This Emotion Explains Why It's Difficult to Talk About My Family's History of Suicide

themighty.com:

I just finished Dr. Brené Brown’s latest book, “Atlas of the Heart,” where she tackles emotions and, with the help of her research team, breaks them down into definitions to help us understand how related ones are similar and where they differ slightly from one another.

One of the emotions she explains is pity. She writes that “pity is the near enemy of compassion.” She borrows from Jack Kornfield, who writes that pity is when someone sees themselves “as different from ourselves. [that] It sets up a separation between ourselves and others, with a sense of distance and remoteness from the suffering of others that is affirming and gratifying to the self.” It wasn’t until I read these words that I was finally able to put my finger on why it can be so difficult to self-disclose to others I have two suicides in my family.

I don’t want to be pitied. And I’ve seen that look before. I felt that, that panicked, awkward silence. Where the eyes get darty because people are so uncomfortable with what you had just told them. (Possible inner monologue: holy fuck, you have not, one but two suicides?