One thing that everyone who lives long enough eventually finds out, is that no matter whom you are or what you do, SHEGE will find you, and show you! Way back when we were kids, playing around and living a carefree life without an inkling of what life could be, we would often extend our palms, opening and flexing all five fingers and shout ‘waka’ or ‘shege’ as a form of insult when we were upset with each other. If we only knew then what we know now, we would probably have never said it, or, apologized just afterwards, in the event said Shege did occur.
Now you may ask, what is Shege? In my view, Shege is unforeseen pain. That out-of-the-blue pain that knocks you down and can take you out completely. For starters, not all Sheges are the same. Similar to the Andersen’s fairy tale with Big and Little Claus, there’s also a Big and Little Shege.
And, just like the story, it could be said that while Little Shege rides a horse called Minor-Hassle, i.e., while unexpected and painful, it is not out of the ordinary, and like a flat tyre, involves some inconveniences before one continues life as before. Big Shege on the other hand rides the 4 horses of Unexpected, Intense, Mind-numbing and Earth-shattering (you get the point). To wit, Little Shege’s pain is instant, but you can get over it over a moderate amount of time. Big Shege on the other hand, reaches deep within your soul and rips the foundation of your being to pieces, takes a piss on the tattered remains and says, have fun!
Big Shege is loss. Losing a parent, a child, a close friend, a sibling, and more. The loss of a cherished relationship that meant everything to you. It is losing something that defines your self-worth, your identity, or your self-image. Big Shege is the stuff severe trauma is made of. One moment, life is moving along just fine and then just like that, everything changes. When this happens, the more rational individuals among us try to cling to maxims and other wise sayings, just to stay sane. One of my favorites of such maxims is by Erkhart Tolle who says, ‘We are not our feelings, we are just the awareness of our feelings’. It sounds really deep and edifying, however once you are in the moment, Shege will make you refute that line with every fiber of your being!
To be human is to feel pain, and sometimes to feel pain is to feel intense pain. Unsurprisingly, even with Big Shege, there are levels such Mild-Shege, Premium-Shege and my fave, Shege-ProMax! Thus, one man’s Shege might be a car accident with instantly ghastly injuries, while another’s Shege may be insidious like cancer, rotting him out slowly yet determinedly. From our human viewpoint, it can almost seem that one’s guardian angels are taking turns standing beside a Wheel of Misfortune and spinning it to see where it lands for each of us.
However it goes, Big Shege is life-redefining, and you can come to mark your life on before and after the trauma, like we mark the Christian calendar with BC and AD, or in this case BS and AS.
Optimistically, one can experience Big Shege, feel all the feels, go through the entire gamut of shattering emotions, and eventually find out that maybe Big Shege was that hammer that was needed to crack the cocoon that was limiting us from the type of growth that is painful but sometimes necessary. That said, it could also be completely meaningless with no moral value whatsoever. Either way, it forces upon us an unrequested wisdom, that “Life is not what we expect it to be, and that sometimes, a lot of sh*t can happen to undeserving people, and yet… we move”. An unwanted and unwelcome emotional evolution. Thanks for nothing, Fate!
The immediate post-shege event is usually a mix of calm denial followed by some form of PTSD. Shege-flashbacks can be so intense that they can expunge your lungs of air. The overwhelming force of it all can get you into a panic which you become helpless to. And yet, on and on it goes; waves of rising calm followed by the depths of despair, like some cosmic game of misery-peekaboo.
In some cases, some people never recover from Shege. Their pain is just too much, and they become consumed by it, sometimes fatally. Others get so attuned to the pain, becoming somewhat addicted to it. Not being able to recover from Shege can lead to either being forever frozen in learned helplessness, or vengeful in resentful bitterness. The victims of Shege can come to own that victim-hood state and thus define themselves by it and it alone. It is that woman who describes herself to shocked strangers at a conference as “The woman whose son died”. It is that man who tires everyone, friends and foes alike as he always segues every conversation to the would-have-been joys of his long-past broken relationship. However long it’s been, every exhortation to begin recovery is countered by the righteous retort, “Don’t you know what happened to MEEEEEE???”
And yet, quite unlike its oft-instantaneous coming, there is no shortcut to recovery. There’s nothing more to do than feel your feels, get the therapy (strongly recommended), and walk your ten steps program or whatever gets you through it. Acknowledging this is hard, especially as we all approach recovery like starting a car with a stalled car engine — we initially keep fitfully trying to restart ourselves to get back to where we were, till at some point, we realize the futility of our efforts and get down to walk. This is because that car, that life, that person that you were, is no longer you.
And yet. It’s not like recovery is a linear effort. It comes in fits and starts. Some days of sunshine are followed by the gloomiest storms. False dawns abound. One man’s recovery method only serves to deepen another’s fog. Even the things that work seem to have their off days. A few passable days are followed by bleak days when the most mundane things like tying shoelaces or going to bed become so burdensome that you would rather sit and marinate in your dark thoughts on the pointlessness of life. Yet, hoping against hope, we persist on the recovery journey, and keep trying new paths and methods, shuffling slowly through the dark pain-addled fog that casts a grey pallor on everything in sight.
The thing is, before recovery can begin, we first need to Accept what happened in all its depth; be Thankful for what was then — what is now — and what yet could be; and finally Trust in our ability to take the steps needed to heal and grow. These can feel counter intuitive at these times; however, they are necessary to give you context and start the critical re-framing process necessary to evolve. As more insights are gained, we slowly but surely begin to exit the maze of grief, one step at a time.
And yet. One day, maybe in the distant future, you slowly realize that you are no longer who you were, but you are now fully who you are. Because suddenly, you can breathe again, with only a memory but no symptoms of that once familiar chest tightness. The grey hue is gone. The intensity of recalling your Shege no longer takes your breath away. You begin to adapt to, and maybe even thrive in your new normal, carrying your scars as reminders of the long walk through the valley of the shadow of Shege.
And yet again. Even in this new state of reawakening, you can still hear in a distant part of your mind, Shege’s voice saying, ‘I’ll see you soon, someday’, to which you must stand tall and bravely reply, “I’ll be here, and just like before, I shall overcome”.
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PS: If you’re one of the lucky ones who can’t relate just yet, since we must all go through Shege, my wish for you is, ‘May your Shege be light.’ And yet, to those who can relate all too well, to those who have seen or are seeing Shege in one intense form or another, going through debilitating physical and mental trauma, may you recover soonest, and come out on the other side; wiser, stronger and calmer. May your Shege pass through you, and not come to define you. SELAH…
