

Over the decades, and working as a counsellor, I have heard countless clients say, “there are worse things happening to other people.” My response is always, “that is true, but my concern is how what has happened to you is affecting you.” That question directs the conversation into a new direction where the client often begins to initially take the painful steps of voicing things/emotions they have harboured within themselves, sometimes for years.

MI, and other painful human experiences, require expression. This is not about having a pity party or feeling sorry for yourself. It is about giving voice to one’s inner turmoil experienced at the hands of another.

When we do the ‘loyal’ thing by keeping quiet and suffering in silence, who are we doing it for? I recall a friend some time ago speaking to me as one does to a friend. As we reflected on the idea of loyalty, which I always prided myself in being, he said,? “Delroy, loyalty is a good thing, but loyalty can kill you.” It nearly did.

At the time I was experiencing unexpressed deep inner conflict about making a decision to leave a role I had occupied for nearly thirty years. Leaving, as I understood it, was jumping in the big unknown with both feet first, and without a parachute. The inner conflict was begging for expression, release if you will, and I ignored all the signs and my intuition, deciding to listen to other external voices. The result was as follows.?

The most severe case of eczema in my then fifty eight years of life, being hospitalised for three days, and during my admission, shedding loads of skin. My inner angst had now expressed its discontent most aggressively.. The voice became louder which I turned deaf ears towards then my body used a way to get my attention. My body screamed, murder.

Inner angst, crying for external expression is not a marketing gimmick. It is reality. If we do not allow our inner turmoil space to breathe, or our inner tragedies expression, we end up suffocating our lives. From then on, though we may function, and many of us do for years, we operate stumbling along, seldom reaching our potential.

Smiling through one’s pain and tears is futile, and often we do so to make life easy for others, not to create a fuss, and worse still, we do not want to talk about what is happening to us in the working environment where we have ‘bosses’ who do not care about us. I have noted bosses the way I have for a reason. Bosses tend not to care about you as an employee. Their priority is, come hell or high water, getting the job done. Meet the targets. Meet the outcomes and results by any means necessary. Leaders want the same thing but they are interested in you as a person, and will find ways to show it.

We must learn that strength is not carrying on when we have been violated, but we must relearn that, “Strength is brave enough to talk about what is hurting you on the inside.”?

That sentence of fourteen words is worth unpacking. However, for most, it is easier said than done. Here are two ways I have learned. I love the reflections of Dan Camberland. He suggests, “The real work is letting your voice matter more than meeting the needs and expectations of everyone else (whether they are real or perceived).” Too often we fear what others may say if we talk, so we don’t. Furthermore, “finding your voice is mostly having the courage to speak and letting it be enough.”

There will be times when we express our inner angst where we should but our utterances fall on deaf or incompetent ears. Find spaces to talk. Whether it is your GP, seeking out a professional, your friendship group, or developing a support group, find somewhere. You must. Other mediums such as the creative arts can be a helpful way for some to express themselves.??

Remember, if you keep disturbing emotions/MI, locked within your being they will at some point seep out. Better still, before the leakage catches you off guard, find ways of allowing your inner pain expression.?

Speaking about what hurts inside of us is seldom easy to begin with. When we find the courage to speak, what began, and appeared as an insurmountable mountain, can lead us, if we have good guidance, to a new world of meaning, light and adventure in our lives. Be brave. Find courage. Go on, try it.