My grandmother always said to me: “You don’t have to get too much emotion through.” According to her, I had to be able to control them and to live them with a certain detachment, so that I was the subject and not the object of events. A little cold, it is true, and at times selfish, but in this way my grandmother reached 90 years without too many hassles and with a good emotional awareness. I, on the other hand, that with awareness I am still making friends, by the emotions I was not only crossed but, even, paved.
Diana Del Bufalo: “It was as if I lacked air”
An important love story ended a couple of years ago, and while a breakup may at first seem like the end of the world, it wasn’t ultimately a catastrophe. Things that happen: you take each other and then you leave. The real tragedy was, however, the way I dealt with the end of the story. Suffering is normal, they say. But mine was not an acceptable suffering and I felt that something was wrong inside me. The body started giving me signals which I later found to be i typical symptoms of panic attack. It was as if I lacked air, a sense of sudden death that immobilized me. I could not get oxygen into my lungs and I even went so far as to undress so as not to feel that sense of suffocation.
The choice to rely on a specialist
One day I was lying in bed in desperate tears and uttering incomprehensible verses, halfway between a prayer in Aramaic and Laura Pausini’s Solitude. Soup with tears, I picked up the phone and called Mom, because I knew that talking to her would help me calm down. It so happened that at that moment he was in the office of his psychologist for a visit and Susanna, the specialist, hearing my desperation from the phone, said: «Orne ‘, let her come to me and let’s see how to solve it». The next day I swooped in to her and I underwent a session of hypnosis. It was a unique experience: I felt a thousand moods, I collapsed to the ground, I began to tremble, sweat, laugh, cry. During the session I was able, little by little, to talk about what made me feel bad and if you asked me: “Diana, what did you say?”, I would reply that I do not know: zero! However, just got out of there I felt a great sense of liberation, because it was as if I had managed to empty myself of a weight that crushed my chest.
Diana Del Bufalo: “I can’t even put on eyeliner by myself, how can I think of curing my psyche?”
Obviously that was only the first step, the beginning of a path of psychotherapy, which lasted a year and a half and which would lead me to recovery. I want to underline this aspect and a To “cleanse” the psychological intervention of any prejudice or taboo. Unfortunately, in fact, even now many think that going to the psychotherapist is crazy, something to be ashamed of. And it is colossal bullshit: why, if I have a bad knee, I am right to call the orthopedist immediately and instead, if something is wrong in my head, should I ignore the problem or solve it by myself? Well, I can’t even put on eyeliner by myself, how can I think of healing my psyche?
Susanna’s intervention was fundamental for me to get out of that bad period; she gave me the tools necessary to understand the causes of my discomfort, the causes of the anger I had inside; an anger that was no longer linked to the other person (that lasted the time of a tea) but was directed towards myself. With my psychotherapist I analyzed my love story and the way I lived it and it turned out that I suffered from emotional dependence. I existed only in relation to the feeling I felt for my partner and the day was marked by our relationship; a little disagreement between us was enough to alter my mood. It was me who paid for it, because I was never myself and master of my emotions, and the others who were close to me, who suffered indirectly. Like all addictions, even the emotional one is capable of giving you great moments of pleasure, of pure ecstasy, but when it disappears, that is when the person in the relationship moves away, it causes withdrawal crises.
Whoever arrives will not have to “blur” their sight
I was writhing and despairing because I did not have my “dose” of love, of affection. In a year and a half, and with one session a week of psychotherapy, I was able to detoxify myself and understand that I do not need anything, but above all anyone, to feel resolved. I have forgiven myself. I have forgiven my frailty, my inexperience and also my blindness. Because now I look at myself with the eyes of someone who really sees: I have a fantastic family, I do my dream job, I have many friends who love me. I like myself! In short … I have everything I need to be happy and whoever arrives will no longer be able to “blur” my sight.
You don’t go to a psychologist for fear of being judged
I repeat: alone I would never have made it and probably without the support of my psychologist I would still be here to deal with some panic attack or a fit of anger. I am so convinced of the importance of “Normalize” psychological support that I constantly talk about it to my followers on Instagram. What came out of virtual chatter is that a very low percentage of girls, despite feeling the need, have never asked for the help of a psychologist and the most felt discomfort is that of be subject to the judgment of others, especially that of his own family. For me it was a novelty, because I have always had a good relationship with my parents, almost like friends, and I never felt judged. In my small way, I advised these girls to try to be free, to represent the result of their choices and not those of someone else, because we simply do not belong to anyone, not even our parents.
To some of my Roman followers I even sent my analyst’s number and they went there! The funny thing is that after a few days Susanna called me and said to me: “Come on, your followers are the same as you … Sweet, sensitive, practically the same character imprint”. “We annamo well,” I replied amused. After all, whoever looks alike, even on Instagram.