I am still stuffing the emotions. It is fear that makes me do it. I don't want to hurt anyone and I don't want to be an asshole. I don't want to be seen as.....what? Who I am?
This not talking about things, because of fear makes me a coward when all I really want is to be a nice guy and to do the right thing. But what is that? What is this right thing that I seem to be in an eternal search for? Maybe Lenny Bruce was right, there is no good or bad. It's just what cooks for me.
All in all, I have been in a good place. Time to myself and time to heal are what I have needed, and still need. The things that would have knocked me down for two or three days no longer last more than a few hours. There is some happiness in doing things and seeing people and in the mundane. I am getting better and I have learned a few things along the way, but it seems that old habits die hard. What is it about emotions and feelings that are so difficult? Is it the revealing of yourself, of what goes on behind the eyes? Is it the vulnerability that arises because you let someone see a piece of you and now they can now hurt you?
I suppose the answer would be yes to all of those.
A friend has mentioned that men are not meant to be emotional creatures.
He may be on to something.
Men are meant to be strong and protective. Emotions are weak and boys are taught this at an early age. If you fall and hurt yourself, you had better not cry. Kids get this idea of emotional blockage from somewhere. I know my dad would spout "I will give you something to cry about" if he saw tears when I was being punished.
As a little kid, what are you supposed to do with that?
Apparently, learning to ignore and stuff and hide are what you do with it.
As boys, we learn from our fathers. I have only seen my father cry once, and that was one tear. How else can that be processed besides that men must be strong.
As I write those words I feel the tears welling up. They well up from the pain that still sits in my chest, in that place where I locked everything up from years ago. The emotions that I stuffed away never went away. They never do. Writing about these things helps; talking about them helps. But they sit there still.
I wonder if my time with therapy has been so dragged down by talking about the current events that are fucking with my head, the things that won't leave me alone, that the things I need to be seeing are able to hide in the shadows of the colossus that developed over the past year and a half.
It's like I am trying to carve my statue and someone keeps putting stone where I have found a shape.
Part of me would really like to smack that person. Yes, it is easier to clear away the debris they leave behind, but it is still very annoying. The real kicker is that, if I were to resort to violence, it would be more acceptable than if I were to cry about it.
Being a man means that aggression is okay.
Maybe it stems from evolution of man from primate, or whatever, to being what we are today. Maybe that is why men aren't supposed to be emotional creatures, but baring our teeth is expected. It is not as acceptable as it may have once been, but you know how it is - boys will be boys. And even as I say that, I wonder what is going to happen as society progresses. Men being overly aggressive is no longer as accepted as it once was. There are no duels when we have been hurt. Hauling off and hitting a guy will land you in jail or in a law suit. And still, being over emotional is seen as weak. What are we going to do with all of this pent up emotion?
It all comes out eventually. If you don't deal with it right away, you will later and it will be so much bigger. All of mine came out at my wife in a tsunami of bi-polar emotional ups and downs that left me sobbing on the floor and her alone.
It all comes out one way or another.
If I have learned one lesson, that would be it. Now I just need to get it into my stupid head that I need to talk about it before it is too much. I don't want to scream at anyone else. I don't want to get lost again. The advantage I have now is that I know what the answer is - use my words before I get to the point where I want to lose my mind.
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