Well Hello!
I’ve just finished reading Harry Wales’ (aka Prince Harry’s) biography Spare as a study in psychology and just an overall interesting read. I’ve said before how much I love biographies because I absolutely find truth is stranger and more intriguing than fiction much of the time. Plus I thrive on hearing people’s life stories.
What struck me first, before even opening the cover of the book was how the title Spare is so very angry and hurt. Spare is a powerfully loaded word when combined with Harry’s face close up on the cover, and apart from Harry’s life-long outrage at being openly cast as the ‘spare’ opposite his older brother William the ‘heir,’ I also read into it the colloquial term ‘Going Spare’, meaning going berserk, being wildly angry or enraged.
Here’s what I mean from Urban Dictionary if you’re not familiar with the term:
Going Spare = To get out of control with anger, rage, or frustration.
To go berserk.This is a British expression that was in use before World War II, probably from spare meaning "excess."
Harry’s biography left me feeling very clear about just how traumatised and angry he remains, quite understandably, with his history. Losing your mum as a child impacts life so very intensely and unavoidably and plays a formative role in personality. Grief hiding in plain sight, has been a defining feature of his, and William’s, entire lives.
Add to that, for Harry, active war service, and we have a recipe for deep psychological trauma and compounded grief. Harry expresses some awareness of just how stuck in those emotions he has been for most of his life, without realising until more recent years.
As a psychologist, I can’t help hypothesising that Harry’s leaving his family under the dramatic, confused and angry circumstances he describes in his book, comes directly from years of built up desperate grief-stricken outrage. It was always going to blow at some point, like a grumbling volcano.
If Meghan and Harry had not left in a cloud of rage and misunderstanding over the issues Harry cites in his book, being the cloak and dagger relationship between the press, the Royals and the courtiers, they would have left over something else. I feel sure of that.
Harry was, and I think still is stuck to some degree in his rage, grief and outrage, although perhaps taking the lid of silence off that boiling pot has released some of the pressure. It seems there’s a long way yet to go. I wish him well.
That brings me to our reader letter for this week, which is of course about feeling stuck.
I’m going out on a generalisation limb here, but I believe that like for Harry, getting stuck often happens because of anger held down. Often we feel bored or lost or demotivated because something is pissing us off. Then, either we don’t realise or we don’t want to know about the anger, maybe don’t know how to feel it without fearing it. So we keep it down. avoid it, and the price is that we gradually end up numbing out to everything.
Then we may feel depressed without understanding why, anxious about everything but unsure why, panicky without a good reason or just flat, blank, shutoff, full of ennuie. Stuck….and going spare somewhere deep inside.
Here’s this week’s reader question:
Dear Deb,
I have times when I’m so flat and feeling so disinterested in everything that I just can’t be bothered. It really frustrates me because I’m ashamed of how lazy I get when I have so much to do.
I don’t have specific things to be down about right now. I have a great partner and family and I like my job, don’t love it, but it pays the bills. I don’t understand why I’m losing interest in things. I’ve been to the GP and we’ve agreed I don’t seem to be depressed, just bored and flat.
Any ideas?
Dear You,
I feel you. And yes, I have some ideas.
If you were face to face in therapy with me we would commence gently excavating your story to look for gems of wisdom about what’s led you to this particular place right now. We’d look at whether this was a briefer, glitchy kind of stuck or something deeper and larger, like Harry’s stuck.
We are not in that position however, so let’s go with the more general, practical level of the work which is very useful and important for everyone in its own right.
Experience has taught me that sometimes getting stuck is a normal part of life - there are moments of progress, moments of feeling lost, moments of inspiration and times of stuck. It's realistic to learn to roll with it all, knowing that your emotional and physical energy will fluctuate.
The need for deeper work is indicated if you feel stuck for long periods time and if the feeling is having an impact on your functioning. It’s always good to get a professional opinion, as you have, if you’re unsure.
Here are some of my coolest getting unstuck ideas for when inspiration is not flowing, when words won't come, ideas feel dull, or you feel restless, flat, and stuck.However for deeper kinds of long-term stuck, my suggestions work best in combination with personal, more tailored therapeutic work.
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