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The Broke College Grad Diaries - Part 4

I Feel Uncomfortable

By Derek EversPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Lately I’ve likened myself to the fall trees that surround my apartment. In the past couple of months, I’ve lost my leaves and now I’m bare, showing people my true self – trying to at least. As you can imagine, making yourself vulnerable can be kind of uncomfortable and scary. But what I’ve learned, and hope to teach you, is that you should seek that uncomfortable feeling, not run away from it.

If I sound like a broken record from saying that I’ve been having a hard week for weeks now, I apologize, but this year has been full of its challenges for practically everyone at this point. And having to face so many hard moments has shown me the importance of allowing myself to experience emotion.

This may sound strange, but in college I taught myself to not feel emotions. It was like one day I flipped a switch and boom, no more emotion. I think I was too scared to face myself and start accepting my sexuality. It seemed easier to just ignore it.

Let me tell you, once I came out to my family and friends, it was like I released a flood gate of emotions and I was crazy overwhelmed with them which was very anxiety inducing at first. After coming out I could see that I had been bottling up much more than fear and anxiety related to my sexuality and that I had really hurt my mental health.

I was uncomfortable experiencing the emotions I had suppressed for so long and I didn’t even know where some of them originated from. Was I sad about being single? Or about being unemployed? Or about keeping myself a secret for so long?

2020 has been quite the opposite of that experience. I swear, I’ve done nothing but feel emotional this year! There were certainly moments where I wanted to shut down like when my brother passed, or when I was frustrated with working somewhere that treated me unfairly. I thought, maybe if I just keep pushing, that I’ll end up okay. But these feeling were signs that something needed to change.

Truth is emotions are always trying to tell us something, trying to guide us to where we want to be in life. If I hadn’t listened to my heart and kept my job, I’d still be getting treated like crap, I’d still be depressed and angry, and I wouldn’t be writing and trying my best to live a life I’m happy with. Allowing myself to peel back the layers and ask, “why do you feel this way” and “what life do you want to live” is the best thing I could’ve done to help me.

Emotions are difficult and hard, especially when you fight feeling them. But I challenge you, the next time you feel upset or angry, instead of immediately reacting or pretending that it doesn’t affect you, just sit with those emotions and let the uncomfortableness in. Think to yourself, “what is this situation trying to teach me” or “how am I going to grow from this”. I now know that if I had let those uncomfortable emotions in, I wouldn’t have waited so long to become the person I am today; but I’m grateful to be here now.

If you enjoyed what you read, then please share, leave a like or a tip, or check out some of my other writing by clicking on my profile icon. Thank you for your support, I truly appreciate it!

Follow me on Instagram or Twitter - @doitlikederk

healing
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About the Creator

Derek Evers

Hello! I'm Derek, a writer based in Portland, OR. Author of short stories, poetry, and blog posts about the things that interest me. Be kind to yourself and others, always.

IG: deverswriting

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