Open Emotion

Showing my emotions has always been something that has been hard for me. It's not that I'm not an emotional person - quite the opposite, really - but there are very few people in this world who get to see me display them. There have been times when I have felt hopeless and still sent that "I'm fine" text, smiley face emoji and all; there have been times when tears have been streaming down my face and I told people I didn't want to be a bother and would rather deal with the pain on my own; there have been times when I would even lie to my therapist and say I was doing great when in reality I cried myself to sleep every night. I would classify myself as the "suffer-in-silence" type, because I would much rather feel the weight of the world on only my shoulders than burden someone else by putting some of it on theirs. But the thing is, the longer I spent living my life this way, the more I realized it was hurting me extra to keep it all in.

At first, I wasn't sure what drove me to keep my emotions hidden inside, locked away. I originally thought it was out of fear of being judged or viewed as weak, but the deeper I looked inside myself, I found out that wasn't the case. The real reason I didn't open up to others was because I was afraid of bothering them; I didn't want them to leave or pull away due to me dumping my feelings on them and appearing too needy.

I also held back from opening up because, like the majority of humans, I had learned how to distract myself from the pain and avoid it rather than come to terms with it and accept it. However, what people don't know when doing this is that it can actually lead to destructive or harmful outlets, which is why holding everything in actually hurts worse in the long run. Whether the pain comes out in an extreme breakdown sitting in the Taco Bell parking lot at four in the morning or in a bout of violence that has you throwing things across the room, it will hit you. You have to face what you're going through sooner or later, and that's something I had to learn.

A big problem with people distracting themselves from pain rather than accepting it (other than the obvious avoidance issue) is that sometimes it results in not wanting to handle other peoples' emotions, either. Have you ever heard of someone who doesn't like when others show emotion? A perfect example is how some people don't like when others cry. Crying is a natural reaction to pain, whether the hurting is physical or emotional. Yet, there are some people who get angry when others cry, and there are more of those people out there than you think. Remember my ex from a previous post ("Introductory Self"), Josie? I was never allowed to cry in front of her. It didn't matter if I was crying over her or something else; if I showed that level of emotion, she viewed it as a guilt tactic and just got angry with me.

Josie is ironically a key part of this story. You see, when I met Josie, I was in a pretty good place when it came to opening up to people. I would actually even open up to her a lot when we first started talking, and I never felt judged or viewed as weak or anything like that when I was having a hard time. She was very comforting and always there when I needed her. This helped me even further with allowing myself to let others in. It showed me that it wasn't as scary as I thought it was and that nothing bad was going to happen. It taught me that people were going to be there for me if I ever came to them for help.

Now, fast forward a few months. I still remember the sting I felt that first time she snapped, "Are you really going to start crying right now?" when tears welled up in my eyes in the middle of a fight. It was the most condescending tone I had ever heard her use, and it startled me. I saw her in a completely new light in that moment, and she looked like a stranger. That was the first of many comments such as that one, and whenever she even assumed I was about to shed a tear, it would spur on her anger. The person who drilled it into me that it was okay to open up and show emotion was now taking all of that back. And I didn't know what to do.

Suddenly, my mind reverted back to the idea that showing emotion was bad. That it was a burden. That it made me a burden. I once again refrained from opening up to anyone - not just Josie - because I was too afraid to be shut down or reprimanded like when I tried to open up to her. This happened for the remainder of our relationship: I would bring up how I was feeling (resorting to only bringing up my emotions when it pertained to something she was doing that made me uncomfortable), she would get mad, I would end up apologizing. My feelings were never acknowledged, and what that translated to in my mind was that they didn't matter.

This mindset stayed with me after the breakup. I almost felt guilty talking to people about the pain I was in, and it scared me every time. I was so afraid of the outcome, my mind thinking up the worst possible scenarios. I apologized endlessly for confiding in people, and I still do. I am still afraid of being a burden when in reality, we all need someone to talk to every once in a while, and in times of extreme pain, we may need to confide in people a little more than usual. This is normal, and that is something that I am working on accepting.

The first person I opened up to after Josie and I split asked me something that will stay with me forever: "If our situations were reversed and I was coming to you for help right now, would that bother you?" Upon my "No, of course not," she continued with, "Then why do you think it's bothering me?" I couldn't come up with an answer.

Society views emotional people as weak. There are so many clichés of keeping up a brave face in front of people, acting unaffected, only crying when you're alone behind closed doors. But accepting how you are feeling is not weak; in fact, it's the strongest thing I can think of. Letting yourself feel all of that pain, and on top of that, allowing someone else to see you in such a state. This is something I am still working on, and after my setback I have quite a ways to go, but there is one thing that I repeat to myself whenever I feel bad about needing to lean on someone else: "Having open emotion is not weak, it is strong."