Epiphany

I had one while I was running errands this morning. I realized that the reason I can't express emotion or feelings, happy or sad, is because I never really learned how. And what I saw growing up was that bad things happen when you express anything, belt comes out, someone makes fun of you. I remember being told to grow up because I was crying during a movie (Where the Red Fern Grows, that was fucking sad when the dog died). And that pretty much cemented in me that showing emotion led to bad things.

My mom expressed some emotion, actually took a stand, and it almost got her killed. Not exactly the best thing to have your kids see. From then on it's been a struggle and a strain for me to express anything. My sister can only express emotion when she's been drinking. At least I haven't gone down that road. Unfortunately I've gone down the silent and withdrawl road. Not a good one either, at least I can't get into too much trouble for it, it just becomes a problem in relationships.

I realized that I have avoided arguments and fighting with someone I am with because I am scared. I have slowly learned to express happiness, delight, thanks, although with kc I'm still a little hesitant with words of stronger emotion. As far as I can remember, I have never actually had a "real" fight with anyone I was with. I tend to eat my emotions, stuff them inside, make myself sick with it (hence why I have the digestive problems). If pushed I will hesitantly bring something up, and then I will severely downplay how I'm actually feeling in order to not cause a rift.

Maybe it's because deep down I am scared to be alone. I don't want to be alone. I do things alone to force myself to come to terms with the fact that it's okay to be alone, nothing bad happens to me when I'm alone. But still, I enjoy companionship. I enjoy being in a loving relationship, but my insecurities and fears start coming out when things start getting serious. I delude myself into thinking that if we don't argue or fight then there is nothing wrong with the relationship. That's fucked up.

Everyone fights and disagrees. I think the reason I'm scared to fight is because I'm afraid of the other persons reaction. At least when I argue with my sister or my dad, I know they can't stay mad forever, and they can't disappear out of my life forever, they're my family, they won't get violent with me. But what about the person I'm in a relationship with? They can disappear out of my life for as long as they want, thus leaving me alone, though at least I know kc would never get violent.

If no one disagreed then the world would be a boring place. It's finding that balance between disagreeing and harmful. Wars don't get started for no reason. It's because the balance between accepting that you don't agree and realizing that it's not the end of the world is needed for that to happen. I have at least slowly (albeit rather timidly) told kc about things I don't like. One afternoon she put on Conan the Barbarian, and then asked if I liked the movie (she said it was one of her childhood favorites), I said not really. When she made me breakfast that made me ill, I told her it was probably the soggy bacon, I don't like soggy bacon. She would tease me and call me a hillbilly because I'm from NH (although the fact that she grew up on a farm doesn't seem to factor into anything since she says since it was in CA it didn't matter). I told her that I really don't like it, she listened and stopped saying it. I know she wasn't doing it to be mean, she has never been mean on purpose, just teasing, but at least she stopped saying it.

Hopefully she will let me practice with her. I need a safe place to practice. If she does something that I don't like, I need to know that she isn't going to freak out, yell, throw things, punch walls, nothing. If she needs to walk away and come back later then fine. But I need to have the safety of knowing that she isn't going to disappear forever just because she pissed me off and I told her. Although, I actually think she would be slightly relieved, shocked at first, but slightly relieved, that I am finally comfortable enough with her to be able to express myself.

And I think that she would understand where I'm coming from. She knows about my history, what happened to me growing up (well, most of it, most of what I can remember), knows that I'm extremely fragile in that area. She knows that I have a tendency to become silent and withdraw. I can't keep eating those feelings though, I have to learn to express emotion, positive or negative, as I'm feeling it, and not spend so much time overanalyzing how I'm feeling for days after something happens.

I used to loathe self-reflection, because it would make me deal with things I didn't want to think about. But kc is all about making sure that you are whole and balanced, it appears to be rubbing off on me. Or it's because I realized that all of my relationships will fail unless I deal with it, and I would really like to spend some time with her, I don't want our relationship to fail for reasons that my others failed. If our relationship fails I want it to be because of something other than the demons inside me. I would like to exorcise those demons and have a happy heart, a truly happy heart. It would appear that she would like to spend a significant amount of time with me too since she hasn't bailed yet. And she has had countless opportunities to bail. But, maybe she sees in me the parts beyond the damaged ones, the parts that are healing and growing and taking over the damaged ones. Maybe I wasn't ready to show those parts to anyone until now because they were still small and fragile.

I suppose at least that it is progess in myself that I am now realizing these things. Implementing them is a whole other thing, but at least I think, when I tell kc, she'll at least be receptive to this, and possibly even happy to help me. And I'm confident that she will be okay with the guidelines, the no yelling, screaming, thowing things, sort of stuff.