As my son cried for another time that day, I listened. His sadness was palpable, and I could hear the frustration in his cries. It had been a tough day for him, and this was a culminating moment. Instead of trying to talk him down, I decided we would just sit together. So there we were, my head resting on his, sharing the moment. He turned to look at me as if to ask, "Is this okay?" I gazed back at him sympathetically, and he nestled his head back against me, crying some more. This is what came to mind.
Growing up, we were taught to suppress our feelings—not directly, but subtly, as people often raise their children the way they were raised. My uncle used to tell a story about how, even as a child, instead of crying, I would ball my fists up. As an adult, I probably still do that unconsciously, but there's another behavior I've adopted to avoid crying. Someone taught me to be so uncomfortable with my feelings at the tender age of 4 or 5 that I decided to dig my little fingers into my palms to give myself something to focus on. How terrible is it that to be good or palatable, you must refrain from being too honest about your feelings?
Don't we all do this in some capacity? We yearn deeply to connect to others, but we hide our emotions. We conceal our pain from family and friends to avoid being a burden, hide our tears from our kids to protect them, and distract ourselves with our phones to avoid facing our inner turmoil. Yet we feel free to come here and write; it's been a shit weak, and here are the 16 reasons as to why. We will concede that we are exhausted, stuck, and feeling alone. We will regurgitate any thoughts we've been sitting on for the last week that we haven't shared with anyone else in our lives. We will confess our deepest fears, and when someone reads it, we feel a little more seen; when they like it, we are shocked and reassured, and when they go the extra mile and leave a comment, we are over the moon.
But then we return to the real world, where we stifle our cries in the bathroom so no one hears. We numb ourselves until the next note or personal essay. Over the weeks, they just get more personal, and the capacity for vulnerability expands even though we're not showing up in our offline lives this way. (The show Severance immediately comes to mind). We, at times, feel more fulfilled in our online lives than in our offline ones.
My son was crying because his sister had taken one of his many cars, and he wasn't in the mood to share. This may be small to me, but to him, it isn't, and he shouldn't have to stifle his tears just because that was another thing that sent him over that day. To someone else, what I'm currently going through in my life could be seen as small, and they would be right from their view because it's not happening to them. That doesn't make it any less devastating to me. So, we continued to sit because it was technically his toy, and it was taken. He's allowed to be upset about that.
Good girls listen. They do as they are told. They are polite, and they don't speak back. Apparently, everyone is allowed to have an opinion except kids, even when adult decisions are the very thing that changes their lives without their permission. When I was young, my parents had to give me and my siblings up to my grandparents. My whole life changed instantly, and I don't feel anyone handled that transition well. I didn't understand that this event in my life could be considered traumatic. The language that was taught to me didn't deliver that understanding. I reserved that word for things like car accidents. It wasn't until I was older that someone clarified that trauma includes a wide range of experiences, including mine. There wasn't enough discussion about what went on, how we felt, and how we were delivered the news. Everyone just wanted us to be okay, and when you're told you should just be grateful, you're not given enough time to digest what's happened. Nope, as a child, you have to consider the emotions of adults and how your feelings impact them.
I can see now how those things I was taught made way for the way I have been and, in some ways, still am. When family, friends, and even partners have made me uncomfortable or caused me pain, I have kept it to myself. I remain silent so I don't shake things up, possibly hurt someone, and the worst one, out of fear that they won't like me if I tell the truth. It doesn't last, of course; everyone has their breaking point. I let things build and build until I am full of resentment. They're not the only ones to blame when I reach this summit. Instead of giving them a chance to correct their behavior by telling them what's wrong, I set them and myself up by consenting to it with my silence. This has not been the case with everyone, but I can see how I've negated confrontation by saying nothing. I take away my own voice as if it doesn't matter. As if being pleasing is somehow more rewarding than being understood.
But sometimes, like a toddler throwing a tantrum, don't you want to kick and scream that life is hard. That you don't have it all figured out at this age, and that's giving you major anxiety. You keep making the same mistakes; now that you see the pattern, you can't unsee it. That you're drained and lost and really scared most days. The only thing you've wanted for the past 3 years is for someone to hug you so passionately that you can feel how much they love you as they reassure you that you got this. That you just want to feel safe again.
I can hear my son calming down. We sit quietly for a bit until I feel he really is okay. I get up to move on to the next thing, and he gestures for me to stay. So, we sit for a bit longer until he's over what happened, and then we get on with their bedtime routine. He doesn't know that I admire this freedom he has. This self-awareness that he doesn't know matters yet. When he is happy, it's bliss. When he is sad, it's stormy. My daughter is the same way. She expresses her feelings fully. She bounces back quickly, too. It doesn't matter to her that she was sad 2 minutes ago; right now, she's happy, and that's all she cares about. These little beings are such great teachers.
If you're like me and tend to suppress your emotions for the sake of others, maybe next time, don't. Let yourself feel whatever comes up. I've become more direct with people to overcome the fear that my feelings don't matter or that I'll be judged. If you're pushing something down, remember that it will eventually pop back up.