evenifiwantedtwo

[evenifiwantedtwo]

12.15.17

I was given an assignment by my therapist today to explore why I shut my emotions down when they are intense enough to make me cry in front of other people. 

Yesterday I had session with my therapist and it was hard. I had sent her an email the night before telling her I wanted to cry and have a meltdown, but I was tired, so I was going to bed early and avoiding my meltdown. So I told her if she wanted to make me cry during session, I wouldn’t mind it and would actually appreciate it. I’ve never cried in front of her before and I’ve been working with her for over a year and a half. I trust her with my emotions more than I trust anyone else with them. I know that she will keep them safe, protect them, protect me from them, validate them, explore them with me, and not let me get swept away in them while I am with her. I know this and I trust this, just as I know and trust her.

My session yesterday was intense and very emotional. We started off talking about how my body felt, what kinds of emotions I was feeling on the day before session, when I sent her the email about wanting to have a meltdown. I told her I felt very frazzled and I just felt very out of it. She suggested a few words, “unsettled” and “static” and I agreed immediately. I explained that I had had a very busy few days prior, and I was out of my comfort zone for longer than I tend to like to be, which put me out of balance for being mindful of myself and my emotions. We talked about what I was doing the night before, when I sent the email, and I told her I was watching videos on youtube. I had recently found a youtube channel I never was into before, but I was starting to like her and her music. I told her about a song by this youtuber that I had been listening to on repeat, and when I told her about it, she asked to play it. I said we could listen to it, and I could feel a lot of emotion coming up during the song, but I pushed it away and shut it down and tried to bop along to the song to distract. When the song was over, we explored it a bit. What the song meant to me, why I liked the lyrics, why I liked the song itself, etc. I could feel emotions coming up at different times in the conversation, but I always shrugged them away or said  “I don’t know” and shut them down inside me. I started to tell her how I had been feeling a little bit more hopeful recently, as I was trying to do well with my meal plan and my mood and I had a new job starting soon, but that that hopefulness went away rather quickly after having a lot of fear and anxiety about failing at this new job and not having any other plans after it. I explained that I wanted to do really well at this job and I was excited about it, but there was a very real possibility that I was going to crash and burn and repeat the cycle of what hapened at my past job. I explained that my hopelessness was turning into suicidal ideation and I was really relying on this job to save me and give me the things I need to really get better, just like I had done for my past job. My therapist told me that I couldn’t care for a little baby while I was restricting the way I am and I agreed with her, and I can’t remember what I said exactly in response to that, but it wasn’t positive and it probably had something to do with hopelessness or suicide or something. I wasn’t looking at my therapist while I said that, or if I was, I looked away after saying it, but she started to say “your life,” and I looked up because her voice cracked as she said “kait”, and she never calls me Kait. Always Kaitlin. She started tearing up and crying as she repeated again, “your life depends on this.” She clapped her hands together gently as someone does when they’re begging someone for something. I immediately said “oh my god stop, I can’t do this” and covered my face with my hand. Every emotion I wanted to get out, was quickly climbing up to the surface, and of course, I shut it down as quickly as it surfaced. She laughed quickly and paused. She said “I’m here at this emotion right now, and I need you to meet me here.” I can’t remember much about the rest of session honestly, just in bits and pieces. I think I tried very hard to dissociate. I remember her explaining how rarely that this happens to her in session with clients. I remember her telling me that the most caring thing she could do for me is not sit back and watch me kill myself and continue this cycle. I remember talking about willfulness and telling her how badly I wish I could do this. I remember her telling me that she won’t sit back while I continue on this path. I remember the words willing and willful and I remember trying to beg her that this was not willfulness. I remember the fear I felt when she brought up willfulness. I remember the chills I felt as we neared the end of session, how the entire room got incredibly cold, and I couldn’t stop shivering. I remember thinking about how badly I wanted to get these emotions out. I remember wanting to sob to her about everything. I remember the intense effort it took to keep everything in. I remember how blank spaced I was, and how I couldn’t look at her anymore.I remember getting into my car and turning the radio up as loud it could go, to drown out everything i was still trying to drown inside of me. I remember getting to traffic light at the end of the parking lot, and crying to myself alone in the car. I remember how angry I was at myself. I remember how badly my self harm urges were. I remember how much I hated myself for not crying in front of her, with her. I remember feeling very spaced out, and disconnected and only feeling hate and anger within and towards myself.

I still feel anger towards myself. I still hate myself. I feel so incredibly guilty and ashamed and embarrassed and disappointed in myself. I am very angry and upset with myself that I brought my therapist to the emotion, and I left her alone there; I didn’t meet her there when she asked, when I was the one who asked in the first place. I am in a state of disbelief that I asked my therapist to make me cry, and she did everything right to make the emotion come up for me. And I couldn’t do it. It was there and I wanted to let it out. There were years and years worth of tears and sobs waiting, right at the edge of myself wanting so badly to escape and see the light of day. I wanted so badly to express with words and tears and sobs and sighs everything I felt and feel. I wanted so badly to let those things out without hurting myself, for a change. I wanted so badly to let those things out and get them out of me, just to get them out of me. I wanted so badly to let someone in and give them the most vulnerable part of myself. I wanted so badly to lose every bit of control I had of my emotions, if that’s what it took to let them out. I wanted to drown in my tears, and not the pain inside of me anymore. I didn’t want to be alone with my pain anymore. My self-destructive behaviors are not enough anymore, and I was tired of it. I was tired. I am still tired. I’ve been tired for a long time now. I wanted it to be over, and I thought this was the first step. I thought allowing myself to cry to my therapist was my first real step towards being free. It was the only one thing I hadn’t tried yet ever, and I had reached a point that I was ready to try. Everything was there: my emotions, my tears, my sobs, and my therapist. I had no excuses, no threats, nothing. I was safe. My therapist was safe. My tears and sobs and emotions were safe. My therapist was with me in the emotion, and she wanted me to meet her there. I wasn’t going to be alone in it. I knew it, and she made sure I knew it. She wasn’t going to judge me, or reject me, or invalidate me, or anything else harmful or threatening. She would’ve sat back and listened. Patiently, and kindly. She would’ve validated everything I said or sobbed. She would’ve possibly made a joke about me finally letting myself cry to make me crack a smile. If I had cried while she cried, she may have continued to cry with me out of relief or whatever. I would’ve apologized through my tears and sobs and I would’ve tried so hard to stop them, I think. I hate the cliche “if I start to cry, I might never stop”. I understand what it means, and I honestly could consider this a possibility as to why I don’t cry in front of others. With my high intensity of emotions, it takes hours for me to calm down after a simple interaction if my emotions get hightened past a certain intensity. So, maybe, sure, if I allowed myself to really cry to another person, I may continue crying for a very long time. Especially with my therapist and how much I trust her with my emotions, I could very easily start and just continue sobbing to her. Yesterday, it was so easily there for me to do, and she was so willing to be there for it, and to guide me through it, and not leave me alone for it and I was so willing to allow it to happen, I did ask her to make me cry in the first place... yet I continued to shut any emotion down and keep myself from releasing any of that emotion or pain or tears or sobs. 

I’ve never allowed myself to be emotionally vulnerable with anyone. Not even through my childhood or younger adolescence, before I started using self-harm or eating disorder behaviors to express my emotions or cope with them. There was always a block there, for some reason. I never cried to anyone or allowed anyone to see me cry while “coping” with my mother’s addiction, friend or family or romantic drama, or my grandmother passing away. Shortly after my grandmother passed away was when I started self-harming and using ED behaviors, so that’s where the lines really get blurred. & This is where my assignment comes in. My therapist wants me to ask my wise mind, and explore why I shut my emotions down instead of crying in front of anyone.

I have always cried alone. In my car alone, in my house alone, in my room alone. 

I will shut any emotion in front of other people down if it will make me cry. Unless caused by music, movie, or tv show. 

I tend to only cry to my aunt when my emotion gets to a hightened intensity, usually as a result of frustration or anger. 

If my emotion gets hightened and it is a sadness or depression or emotional pain or emotional fear, and I’m with my aunt or anyone else, I shut it down or I dissociate. I call it my default setting. I don’t know any differentor how to stop it. It happens at funerals, meals, therapy sessions, work, high stress situations, and most times when my emotion (that isn’t anger of frustration) gets incredibly hightened. 

I have always been, am, and will always be an angry cryer in front of any and everyone, and I will always be unashamed about this. 

I have and will always cry when I am in physical pain or when I am physically ill in front of any and everyone and I will always be unashamed about this. 

I am supposed to be asking my wise mind to explore this. To explore why when I feel intense emotions, I shut them down to avoid crying in front of others, no matter how much I trust them. I am still incredibly angry at myself for not allowing myself to cry with my therapist when I so badly wanted to. When I am this deeply into my emotion mind, it is hard to access wise mind, but I know what my wise mind would tell me, so I’m going to try and see if I can climb my way through emotion mind and into my wise mind. 

Crying is okay, healthy, and pure. I believe this for every single person on earth, including myself. I believe that crying is a cleansing thing to do for yourself. It is an act of complete surrender and it shows trust, honesty, strength, and vulnerability all at the same time. I always wished I could express my emotions this way, to surrender completely to my tears and allow them to come and go. I always wished I could cry with people who are also crying while I felt the need to cry as well. I have never looked down upon a person for doing this, and I always am moved and inspired when I witness a person cry healithy about their emotions. I also feel jealous when I witness a person cry so openly while experiencing any emotion. I have always felt that there has been something wrong with me emotionally because I have never allowed myself to cry to or with another person. I don’t know if there has ever been a time when I cried to a person about something I felt emotionally, ever, in my life. I don’t know if there has ever been a time where I was invalidated for crying over something I felt emotionally, ever, that could’ve lead me to build this giant wall and swear I would never bring it down. I don’t know if there has ever been a time that I witnessed soemone else cry for something they felt emotionally and get invalidated, rejected, or judged for it, leading me to never want to experience that and swear to never allow myself to cry in front of another person. I don’t have a perfect pin-point memory or reason as to why I never allowed myself to be emotionally vulnerable with another person. I don’t have a memory of something happening in my life and can say “this is when or why I decided to shut every emotion down and not cry in front of others for the rest of my life.” My therapist thinks there is something else going on internally, below the surface, that is blocking me from crying in front of others. She is probably right, and I wish I knew what it was. I wish I had a solid answer for this. I wish I could say “this is why, this is what happened, this is when I decided to shut my emotions down and not cry in front of anyone.” It isn’t that easy, and maybe I do have a memory of this “event” that made me decide that I was going to shut all of my emotions down, and I repressed that memory so far into myself that I can’t even remember it. Or maybe it happened so long ago, and I was so young, that I can’t remember now. I am not lying or avoiding the subject when I say “I don’t know” to this question, to why I decicided however many years ago that I was never going to allow myself to cry in front of others. It is an incredibly exhausting, and lonely, and painful existence to live a life in which I can never share my emotions with another person. Especially when it is the only thing I know that I want. I do not want to live like this forever, and I know that if I truly want to recover, and be a better person, a healthier person, I have to somehow bring this wall down. Break through the block I have made for myself. 

I could pin this on a control issue. I want others to believe that I have complete control of my emotions, whether I do or not, by not crying. Even when it is appropriate to be crying about the situation or emotions felt in that moment. I could pin this on a strength issue. I want to appear strong, and somewhere along my life journey I decided that in order for people to think that I am strong enough was by not crying. I could pin this on my need to be completely available to other people, and I could not be completely available if I was crying and breaking down about the same thing they were. I could pin this on a trust issue. I do not want to allow someone to see the most vulnerable parts of myself for them to just leave me. I could pin this on my fear of abandonment. If a person saw me cry, they might believe that x y z was true about me and they would leave. I could pin this on my need for others to think that I am able to handle myself appropriately, and crying may indicate that I am not able to handle myself. I could pin this on my fear that I need more help than the average person, and I have too much pride or ego or shame to admit it. I could pin this on my need to please others and not upset them, and if they saw I was upset by crying, they would think that whatever they were doing to help me or fix the situation was not enough or to avoid them feeling helpless if they couldn’t help or fix the situation. I could pin this on my need to never allow others to know my heavier emotions to not burden them. I could pin this on my fear that I will drown in my emotion if I express it by crying. I could pin this on my fear that I will hurt others by expressing my emotion through crying. I could pin this on embarrassment or shame of even having or feeling an emotion so strongly that it causes me to cry. I could pin this on my fear of letting go of control of my emotion by releasing it, and not keeping it inside of me. I could pin this on my need to avoid the damage it could cause if I released my emotions. I could pin this on my belief that I deserve to hurt. I could pin this on my belief that I deserve to suffer and drown inside of my pain. I could pin this on my fear that releasing my emotions won’t make them lessen or go away, so I just shut it down to avoid it altogether. I could pin this on my belief that I don’t deserve to feel my emotions because they and/or I don’t matter. I could pin this on my fear that if I felt my emotions, my mental health will get worse because crying was not enough. I could pin this on my fear that if crying was enough, I would feel something other than my pain. I could pin this on my fear that if I cry to another person and allow them to see me at my most vulnerable, they would use it against me or manipulate me or blackmail me with it later. I could pin this on my fear of realizing that my pain is real and valid, even if it is not validated by another person. I could pin this on my fear of being completely alone with my pain still, after crying with another person. I could pin this on my fear that if I start crying to another person, I would not be able to stop and would become or continue to be too much for them. I could pin this on my fear of being a burden or too much or too overdramatic or manipulative or selfish or a drama queen or overreactive if I expressed my emotions by crying. I could pin this on my fear that I would be rejected, or ignored, or invalidated, or judged for expressing my emotions by crying. I could pin this on my fear that it would hurt other people to see me in pain. I could pin this on my fear that I might say something hurtful to someone or about someone by accident that I don’t mean while venting to another person while crying. I could pin this on my fear that I could lose my idea of self-control by not crying by crying. I could pin this on my fear of becoming more like my mother, who cried often and still used drugs and food to cope with her emotions.  I could pin this on my fear of taking advantage of someone else’s support by oversharing or overexpressing my emotions by crying. I could pin this on my need to be the “strong one” while everyone around me battled and struggled and broke down. I could pin this on the complete unknown territory of crying in front of another person. I could pin this on my fear that it will take longer for me to recover if I came face to face with and confronted my pain. I could pin this on my fear that I want to keep up my reputation of being the girl who doesn’t cry or who has never cried or always was the shoulder to cry on. I could pin this on the fear of the decisions I would make if I felt my pain in its entirety. I could pin this on my fear of the decisions others may make if I cried in front of them. I could pin this on the young girl I was who was more in touch with other people’s emotions rather than her own. I could pin this on the fear that I could appear broken or fragile to others, more than I already do. I could pin this on the belief that I don’t deserve to be comforted or coddled or the shame that I do need these things. I could pin this on fear I would never get control of my emotions if I allowed myself to feel them fully and express them. I could pin this on my fear that I would recieve pity or half-hearted support if I was honest about my emotions and expressed them honestly by crying. I could pin this on the fear that those who offer their support only offer it because they know I won’t accept it, and if I did, they wouldn’t want to give it anymore. I could pin this on my fear that no one would trust me with their emotions if they realized I couldn’t handle my own. I could pin this on my fear of somehow being more alone than I already am. I could pin this on my belief that I deserve to hurt myself physically for the pain I feel inside, and if I expressed it by crying, I may not feel the need to hurt myself physically or feel the need to hurt myself physicially more. I could pin this on the shame and embarrassment I would probably feel after crying to the unfortunate person who had to witness it. I could pin this on the fear that I would not get the support I was seeking by crying. I could pin this on the fear that my emotion would increase and highten and I would lose control of myself completely or emotionally blackout and hurt someone somehow. I could pin this on my fear that I may not know how to recover after a long cry and would be left alone afterwards. I could pin this on my fear of being alone and empty without my pain, rather than being alone and empty with my pain. I could pin this on my fear that I could realize things about myself or others that I don’t like. I could pin this on my fear and shame that I may never learn to control or regulate my emotions by feeling them fully and expressing them fully and becoming overwhelmed by them. 

I could pin this on all of it. I can’t pick one. I can’t even pick two or three, or five or ten. It’s all of it. It’s the result of 23 years of keeping my emotions inside. It’s the result of 23 years of watching how my family and friends interact with each other. It’s 23 years of being alone with my pain, wishing I could tell and cry to someone else about it. It’s 23 years of fights with family and friends, car accidents, almost deaths, deaths, funerals, meals, therapy sessions, changes and successes and failures, mental illness diagnoses and symptoms and behaviors. It’s 23 years of wishing I had a person who I didn’t feel the need to protect from my emotions and always feeling the need to protect everyone from my emotions, no matter who they were; including mental health professionals throughout my entire life. I don’t have an “event”. I can’t point at one memory and say “this is when or why I decided to shut down every emotion that was hard and would potentially make me cry in front of another person.” I wish I had a memory. I wish I could tackle that one memory, process through it, and finally be able to cry in front of others unashamed and unafraid. It isn’t that simple for me. It won’t ever be that simple for me, and nothing will ever be that simple for me. It’s always going to be leaps and bounds and mountains and a few steps forward and a hundred steps back. I don’t see the point in trying sometimes or most of the time honestly, but this is the one thing I haven’t tried yet. And it just doesn’t feel fair to give up before trying the one last thing. It could be my answer to everything beyond this, beyond what I know. It could be my flower filled meadow in a clearing after the hike through the dark forest or it could be my breathtaking view after a strenuous mountain climb or it could be the horrifying place where all of my fears come true. I don’t know what it could be, but I want to do it scared if I have to. I wish I could just do it scared, as long as I’m getting it done. I am willing. I am so willing that it makes me angry that I can’t just do it. I am so willing that it makes me hate myself so much that I can’t just do it. It makes me so angry that I have a person who I trust more than anyone in this whole world with my emotions and I can’t give them to her. I couldn’t give them to her when she asked me to, when I asked her in the first place to make me give them to her. It scared me when she suggested that I was not willing. It was another of the same battle I had to fight previously, knowing it was one I might not win again. It was another of the same battle I had to fight previously that I am not willing to fight again, no matter the truth or emotion behind it. I am angry at myself for having what I wanted right in front of me, and no reason or threat to hold back, and I still couldn’t do it. I still denied myself of the very one thing I have wanted in my entire 23 years. Maybe I won’t ever get it. Not even because I don’t deserve it, because even I feel like after 23 years I deserve it. I paid my dues long enough, it may actually be my turn now. But... maybe I won’t ever get it because I won’t ever find a person who I feel I don’t need to protect from myself and/or my emotions. I won’t ever find a person who I will care so little about that I won’t feel the need to protect them from the damage I could cause. And maybe that’s a beautiful thing. Maybe it’s my gift to to the world, to the ones I love, my family and friends, and the people who I trust with my emotions even if I cannot give them to them. It maybe tragic for me and causes pain and suffering on my part, but to love and care about everyone in my life so much that I am willing to sacrifice myself in all ways to protect them from all of the things inside of me that could hurt them is a beautiful thing I think. 

But, I don’t know. I won’t ever know. I will always want to know, I will always try to know, I will always act like I know, I will always behave like I know, but I don’t. I am not lying and I am willing. I am willing to learn and to change and to grow and to be afraid doing it.