By Jim Hagarty
On the farm, a cat or dog would get hurt, sometimes badly, by getting into a vicious fight or being in the wrong place at the wrong time when some dangerous farm machine was bearing down on them.
If they didn’t die outright, they would sometimes crawl away to some hiding place to get themselves out of the range of predators (thus protecting the pack), and to lick their wounds. There is an agent in the tongues of animals, probably humans too, that has healing powers.
We use the term “licking our wounds” almost every day. I wonder how many people don’t know that it came from a real thing.
A person suffering depression often finds a place to hide away from everyone, including members of his own pack, to lick his wounds and try to heal. They are spiritual, mental, emotional wounds, but dangerous to the health of those who experience them.
The people around someone who is depressed and gone into hiding are alarmed. We believe the solution is to end the isolation, get the depressed one out around people again and he will be alright. I used to think that too.
Now I believe the isolation and withdrawal from the world is a necessary thing and trying to pull a person out of that self-imposed state prematurely is to interfere with the process of licking of the wounds.
The wounds will heal. The person will re-emerge. The best we can do is look on non-judgmentally and with kindness and be there when the isolation ends.
I have licked many a wound in my day.
I have spent my share of time in hiding.
I have had the good fortune to be surrounded by understanding people.
