emotion is bad

This is what came out of my Life Coaching session today.  This is how I’ve been living my life up until now.  This is how I was taught to be.  This is what I believe.

 

I hate bringing up the past for fear that I sound like I’m blaming someone or something for the way that I am now, but in this instance, I think it has a significant bearing. In simple terms, I was raised by a mother who doled out severe repercussions for having emotions.  Growing up, I cannot recall an instance of being hugged or consoled when I was upset, nor was I ever asked what may be upsetting me. Instead, any tears or sad faces were met with yelling from my mother demanding that I smile and be happy. 

 

So, I developed a coping mechanism: to smile and be happy on the outside (but not too much because that would arouse suspicion) and keep any negative emotions and feelings tucked away.  And that strategy seemed to work throughout my childhood.  I compromised the person I was or could have been in order to satiate my mother’s constant bad mood and mood swings.

 

But this strategy didn’t work so well for me in the real world when I started coming into adulthood.  It didn’t work with other people.  It kept me from developing deep relationships with people, kept me from talking about myself, kept me from connecting with people, kept me from experiencing life fully. I didn’t know how to handle all the emotions that come with growing up, with change, with the adult decisions that I had to make and how to be in adult relationships.

 

Suddenly, what had once proved to be an effective coping mechanism was about to burst – everything I had so skillfully masked was about to be exposed for all to see and that was not something I was ready or capable of dealing with at the time.
 

Hello eating disorder. You saved me from emotional catastrophe.  For over six years you kept me focused and unfeeling.  I had you to tend to during my every waking moment which freed me to continue to bury anything that resembled emotion.  Even the good stuff (in time it became difficult to even distinguish good feelings from negative ones). 

 

I have been recovered from my eating disorder for a long time now, but I’m still going through life unaffected, or trying to be.

 

So, I’m sitting there in my Life Coaching session today reluctant to fully participate for fear of this or that, you know how it goes.  It took everything in me to share with my life coach that I believe that I was raised to not show emotion.  Now I’m at the point where even if I did try to express it, I fear that it wouldn’t come out genuinely.  I don’t know how to let myself do that.  Not only did I reveal this information, but along with the revelation came tears.  Here I was, doing exactly what I have been taught not to do.

 

And now I don’t know what to do with this newfound insight.  It’s like there is this gigantic, messy clump of emotion sitting beside me staring at me and willing me to look at it, however, I’m reluctant to make eye contact with it. 

 

Okay, yeah I KNOW you’re there.  You’ve been there all along, but today is the first time I’ve been able to become acquainted with you.  Just give me sometime to let this sink in before I deal with you head-on.  I’ve let you get so big and unmanageable that, right now, you look very scary to me. 

Comments

[krista]

Bozena- I love you so deeply. This is the bestest drawing ever to go with your post. And I am really wanting to tell you how proud I am of you and how far you've come and all the growing I have seen in you, but I don't want to sound maternalistic or something... But, it's true- I am proud of you, and I love you. You're such an amazing person and friend.

[andrea]

I know exactly what you mean...My DAD taught me emotions were bad. He constantly told me that I'm over-sensitive. I have just recently cut him off from my life for a year in order to be mad at him for a time. I have never allowed myself to think that what he was doing was abusive...but in fact it is. So I decided I get to be mad. It's abusive for people to deny you your emotions. I currently have TREMENDOUS fear communicating with men I'm dating or in relationships with, because I'm afraid that I'll be perceived as drama, or "emotional". It's god-awful but in this seminar I'm taking, I've realized, I want to be with someone that can take the bad with the good...and will let me spew out all the fear and anger i have about situations and sort through them with me like an adult...not force me to suppress who i am. I refuse to date my father...

good luck with your emotional spewing...it'll come out a lot at first and then balance itself out...don't worry