Emotions are a tricky thing, at
least for me they are anyway. Considering the way that I was raised it’s not
very shocking, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I have always known that I am
a very emotional person, but only in the comfort of my own home by myself. I’m
very factual and situational. Even when talking to my best friends about a
situation that hurt me I can recount a situation verbatim and give all of the
details of the back and forth. Of course however, I leave out the part about me
crawling in to bed and crying myself to sleep. Crying is weakness and emotion
is useless was the broken record in my home from the time I was born till my
parents divorce. So now that I am working hard in therapy to change all of
this, it is now the most frustrating thing I have ever dealt with.
In EMDR I have been working on
trying to emote and being able to admit to all of the different forms of abuse
that I have suffered in my life. Something that I always shrug off and label as
“normal” because it has been all I have ever known. One of the hardest that I
can’t wrap my head around, happened in kindergarten. As a child I had severe
anxiety as well as separation anxiety pertaining to my parents. If I couldn’t
see them in ballet class I would freak out, starting school and being away from
them was a nightmare. I cried every single day I’m pretty sure for the entirety
of the year.
To my dad this was unacceptable.
There was no crying in baseball, or kindergarten in my situation. Tears were
the outcome of blood and or broken bones. The term “ill give you a reason to
cry” was used often. The threats began shortly after the year started. He would
ask the teacher everyday if I cried and if I did was to be whipped when I got
home. We lived by my school so we would often walk home and I remember trying
so hard to keep my five year old self from crying because I didn’t want to be
hit even more than I was about to be. My entire childhood my dad used a belt to
erase any form of emotion that he didn’t like or didn’t approve of.
To me this was normal a punishment
I deserved for being weak, for seeking attention, for not being a self
sufficient five year old like all other five year olds are. I remember walking
around target seeing a child cry and thinking what a weak little human, while
also wondering why their cries were met with hugs and not belts. This seemed so
completely upside down to me.
This with all of the other abuse
that I have dealt with in my life I have always chalked it up to something that
I did. My inherent flaw of not being good enough, being needy, being weak. Is
something you deserve really abuse? No. Not in my unhealthy mind at least. That
is why now that I am trying to change all of this. A lot of times it is so
incredibly hard to wrap my head around. Literally the only thing that has
helped me has been to think of someone doing to my future child what was done
to me. When I think about it I feel angry. Which for me is my go to emotion.
Someone hurts me I’m angry.
When I actually let myself start to
feel those things I start to freak out as if it is never going to stop. I
already deal with depression so why would I do that to myself. Well I know from
experience that it usually gets worse before it gets better. When I think about
all of the things that my emotion or lack there of has kept me from I just want
to kick it in the face. In high school people thought I was mean or stuck up
because of the lack of emotion on my face, I’ve been put on tissue restriction
in treatment more times than I can count, not to mention what I know I am
missing out on in relationships by not being able to do this.
The times in treatment that I have
actually been able to fully open up and be vulnerable with my peers have been
some of the most enlightening and blessed moments of my life and I can’t wait
to experience this in my current friendships with some of the most amazing
people I have ever met in my life. This is why I go week after week to therapy
and EMDR. Why I deal with the depression that comes after, and the slips in my
eating disorder that happens on a regular basis because that is my go to. Why I
challenge myself to let myself cry at the end of breaking dawn part two every time
I see it! Most of all to allow myself to be completely open with the one person
besides my mom who loves me unconditionally, who gets me, who allows me to be
me flaws and all my husband. Its scary but its worth it.
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