I’ve been thinking a lot about feelings and how I was brought up to not feel anything except angry. When I was sad, hurt, disappointed, too happy, or anything other than angry or numb, it was wrong. Disappointment was particularly unacceptable. I remember an incident where my dad and I were supposed to go to a baseball game one evening. He ended up having an appendicitis and going into the hospital for a week. I was 5 and so, so sad and disappointed about missing the game. I made a lot of immature comments about how he did it on purpose and I was upset. I remember being told that I was being a brat and of course he didn’t get sick on purpose. Looking back I still feel invalidated by what was said to me. I was sad and disappointed, why wasn’t I allowed to just feel that? I was told that I should be worried for my father because he suffered with a lot of pain. Ok great, but I didn’t even know what an appendix was, or why it would hurt anyone.
I think that someone else picked us up from our babysitter’s house and took us to their house for awhile. My mom must’ve come to get us at some point to take us home because I don’t remember sleeping over anywhere. I guess I don’t remember much of anything other than how I felt. I think I remember visiting my dad later on in the week, once he felt better and looked better. I vaguely remember the scar early on.
As a young adult, I felt nothing. I remember sitting in my apartment just numb to everything around me. I think that I learned to just numb out any emotions that weren’t anger because every other emotion was bad. It’s truly amazing to look back at my life as a whole, and seeing how I learned to just not feel anything. But things happened to me and I was being hurt because I did not keep the wrong people out of my life. I was searching for validation, love, and acceptance. The crazy part is that even when I did find some of those things, I would self-destruct and push away anyone who actually cared about me.
It’s only in the last almost 4 years that I learned how to handle being in a relationship with someone who loves me unconditionally, validates me, and gives me the space to be whoever it is that I am. She’s my everything and I would be lost without her. She’s very understanding of how I’m still learning how to feel everything. I sometimes numb out or stop trying to feel because it overwhelms me. How sad that ordinary feelings overwhelm me.
Here’s the craziest part though, my parents didn’t intentionally try to force me to bottle up my feelings. It’s that they’ve also been taught to not acknowledge their feelings. We sometimes have misunderstandings now because because feelings are just too uncomfortable for them. I recently tried to message my dad about hurting my feelings. It turned into this huge thing when all I wanted was an explanation of what he meant when he said something I found hurtful and an apology because it did hurt my feelings. It took a week or so and a bunch of messages and accusations before we finally broke through the misunderstanding. It was simple to me-my feelings were hurt, I wanted to understand what he meant and if he realized that what he said was hurtful. But he went on the defensive first and attacked, instead of really trying to understand that my feelings were hurt and that was what I was trying to make the main point.
I guess if feelings aren’t comfortable for a person by the time they’re in the 70s, it’s very hard to shift into a place where you can get comfortable with any expression of emotions. Especially if you refuse to go to therapy to work your stuff out. I’ve come to understand with my parents that the best thing I can do is accept them where they are, fit them into my life where I won’t be hurt constantly, and continue on my own healing journey. They don’t get to have prime seats in the innermost circle of my life because they can’t handle it. Those seats are reserved for healing people who have proven themselves to be worthy of the up close view of who I really am emotionally. They have proven that I can be vulnerable and honest with them. It’s a very small circle of people, but that’s ok. It’s big enough for me and what I need to be healthy.
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