By Denise Geelhart
“Why do you let them upset you in that way? You can’t change them; you can only change how you respond.”
Livid, I clicked “reply” to answer the person, then sat back to see if I could articulate what made me angry. Unable to put it into words, I instead asked the person to drop it. It was the third similar response in a back and forth conversation with one person. I had vented in an online forum about a situation I had recently encountered.
As I thought on matters, I figured out what bugged me about her advice. She basically encouraged me to stop feeling a certain way when someone treated me or someone I love badly. My feelings didn’t matter because the situation wasn’t going to change. I needed to change my reaction to the contempt I faced.
I’ve seen and heard it before. Well-meaning people who are trying to help, but ultimately piss me off. Yes, I can’t change the other person or the situation. And, yes, only I can change my response to a person or a situation. But don’t ever tell me how to feel about a problem I’m facing. Just don’t.
Since I was a child, I’ve had others tell me how I should feel. As a sensitive little girl, I cried easily. If someone said something mean to me, I didn’t fight back. I cried. If someone said anything critical, no matter how slight, I cried. A careless joke directed at me might result in more tears. Constantly, I was told, “You are too sensitive. Stop taking everything so seriously.” So I tried hard not to cry anymore. Not to let people see that they had hurt me. I held back my feelings to fit in and protect myself from the judgment of others.
By the time I was a teenager, the pressure to fit in mounted. I desperately wanted to be liked. In high school, I admitted to others when I got angry, sad, or frustrated, but soon learned that I was seen as a “burden” to friends because I felt so much. So, instead of expressing myself as I had, I stopped. I would plaster a smile on my face to make others happy.
In high school, I learned that to make others happy, to get along with others, and to avoid conflict, I needed to be someone I wasn’t.
It worked, so I kept it up. I kept masking my feelings from others. I got so good at it that I hid my own feelings from myself until one day, I lost all control and my life collapsed around me. On that day, I tried to kill myself. Luckily, I lived. But I wasn’t sure how to feel other than numb.
My suicide attempt was a complete shock to all who knew me. They knew a young woman who had a smile plastered on her face. They knew a person who didn’t complain, get angry, or cry. Not really. They thought they knew a woman who was happy. Maybe a bit frustrated with a few things in her life, but happy.
They were wrong.
I hadn’t been happy in years, but even I didn’t know that. I had grown so capable of masking my feelings that I lived a numb existence.
Soon after my suicide attempt, I started therapy. One of the first things my therapist and I worked on was helping me learn how to identify my emotions. It wasn’t easy at first, but over time, I found them again. More importantly, I stopped hiding them from anyone. For my own mental health, I made the very conscious decision to be true to myself, to be honest with others in word and emotion. I never wanted to fall into that trap again where I hid everything I felt, even from myself.
Now, that isn’t to say that there aren’t occasions where I keep my mouth shut even though someone has royally pissed me off. Unfortunately, there are situations when you can’t go off on a person who treated you like crap, no matter how badly you want to tell them off. In those times, I find a place where I can vent out all that anger, frustration, and even sadness. I need to get that emotion out.
Sometimes I turn to my husband as my sounding board; other times, a good friend. And sometimes, I vent to online friends just to let it all out. That’s when I will hear those words again. “Why do you let them upset you in that way? You can’t change them; you can only change how you respond.”
To that person (and all others who have said the same thing), I want you to know why I get upset. It’s because I’m human. When someone treats you like shit, it hurts and sometimes pisses you off. And guess what? It’s okay to hurt and be upset. I own my emotions now. I let the hurt and anger wash over me by expressing how I feel. I need to do that for the sake of my sanity. I refuse to ever live falsely again. And you know what else? I changed how I respond. Instead of lashing out at the person (which would have done nothing to help the situation), I went to others to let those feelings out in a healthy way.
We all need to express ourselves and our emotions. It’s not healthy to hide them. There may be a moment when you have to bite your tongue or hold back tears, but that’s okay, provided you find a time and place to get them out. But please, please never hold back. Don’t listen to those who say you should feel a certain way. You need to be true to you. If you aren’t, then who are you?
It took me years to find my way again, but I am who I am. I don’t ever plan to hide from myself again.
This post was originally published on Jayhawk Mommy.
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About the Author
Denise Geelhart is an over 40 mom to three little girls under the age of 6. As a way to maintain her sanity, Denise writes about her life at her blog Adventures of a Jayhawk Mommy. She enjoys reading, cooking, and drinking way too much caffeine; basically anything she needs to do to survive motherhood. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.