This week, I read of a young teenager who was severely depressed. Anti-depressants hadn't worked, and in the end she went to a place in the country where people like her were treated. There, she was encouraged to go out into the nearby woods (safely) and scream her pain. It worked. She still takes medication, but she is much better for her screaming.
When my first husband died, the pain was so bad that I felt like screaming, but of course I didn't. Well we don't, do we? During the funeral, I wished we were of a culture where screaming was allowed; even encouraged. Where people throng round a funeral pyre and yell their anguish uninhibitedly. But we all wept quietly. Weeping quietly is acceptable; even expected.
Then, one evening, things came to a head. I think I'd had some trivial disagreement with one of the children about PE kit (or something equally unimportant). I got in the car, and drove a short distance down the road and up a country lane. And I screamed. I screamed and screamed and screamed. I screamed so much and so loudly that I was hoarse for a week afterwards, but it helped. I got some of that anguish out; I was able to vocalise how I felt. Not by the quiet weeping that I'd been doing for the last couple of weeks, but with a full-on explosion of pain.
It's odd that it's fine to scream at a pop concert (provided you're young enough) or in extreme danger, but not when assailed by one of the worse pains of all: bereavement. It's just not British.
It doesn't even feel quite right writing it here; after all, I am British. But I'm going to, anyway....
I have always had an envy for ladies freedom to scream. Men really are not allowed to. I think Gays do a bit. My response to women screaming used to be to head to the pub. That's out these days as women and even worse children are allowed into that once hallowed ground.
ReplyDeleteAdrian, if it's any help I can assure you I've never screamed in a pub.
DeleteWasn't something called Primeval Scream Therapy deveoloped in the late 1960s and 70s? I remember having heard (!) about it as a child/young teenager and found it funny, until someone explained to me that it was serious.
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard of that, Meike. I'll look it up!
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_therapy
ReplyDeleteJohn and Yoko used it in the early 70s. His first solo album contains a lot of it.
Thanks, Tim. That's interesting.
DeleteI agree there are times when screaming should be acceptable. I remember a few weeks after my mum died I sat down in the middle of a field and howled - wasn't quite screaming, but it was cathartic! I just felt I couldn't hold it all in any longer.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Teresa! I'm so glad someone else feels the same. (You never stop missing your mum, do you?)
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