by Sean Blackburn
“It’s like I’m running in a marathon that I haven’t trained for”, I said to my therapist one day in therapy. I was 20 years old at the time, in therapy trying to process my parent’s recent decision to file for divorce, and up to that point I had been struggling to describe what I was going through.
I have no idea where that metaphor came from. I hadn’t reflected on it before the session. In fact, I hadn’t thought about my emotions at all before I began therapy; I was too busy finding things to distract me from what I was feeling. And yet, as soon as I took time to process out loud what I was feeling, there it was. The metaphor of being in the middle of a marathon that I hadn’t trained for.
Now that I think back on that metaphor, I think what I was trying to tell my therapist was that I was emotionally exhausted. I wasn’t ready for all the arguing I was about to witness between my parents as they tried to settle the divorce. I wasn’t ready for the burden of having to tread lightly around both of them, being careful not to bring up the other person’s name, or God forbid, that I had shared a pleasant moment with one of them the other day. I was tired of them both looking to me to comfort them during their pain and having to choose between which one I would sympathize with.
At 20 years old I had little-to-no experience processing my emotions in that level of direct honesty. As I tried to share my experience with my therapist that day the only way I felt comfortable doing it was through the metaphor of being in a marathon I hadn’t trained for. And as soon as I gave voice to that thought I instantly felt a sense of relief. Something that I had been feeling for a few months was now being described to another person. As my therapist nodded back at me with a look of compassion, I felt understood, seen.
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One of the fascinating things about the mind is how afraid it can be of knowing itself at times. At an early age we erect psychological defenses meant to prevent ourselves from accepting certain realities about who we are and how we experience the world. Sometimes, when we are in pain, one of the hardest things to do is admit that we are hurting. Metaphor is one way to dip our toe in the pool of reality and face something that we may have been putting off for some time.
For thousands of years poets, song writers, and artists of all kinds have used metaphor to share with the world something profound about what it means to be human. At its best, metaphor offers the ability to speak of an experience in a detached way so I can tolerate the emotions associated with the message. The intolerable suddenly becomes bearable and, at time, the indescribable becomes visible to others.