Embracing emotions.....

As I get further in my therapy I find that the walls I have spent years building are coming down and it is terrifying. When I was a kid growing up I was overly emotional. Most people who witnessed this display had no idea what I was going through at home or what was happening in my life. My feelings would get hurt really easily. I was very raw emotionally and fragile....for good reason....but as a kid you don't really examine that in your fellow kids. So I got teased A LOT for crying when I was sad or my feelings were hurt among other things. No one helped me, teachers wouldn't lift a finger....they just let everything run it's course. So I would cry, kids would tease, and I would go home and cry some more because people were so mean and hurtful. I felt powerless. They call it bullying now. Back in those days it was considered kids being kids I guess. Teachers were indifferent. But hey, I got through it eventually. I didn't make a habit of crying in public as I got older of course. When I was with my now ex-husband he would be incredibly cruel to me and yes I would cry. I would cry a lot. In public when he would say hurtful things to me I would tear up but I struggled to never cry. Anyone in that situation would want to cry. The things that were said and done were wrong, incredibly hurtful. I am a human being with feelings so naturally when I was hurt I would cry. But I was working on developing a thick skin, even then.

When things went south for the last time with my husband and the pain was beyond anything I could handle I started building a wall. I reinforced that wall with brick, mortar, steel, and a force field miles away from my heart. Building a wall protects your heart but it also insulates it from all of the good things. The joy of life. The only hurt I allowed myself was the death of my parents. There was no way to keep that pain out. Nor could I keep hurt and pain out when my kids were hurting. Once upon a time I would get emotional at sad movies or really sweet happy endings. With the walls I built that became a thing of the past. I found myself unable to feel much of the empathy that I had always felt for others.

Therapy has changed that and it scares the hell out of me. I think I started changing even before I started therapy, but therapy has opened the floodgates. I try to remember that it is OK to cry, it is OK to "feel" things. I find myself getting emotional watching movies now and it has been a really long time since I have felt this way. My ex-fiance would try to get me to cry when I was upset and all that did was make me dig in my heals and refuse to cry. Crying for me meant weakness, vulnerability. When I was in elementary school it meant teasing and bullying. When I was married it meant being vulnerable to a sadist who loved to make me cry. So to do this now is VERY scary to me. I don't know how to control it which is particularly scary for me. 


Soon I will be going back to work and then I will have to learn how to control it in a hurry. It is a bad job to have in this condition. I don't know what these long forgotten emotions will mean for my life. I do know that I am not enjoying being hurt and I have been feeling hurt recently by silly little things that I should just let go. But it is making me aware that the feelings and emotions are coming back into my life. I don't know what to do with them right now. I know that I need to "feel" because without feeling sadness or empathy I can't feel love and joy. I am trying to have a new resolve in my life as well. I am resolved to live and not care what others think of me. I have to be true to myself and remember to let some things go, even though it is hard and the pain is still there. Is this forgiveness I wonder? I don't know. But I know that I don't have many years left on this earth and I don't want to waste them in sorrow and pain. I want my love of life back. 


When I was growing up I always put on a happy face and people mistook that happy face for being happy. I learned that from my mother. But I was very unhappy, as was she.  I don't want to "put on" a happy face. I want to be happy and have my face show it naturally! So I think that I shall make that my "new years resolution". To be happy inside and out. Embrace emotions. To cry when I am sad and laugh when I am happy. To just be me, for better or worse. It may not garner me a lot of friends, but the friends I have will know me and appreciate me for who I am whether I am happy or sad, joyous or mad. At heart I am a good person whether some people think so or not, accept it or not, it is the truth and I will no longer let others deter me from it.