Rejection hurts. Of course, so does exercise, and we put up with it anyway if we have any sense.
I've been following along with the EQ stuff, and I've run into a couple of situations where I was hurt by rejection, felt it, admitted it, and still was mostly feeling pretty good. It's kind of like some sore muscles after you exercise... they hurt, but mostly you feel pretty good anyway even with the pain.
Of course I'm still on the antidepressants, so I'm not sure what a full dose of that pain would do to me now. The problem I kept running into before was that overwhelming feelings would hit me practically all the time, leaving me without enough time to "process" them and do anything else on top of that. Maybe I could have dealt with them to the point that they'd show up less often or be less overwhemling, but it never really seemed like a possibility and the sensible, manly thing to do seemed to be to shut them off and get rid of/ignore them. That just made them keep on coming and distracting me and requiring me to spend more of my time hiding from them. So I'm still not sure how I'd deal with them except by medicating them to a more tolerable level. And I'm not in any hurry to find out, unless something life-threatening develops.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
