I talked my headache into the phone …

… and it might have come out the other end.

Ooops … 😬

I always thought that when I experienced an unpleasant situation, the best way to deal with it is to talk about it. Yet the other day, regurgitating with a friend what had happened to me, I all of a sudden noticed something: I felt dissatisfaction. Or rather, dissatisfaction with my dissatisfaction.

I guess I better clarify that.

Whenever I talk about an unpleasant experience, I think it is completely normal to feel bad. After all, I have had a bad experience, right?

Wrong.

Talking to my friend I realized: I have already HAD the experience! It was over. Done. Gone.

And yet, here it was again. That bad feeling.

It was here again, because I was talking about it, not because I have had a bad experience.

I felt just as bad as I had been feeling when I was initially confronted with the unpleasant circumstance. In other words, by talking about it, I put myself through the same horrible situation again!

However, the whole reason for sharing my story with a friend had been to feel better. But instead, I felt just as bad. It felt as if the same thing was happening all over again. Unintentionally, I had replicated that which I didn’t like in the first place.

Suffer. Review. Repeat.

Worse yet: I had spread the vibe. I had recreated the odious atmosphere and made my friend experience it as well.

I had talked my headache into the phone. And it came out the other end …

Brigitte Schneider
aka Ms. Alexandra Bell

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