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Otherwise-ish: the language of emotions
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Message 1.Â
Posted by Morganish (U9108847) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
This is a philosophical enquiry, but probably too heavy for the Bull, so I thought I'd post it here.
I've spent much of the afternoon on the phone with a friend who is in her late 50s and has had what I can only describe as a charmed life. Long and apparently happy marriage, successful and uneventful career, parents hale and hearty, no children and no regrets, no illness, death, destruction or disasters in her life.
In recent months she has been made redundant (huge lump sum after 26 years with the same company) and, having spent more time with her elderly parents, has realised that her father is heading for dementia. She phoned to talk about how upset she feels about it all. That's the word she used throughout our conversation: upset. Upset at her father's decline, upset about being made redundant. Upset that her life has changed rather abruptly.
Now get angry, depressed, miserable, angry, frustrated, furious, scared - but I don't think I've ever described myself as upset. Talking to her, I tried to pin down what 'upset' meant, but we didn't seem to get very far and I found it difficult to empathise with being upset. To me, 'upset' is something you feel when arrangements go wrong or you have a tiff with someone.
Here's the philosophical question I'm asking myself. Do people who manage to get through their lives without great emotional
turmoil, who have never had a loved-one die on them, never suffered through a terrifying illness, never found themselves jobless or homeless... Do such people share an emotional vocabulary with those of us who've had a more turbulent route through life? Is the development of an emotional language part of the process of growing up? Listening to her, I felt at times as if I was dealing with a child who had just discovered that elderly parents go into decline and jobs sometimes aren't for life. Do people with charmed lives live in denial or do they simply not need to develop an emotional vocabulary? Hope this makes sense to someone out there. -
Message 2
Posted by sweet-rocket (U11357111) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Wed, 02 Jun 2010 15:54 GMT, in reply to Morganish in message 1
What an interesting post. A few random thoughts:
One person's heartbreaking situation is another's upset. I've noticed that a lot on these boards - some posters are just emotionally more labile/verbally demonstrative than others.
Also, not having a varied vocabulary doesn't mean the underlying emotions aren't subtly different.
I've certainly not had a charmed life, but I'm not verbally expressive about emotions. It doesn't mean that I don't have strong feelings. I also may not feel strongly about situations that other people would find very difficult and vice versa. -
Message 3
Posted by Babs (U12089863) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Interesting train of thought!
I used to think I had a charmed life. It may not have seemed so to others, but it sure did to me. When that situation changed and life became somewhat difficult, I did develop an emotional language - it's just not polite to use it here!
One expression that another widow used to me, early on, was, "It's just $h!t, isn't it." Which kind of neatly summed it all up...wasn't much else one could say, really.
I don't know about living a charmed life in denial, exactly, more that one would never really need to think about the more $h!t side of life, I suppose. The word "upset" sounds so uptight, buttoned-up...almost as if the lady in question can't bring herself to say exactly how rotten it actually is. -
Message 4
Posted by Morganish (U9108847) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Interesting, Sweet-Rocket. Yes, I understand that what to me is devastating might to someone else not seem particularly troubling and vice versa. And you're right that people express themselves very differently.
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Message 5
Posted by laReine-Astrid (U10636638) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Morganish
I'm also someone who has supposedly lived a "charmed life", but the reality is I just don't talk about the problems a lot. And if I do, it's only to people who I have a great deal of confidence in.
By "upset", I would understand "extremely shaken up".
I think she's opening up to you, because you'll listen to her. -
Message 6
Posted by Fire-Pig - proud to wave the protest banner (U12231213) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Interesting thread Morganish, I think it may come down to her own upbringing and the language used in the home. (although being in her 50s she should have left that far behind!) Being upset may have been the most she was ever allowed to be.
Very different I know, but when my Piglets were tiny, a friend, A, was asked to look after another child, A was childless at the time. I said the easiest thing was to come to our house. I showed A how to change a nappy, and thought I had overseen properly but a while later there was a cry "Ooh - he's been to the lavatory all down his leg"(Not even the soft and smelly just wee). I had to suppress a smile as "going to the lavatory" was what had NOT happened, she obviously did not have the vocabulary to describe the incident at the time. Later she had 2 children so I am sure she learnt!
F-P -
Message 7
Posted by Redbookish (U1335018) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:37 GMT, in reply to Morganish
I'm sorry Morganish, but your question sounds really judgemental to me. I suspect you don't mean it to be, but it sounds like you're making a hierarchy of suffering and the "deserving wounded."
Do people who manage to get through their lives without great emotional
turmoil, who have never had a loved-one die on them, never suffered through a terrifying illness, never found themselves jobless or homeless...Â
How do you know that it's these thing which might cause someone else emotional turmoil? How do you /know/ your friend /hasn't/ suffered emotional turmoil? Just not these events?
I think the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty is food for thought here. She is kept so protected that all her life, nothing hurts or harms her. Until she pricks her finger -- a daily trivial event for some, but look at the catastrophic consequences it has in that story. I think that teaches us something about relativity of suffering. -
Message 8
Posted by Sunny Clouds (U14258963) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
It's funny about words. My parents were very uptight, so they didn't use emotive language. In the army, I learnt angry language but not what I think they might have characterised as girly language.
Then I got very ill and learnt new words, many of them quite clinical, such as emotional labile and having ultradian cycling. Then came the internet. All sorts of wonderful new vocabulary.
I was thinking the other day that the one word I never found an equivalent for is "bouleversé". I suppose literally it is "upset" but somehow that's the wrong flavour. I daresay someone with a better grasp of French than myself will translate it differently, but the point is that for me the word has a particular range of meaning, a particular visual image, a particular flavour.
The reason I mention that is that words have contexts and overtones and associations. The words I use on here are different from the words I use talking to my psychiatrist, and from the words I use on a disability website and from bipolar websites.
The reason I mention bouleversé is that it conveys to me more visually the concept of something physically turned over. If one then translates it as upset, like the proverbial applecart, then someone whose had a very successful life may find the word upset perfect: everything has been upset, overturned, bouleversé.
Then again, a person saying they are upset may simply not want to use more emotive language. -
Message 9
Posted by Kate McLaren etc (U2202067) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:48 GMT, in reply to Sunny Clouds in message 8
There are certain things I can only express in slang. For bouleversé I'd say "knocked sideways" "knocked for six" or something like that, or destroyed, demolished...I have also never found a really good non-slang equivalent of "slag off".
Interestingly I too would never use the word "upset" either for anything of significance. I still remember the sense of incongruence when, after the death by suicide of a colleague and friend, one of my colleagues said "Oh, I'm so upset!" Now this was in about 1980 and I still remember it.
I don't think Morganish is being in the least judgemental. Events lead us to ponder on things, on actions, on words, on ways of doing things and ways of being. That's what she's doing. The event and the person are simply springboards for thought. Or, indeed, philosophy.
I do know one person whose life has been pretty charmed. He's one year younger than I am and just hasn't a clue what it is like for anything significant to go wrong. I discovered that when I tried to explain to him what it is like to have a different sort of life and he genuinely did not get it. I am not being judgemental. I can't imagine what it's like to have a life like his. The difference being that I don't think it would be of particular use to anyone if I could, whereas the reverse is not true. -
Message 10
Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:53 GMT, in reply to Sunny Clouds in message 8
Bouleversé does indeed translate as upset - for me, upset is angry & depressed & miserable & angry & frustrated & scared. Not something minor at all. Bouleversé also has a positive meaning though, of being totally turned inside out by the positive emotions - you can be bouleversé by the birth of your child, for instance.
I learned a very long time ago not to make suppositions from the outside about how charmed a life someone might lead. We never know what goes on behind the façade. I worked for several years in close proximity with someone who didn't want children. We would never have known otherwise if she hadn't suddenly been put on maternity leave because the adoption of a baby had come through. At that point we learned that she had gone through IVF unsuccessfully and several years of waiting for a baby to be adoptable. Had it not happened, we'd have known nothing. -
Message 11
Posted by Morganish (U9108847) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Replying to everyone, including Sunny. Thanks for helping shine a light on things. Red, I had no intention of being judgmental, but that's when it comes out, isn't it! I'm not saying that what she is experiencing may not be devastating or life-changing. It's just the use of the word 'upset'.
I guess my concern, on the phone, was my apparent inability to listen empathetically and it led me to wonder whether it was our lack of a shared vocabulary or our lack of a shared understanding of the sadness of things that was at the root of it. I know that my emotional range was shockingly extended by a couple of devastating events in my 20s and that my relationship with many of my contemporaries changed as a result of me having experienced something they hadn't. I became a different person as a result. If I give an example of the kind of conversation I found myself stuck in this afternoon, perhaps it will make things ever so slightly more clear - or not.
She: 'My father's deteriorated very quickly. He's confused a lot of the time and the other morning he couldn't work out how to tie his shoes. It's upsetting.'
Me: 'That's so sad. I know what a capable man he was. It wasn't that long ago he built that pond in your garden, was it?'
She: 'That's what upsets me.'
Me: 'How's your mother coping? You must be worried about them both.'
She: 'I'm not worrying, but I feel very upset.'
Perhaps she was opening up to me. I don't know. I just found it difficult to feel that I understood what she was really going through. -
Message 12
Posted by Sunny Clouds (U14258963) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Language in context...
Many, many years ago, I was on a miltary exercise. I had spent the night up to my knees in water in a trench and just before dawn, there were bangs and smoke and a lot of marines running towards us. I aimed my machine gun and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.
Not long after, someone senior came to find out why we weren't defending our position.
"My gun's not working, sir"
"Have you tried stoppage drills?"
"Yes, but it's not working, sir."
"Have you checked the ammo is dry?"
"Yes, but it's not working, sir."
This went on for some while until in desperation, I said "Sir, my gun is fXXXed!"
"Why didn't you say so? I'll get you another."
Language has context. In that context, there was only one unladylike word that conveyed the necessary information. In other contexts, different words would have done.
Sometimes, in a world where someone is calm and not overtly emotional, upset is the only word that works. It expresses a difference in emotion levels in a word that the user may find they never usually use and that other people that know them will understand as meaning that this person who never normally expresses emotion is so upset/distressed that they need to express it.
There you go, upset was the word I used first, and I meant it for quite a strong emotional state. -
Message 13
Posted by sweet-rocket (U11357111) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:20 GMT, in reply to Sunny Clouds in message 12
It expresses a difference in emotion levels in a word that the user may find they never usually use and that other people that know them will understand as meaning that this person who never normally expresses emotion is so upset/distressed that they need to express it.Â
Yes, that's something I can certainly identify with. I have been 'trained' to use language quite carefully, and to attempt not to add a lot of emotional baggage to it that can potentially get in the way of clarity. This naturally may spill over into my use of language in my personal life, and could I suppose result in someone thinking I am quite a cold fish.
The thing to bear in mind is that my 'upset' could be the equivalent of someone else's 'at the point of losing it completely'. People who know me well would know this.
It becomes difficult when the two worlds of language collide though - I need to work quite hard to take someone who says they are devastated/broken hearted seriously, but of course they actually might really be at the end of their tether. -
Message 14
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:06 GMT, in reply to Morganish in message 1
My 21 year old son has had,in the last 2 months, a girlfriend diagnosed with breast cancer, a father with life-threatening heart issues, having emergency surgery with a not-brilliant likelihood of success, who luckily survived but is clawing his way back to health, an aunt ( who cared for him as a small child when I'd had an accident that threatened to kill or permanently disable me) dying of ovarian cancer, then girlfriend having mastectomy and coming back-here with him to convalesce.
Talking to him a few weeks ago, I said "It'll give you experience and knowledge. Some people get to my age without ever having had to experience anything like this, and it must be hard for them".
Basically, you get what cards are dealt to you, then play them as best you can, I think.
A thought-provoking post,Morganish; thanks. -
Message 15
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:42 GMT, in reply to Morganish in message 1
Re-reading your OP, yes, Morganish, I remember when doing my first, basic, counselling training, being advised not to articulate someones feelings as being "upset", as that could be interpreted as trivialising them.
I wonder if I said "I felt overturned by her words" instead of "I felt upset by her words" it would be perceived as meaning something different? -
Message 16
Posted by Bearhug (U2258283) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
I think there are separate things here.
Firstly, there is verbal language. Someone might say "upset", but what they might actually mean is "angry" or "heartbroken" or "frustrated" or "let-down" or "betrayed" or whatever else. I would quite possibly say that I felt a bit upset by someone's behaviour, when I actually felt bluddy furious, but I don't often really admit to extremes of emotion to other people, particularly if I don't know them so well. It doesn't mean that I don't feel emotions, just that I am using different words, partly as a way to shield myself from the reactions of others, partly because I might not know them and want to be that open with them - and probably sometimes it's just that we have different understandings of what is meant by "upset" or "angry" or whatever else.
Then there is one's approach to emotions. Some people are simply far more open than others. Just because I don't often express them, particularly to other people, and even more particularly if I don't know them, that doesn't mean I don't feel them. Sometimes, I won't have stopped yet to consider just how I feel, other than it's some form of upset, so I may not have admitted to myself that I am really gutted about something, and I'll be trying to pass it off to others as just a bit upset while I am still working out how I really feel, to avoid some vast overreaction if it's not really so bad as all that, or to avoid losing my grip entirely if it is that bad. Besides which, I was brought up in a family that apparently "doesn't bother with all that emotional weepy, waily rubbish," so I got quite used to hiding emotions, especially if they weren't positive. I didn't cry at either of my parents' funerals, but that doesn't mean I wasn't grieving, or didn't cry at other times. I might phone someone to talk things through, but I'd do so at a time when I would be fairly sure I'd be able to keep control of my emotions, not at the point where I was on the verge of tears all the time.
And beyond all that, we do all react differently to different events. A parent's death may not be as devastating if it comes after months or years of decline and illness rather than if they were fit and die suddenly, partly because you will have had time to get used to the impending death and done some mourning ahead of time in the former case - plus there may be some relief that they're no longer in pain and so on. A job redundancy may be a great opportunity, or it could be the last straw if other circumstances are really difficult.
I'd be surprised if anyone's life really is as charmed as you describe, not from the inside. A lot of people do project a good side to the world. -
Message 17
Posted by Morganish (U9108847) on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
A banquet of food for thought here about different emotional styles and ways of expressing feeling. I see that I am probably someone who tends to use pretty dramatic language to express my feelings and to articulate them in a detailed way and I now understand better that others may have similar feelings and express them quite differently. I will bear this in mind when I next speak to this friend.
Sunny, your army story is brilliant and I get the point. Never knew you were in the army. What a woman you are!
When I wrote of a charmed life, I didn't mean one completely devoid of unhappiness or everyday misery and self-doubt etc. Is it possible to live without those feelings? But as Carrick points out, it can be possible for some people to escape the kind of difficulties that suddenly plunge one up to one's neck in emotional tish and require one to reach for a new dictionary. -
Message 18
Posted by notjenniferaldrich (U8555450) on Thursday, 3rd June 2010
I so agree with those sentiments, E.Yore. We can never know how another person feels about things, and even if we did, our feelings about the same thing would probably be wildly different. There is virtue neither in the so-called "charmed life" nor in the other sort. It all depends in either case how the person responds.
And every charmed life comes to an end sooner or later. We will all be confronted with loss and illness sometime in our lives, so no-one can get away with a charmed life forever.
I always felt a sneaking envy for a colleague whose marriage was happy, husband wealthy, family well-off, daughter absolootly bloomin' perfect, no health problems, no financial worries, lovely house, fabulously clever and good at her job......
Then it all collapsed and we found out what an awful time she'd had. She just didn't talk about it, and even when going through years of turmoil, I never once heard her describe her own emotions. She did talk about what was going on, but never said "I'm devastated" or even "I'm upset". She just valiantly ploughed through the most awful personal and legal battles until it was over. In fact, I think I was the "devastated" one just hearing about it all.
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