I don't deal well with emotions. Not mine, not others. And especially not external displays. As a small child, I learned that crying made things worse. Laughter and happiness also seemed to have the same negative effect with my father. He considered it all to be "noise".
When I went into foster care, even as a 5 year old, I felt like I needed to be strong. I didn't want anyone to be upset with me. I didn't want to give anyone a reason to hurt me (this was due to my earlier experiences, not because I was being harmed in my new home). I became silent, invisible. Emotions attracted attention. I didn't want that.
By the time I was in middle school I had learned to stuff my emotions. I pushed them so far down, all in an attempt to avoid feeling them. After all, if everything looked ok on the outside, then it must be, right?
The older I got, the more determined I became to hide my emotions. All of them, but especially fear, anger, uncertainty. I grew to associate these with weakness, and I was anything but that. I became stoic, leading people to think I didn't care, which was so untrue. But it was my wall, my protective reflex.
All of this stuffing of my emotions, however, seemed to heighten my ability to read other people's emotions. This skill allowed me time to read the situation and prepare accordingly, either to physically or psychologically escape before they emoted.
As I have worked through the maze that is my life's story, I have gradually learned to add emotions back into my life. Mostly the "safe ones". Happiness. Joy. A semblance of peace. Sadness. But, rarely, do I cry. That is my last piece of strength. I cry so infrequently that it freaks my husband and kids out when I do. They flip into a mix of discomfort and concern. See, the problem with not dealing with your emotions means other people don't know how to deal with your emotions. People want to share the burden, the joy, the emotion.
Fast-forward to yesterday. My husband was out working in the garden. I bathed, then I put a load of laundry in to wash. I changed the bed. As I was pulling up the comforter, I felt my chest seize. I couldn't breathe. I began to panic! I leaned on the bed, gasping for breath. Every inhale seared through my lungs.
"I have covid", I thought.
I made my way through the house and across the yard. By the time I reached the garden, my chest was on fire. Tears were trickling down my cheeks. My husband saw my tears and was instantly on alert. When I said I couldn't breathe, he flew down the hill and got me back into the house. After a quick call to my doctor, we headed to the emergency room.
The hospital is less than 10 minutes from my house, but each minute seemed to make it even harder for me to breathe. I tried all the coping skills I knew, trying to steady my breaths and stop the pain. Nothing worked. By the time we pulled in, tears were freely streaming down my cheeks. I wasn't even going to try to hold them back.
My husband ran to the make-shift intake station to tell them what was happening. The lady took one look at me and quickly appeared with a wheelchair. I heard my husband tell me they weren't going to let him go in with me. It made me full out cry which made it even harder to breathe, especially with a mask on.
In that moment of fear, not knowing if I was going to live or die, emotional control went out the window. I sat in that room all alone, crying as I struggled to breathe.
A flurry of nurses came into my room, each one wearing multiple layers of gloves, plus masks and gowns. Blood was drawn. A chest x-ray was taken. Telling me to "take a deep breath and hold it" seemed like a cruel joke. Next came the covid test. The nurse pushed the swab so far up my nose that I kept wondering if it would come out my tear duct.
Again, they left me alone in my fear.
As I waited for the next steps, I texted my kids. I needed them to hear from me, just in case. I fought to put that out of my mind. It upset me, making it too hard to catch my breath, As I sat there in the solitude, I could hear the man in the room next to me. He was upset because his caregiver hadn't been allowed to come back with him. He just didn't understand what was happening. I could also hear the nurses describing certain rooms as "air borne". It made me sad to think what they were going through, in their rooms all alone.
Eventually I was given a breathing treatment. The nurse said it should work in about minutes. Well, my body doesn't do anything "typical", so it was an hour til I started feeling relief. I was released with an inhaler, being treated for viral bronchitis. I later learned the covid test was negative.
After a long day, both physically and emotionally, my breathing eased. The pain remained in my chest, caused by the exertion of my gasping and coughing. It serves as a metaphor for my emotions. Working through an incident doesn't take the pain away. Knowing what caused an emotional response allows me to learn more about myself. Showing an emotion allows me to learn about both myself and others who care for me. While it makes me uncomfortable, is it really fair for me to have others shut down their own emotions or not allow them to share in mine?
I don't think so.
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