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There are few things that feel as agonizingly in opposition than saying “I’m good” while my insides are actually churning like a boiling cauldron.

Like many of us, I’ve become an expert at this stock response. In a culture of toxic positivity, feeling our pain is not particularly valued and sharing it even less so. We are encouraged to “stay positive,” “get through it,” “focus on the good.”

On the heels of the catalyst for my most recent meltdown—a fling (for lack of a better description) that had run its course, I struggled with the myriad of unforeseen emotions that bubbled up, letting regret and disappointment spill over the rim of said cauldron, like overcooked rice I had accidentally turned my back on for too long. Flingy things didn’t qualify for emotional mayhem, I thought. But my overflowing pot said otherwise.

I carried it with me from place to place over the span of several days. From home to work to training to dinner. It was a lot of what-ifs, whys, and wondering to haul around. It was analyzing body language, reading into words, and replaying things in my head.

“I’m glad you called. There’s been something on my mind too.” We almost could have left it there; the rest was inevitable. But we didn’t, so I put the remainder of it on repeat in my memory. Were his arms crossed? Where were his eyes looking? Was he flirting with that other girl the day before? Maybe…

I was sad that something I knew wasn’t going anywhere in the first place had ended. In the throes of a moral hangover, I mistakenly opened up about this and answered honestly when a friend asked me how I was.

I received this common advice in response:

“It happens. Get over it. Move on.”

Is saying “move on” supposed to be helpful? I’m not sure, but I can tell you what I do think it is:

Shaming.

Belittling.

A one-way ticket to a future meltdown aka delayed grieving (this is where I was at by the way).

I was running through emotions like a sat-on remote, causing channels of discomfort to flip at seizure-inducing speed, and I was expected to just move on? To top it off, I now felt ashamed for experiencing those emotions.

“You know, a lot of what’s coming up could be sentiments you never let yourself feel about other past relationships,” a confidante more appropriately evolved to lend an ear suggested. “It takes time for the chaos to settle. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s okay.”

One day back in the sixth grade, I turned around in homeroom to see a classmate with tears in his eyes as a bunch of stone-hearted 11-year-olds cackled all around him. In presenting his school project, they had noticed that his hand-drawn Italian flag was colored with green, white, and what was supposed to be red but turned out an unmistakable, resounding orange. The petty laughter at his expense was enough to make him break.

Once the tears started flowing, the lack of sensitivity increased. “Oh my gosh, are you crying? Herb!” (Herb, pronounced like the name versus the dinner accompaniment, was a true insult back in those days.)

When the teacher noticed, he stopped the class and told us something poignant. “You know, if you feel pain, no one can tell you that it isn’t so. It’s real and you are allowed to feel it.”

I was floored. Feeling hurt was valid? We didn’t have to pretend we were good if we weren’t? Being upset over something most would consider trivial was allowed?

Not feeling our feelings is akin to a colon not emptying out. Crass, but a necessarily strong image. The toxic positivity used to cast our feelings aside is “dysfunctional emotional management without the full acknowledgment of negative emotions.” Thank you, Wikipedia.

My teacher’s words emerged from a dusty corner of my brain when it was suggested that old issues could be coming up due to the recent shift in my flingy relationship. Through the pressures of adulthood, I’ve shamed myself many times into moving on when I thought I shouldn’t be experiencing pain that wasn’t “valid enough” to spend time and energy dealing with.

If we keep ingesting, ingesting, ingesting, but never digesting in order for things to pass and make space for the new, something will eventually have to give.

Ingesting relationships that don’t work out.

Ingesting using the wrong-colored marker for a flag in a school project.

Ingesting spilled coffee on a white shirt.

Ingesting jobs we don’t like.

Ingesting perceived failures.

I don’t think there are necessarily parameters for what qualifies as worthy enough to process.

So, yes, I will have to digest even a fling I knew wasn’t to go anywhere anyway.

I will shed a tear.

I will get annoyed.

I will sit on my yoga mat inhaling for four and exhaling for eight counts for however long it takes my breath to even out.

“I didn’t expect it to result in such inner turmoil,” I confessed.

“We never expect that,” my confidante-slash-therapist-by-default responded.

“Maybe better tomorrow,” I hopefully suggested.

“Yes, maybe.” She paused. “Maybe not.”

“Yea, maybe not,” I nodded.

And that’s okay.

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