I have been battling an internal dilemma recently. I'd argue with myself late at night in bed—my thoughts going back and forth like ping pong balls. You see, I try my hardest to negate any negative emotions I feel. If I ignore it, then it's not there. This is great, as I have learned to be happy. Well, I think I'm happy. I'm not faking a smile, and I don't feel intense pain in the hollows of my heart or anything. But it has occurred to me that I have a proclivity for happiness merely because it feels morally wrong to feel otherwise. And that begs the question whether or not I have the right to dwell in sadness.
Let's get to it:
I know that I am an extremely blessed individual. I have a great set of parents—heck, even my entire extended family are a hoot and a half. I don't have any troubles with my friends, I have a lovely boyfriend, my schoolwork is above average, and I don't have any financial problems as far as I know. Not to toot my own horn, but yes, blessed is the understatement of the century.
Knowing that I have all these tangible blessings only nullifies any abstract curses that I may have lurking in the corners of my mind. Any time I feel the slightest bit of emptiness or sadness, I brush the feeling away like old crumbs on a tabletop. It's not supposed to be there, I tell myself over and over.
Most parents never seem to validate their child's emotions because from their perspective, anything we feel is petty. Broke up with a boy? Get over it. Fought with your friend? Mend it and shut up. Sad for absolutely no reason? Don't be so troublesome. It's as if our negative emotions should be kept in a jar and thrown into an abyss.
When my laptop hard drive crashed the morning of the first day of my internship, I broke down on the floor. Granted, it was slightly melodramatic of me, but all of my data were erased, and I had no back up (my fault). I didn't cry, but I was in a state of extreme affliction. It was the first day of my internship and one of the requirements was to bring my own laptop. What a terrible first impression to show up empty handed. To top it off, all my work for the past 2 years was gone. But my parents looked at me with nonchalance and pretty much ignored the sound of my breaking heart.
My father later on told me a story about a woman he saw when he was in the car on the way to work. This woman was on the back of a motorcycle, her arms wrapped around the driver, when she started to drift off to sleep. My father watched as the woman slowly loosened her grip on the man, and she fell off the moving bike, face first, onto the asphalt. She survived, but it was a horrible bloody mess. My father told me this story to put my situation in perspective. 'Your laptop crashed; suck it up princess' was the moral of that story.
As a result, I have been conditioned to think that anything remotely bad that happens to me shouldn't be fussed over. I shouldn't complain about anything at all because of the abundance of blessings in my glorious life. This means any negative emotion; sadness, emptiness, loneliness, are emotions I should not validate. If I feel them, push them aside. If it persists, push them aside even harder. There is absolutely no reason for me to feel a tinge of sadness unless it is caused by an objectively sorrowful event.
So when friends of mine go to me for advice, or complain about their love lives, I feel no compassion, or very little. As my parents have taught me; there is no reason for me to feel sad with all that I have going on for me. But whenever I try to instill this kind of thinking to my friends, they see me as an unsympathetic machine. But my emotions have never been validated by my family, so I know of no reason to validate my friends'.
On one hand, it's quite handy to have this kind of mindset. The "fuck it, on to better things," motto that I live by. But on the other, to nullify half the spectrum of human emotion is just ridiculous. It has come to a point where whenever I feel the deep sense of emptiness or hatred towards myself, I shake my head, hoping that these fractious thoughts will fall from my head like rotten apples. And when it recurs, I shake my head more. I read books. I watch movies. I write. I draw. I do whatever it takes to run away from these unnecessary emotions.
It's quite difficult to go back to the days where I could genuinely express how I feel. After years of being taught by my family and several friends that sadness belongs only to those of the less fortunate, I have trained myself to blow away any negative emotions like dandelion tufts. Don't cry, people in Africa are dying. Here watch this video of cancer patients to put your life in perspective. Why are you depressed? Your life is pretty fucking awesome. Be thankful you're not in the slums in India, scraping food from garbage bins. Be thankful you're not selling your body for money. Be thankful that you're not dying of a terminal illness.
I am extremely thankful. But being sad doesn't equal to being ungrateful. Being sad means being human. And I can tell myself that it's okay to feel sad once in awhile, even for no reason, but there will always be a voice in my head that tells me that I do not have the right to be sad. Not now. I'm not allowed to. I am not supposed to.
Let's get to it:
I know that I am an extremely blessed individual. I have a great set of parents—heck, even my entire extended family are a hoot and a half. I don't have any troubles with my friends, I have a lovely boyfriend, my schoolwork is above average, and I don't have any financial problems as far as I know. Not to toot my own horn, but yes, blessed is the understatement of the century.
Knowing that I have all these tangible blessings only nullifies any abstract curses that I may have lurking in the corners of my mind. Any time I feel the slightest bit of emptiness or sadness, I brush the feeling away like old crumbs on a tabletop. It's not supposed to be there, I tell myself over and over.
Most parents never seem to validate their child's emotions because from their perspective, anything we feel is petty. Broke up with a boy? Get over it. Fought with your friend? Mend it and shut up. Sad for absolutely no reason? Don't be so troublesome. It's as if our negative emotions should be kept in a jar and thrown into an abyss.
When my laptop hard drive crashed the morning of the first day of my internship, I broke down on the floor. Granted, it was slightly melodramatic of me, but all of my data were erased, and I had no back up (my fault). I didn't cry, but I was in a state of extreme affliction. It was the first day of my internship and one of the requirements was to bring my own laptop. What a terrible first impression to show up empty handed. To top it off, all my work for the past 2 years was gone. But my parents looked at me with nonchalance and pretty much ignored the sound of my breaking heart.
My father later on told me a story about a woman he saw when he was in the car on the way to work. This woman was on the back of a motorcycle, her arms wrapped around the driver, when she started to drift off to sleep. My father watched as the woman slowly loosened her grip on the man, and she fell off the moving bike, face first, onto the asphalt. She survived, but it was a horrible bloody mess. My father told me this story to put my situation in perspective. 'Your laptop crashed; suck it up princess' was the moral of that story.
As a result, I have been conditioned to think that anything remotely bad that happens to me shouldn't be fussed over. I shouldn't complain about anything at all because of the abundance of blessings in my glorious life. This means any negative emotion; sadness, emptiness, loneliness, are emotions I should not validate. If I feel them, push them aside. If it persists, push them aside even harder. There is absolutely no reason for me to feel a tinge of sadness unless it is caused by an objectively sorrowful event.
So when friends of mine go to me for advice, or complain about their love lives, I feel no compassion, or very little. As my parents have taught me; there is no reason for me to feel sad with all that I have going on for me. But whenever I try to instill this kind of thinking to my friends, they see me as an unsympathetic machine. But my emotions have never been validated by my family, so I know of no reason to validate my friends'.
On one hand, it's quite handy to have this kind of mindset. The "fuck it, on to better things," motto that I live by. But on the other, to nullify half the spectrum of human emotion is just ridiculous. It has come to a point where whenever I feel the deep sense of emptiness or hatred towards myself, I shake my head, hoping that these fractious thoughts will fall from my head like rotten apples. And when it recurs, I shake my head more. I read books. I watch movies. I write. I draw. I do whatever it takes to run away from these unnecessary emotions.
It's quite difficult to go back to the days where I could genuinely express how I feel. After years of being taught by my family and several friends that sadness belongs only to those of the less fortunate, I have trained myself to blow away any negative emotions like dandelion tufts. Don't cry, people in Africa are dying. Here watch this video of cancer patients to put your life in perspective. Why are you depressed? Your life is pretty fucking awesome. Be thankful you're not in the slums in India, scraping food from garbage bins. Be thankful you're not selling your body for money. Be thankful that you're not dying of a terminal illness.
I am extremely thankful. But being sad doesn't equal to being ungrateful. Being sad means being human. And I can tell myself that it's okay to feel sad once in awhile, even for no reason, but there will always be a voice in my head that tells me that I do not have the right to be sad. Not now. I'm not allowed to. I am not supposed to.
remember how I sounded ungrateful when I told you my life was hard when we were at Flinders? I thought about that when I read this. my *love life* is hard. hahaha
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