Recently I posted some things regarding emotional expression that, looking back, were not going to lead me down the right path. I wrote that I had a choice as far as letting things get to me, and that I wasn’t going to let those who hurt us continue to push me into reactions or cause me to be upset. I realized, somewhere between the publishing of that post and the writing of this one, that I was not only out of balance with the whole of the system, but with myself, when writing those words. Emotional maturity isn’t as simple as flicking a switch that turns feelings on or off, and it’s not the same for everyone. What I was doing is basic over-intellectualization, and I realized this thanks to a group I am a part of pointing it out. The idea that I can control every aspect of how I feel at any given moment, completely, like operating a computer, is one that would probably end up killing me, at least on the inside, and I almost found that out while writing “Shifting Focus – Blame Or Empowerment.”
I wrote that article in a time where it was vital to my health that I not express emotion when I felt it. If I had, I would have risked people around me blaming me again for something that, once started, could not have been stopped. I had children to concern myself with, children who, in the minds of those same people, only existed as parts of my own identity, and I wasn’t going to expose them to any more shaming than they already had known. I took to heart the message that I choose how I react, but not because of people at school giving it to me in a blaming way. I took it on, once it had been explained to me in a more caring and compassionate way, as another tool in my toolbox of things I’d do to get by in a place where I wasn’t, and won’t, be accepted for who I am, and where everything about me was, and will be, put under a microscope. I used it while highly aware of the possibility that the stability I obtained from such an idea could be short-lived, and I wrote what I wrote here as a snapshot of my reality at the time, not as the total end of my emotional life. I’ve since come through and past that way of viewing the world, and not just because it was no longer needed. There were messages I was accepting through my lack of reaction that, looking back on it, were only contributing to the dissociative issues I was experiencing at the time and giving the impression to people in power that I had given up, even though I had not taken on the idea of choice because of their actions.
In earlier days, the behavioral program’s message was, “Do what we want you to do, and you’ll get good things. If you disobey, you’ll be separated from your friends and taken out of things you enjoy until you learn that the way you express yourself is not ok unless you do it on our terms. Use your words, because if you don’t we’ll take you out of your classroom,” etc. The compounding message we were receiving from our home life at the time went something like, “Dry it up, because you’re too sensitive. It’s not my actions that are provoking your tears, it’s all your fault and you need to be tougher,” were the basic ideas given to us by our father while our mother stood by and watched, offering little comfort and, later on, echoing the same things in a less direct way. The commonality between both of these messages was, of course, control, control which was exercised by others over us. It was not that they did not want us to react, it was that they wanted us to react in a specific way, their way. In high school, given the fact that we had already been told to “talk to our therapist” regarding school-centered issues, and otherwise ignored when we tried to make a change happen, being told that we were “choosing” to have meltdowns, when we were already upset and angry with ourselves for having them in the first place, was seen by us as just another attempt by them to manipulate our responses to fit their standards.
One might ask themselves, then, why we chose to use such an idea eventually, if it carried with it such associations and messages. The answer is rather simple; we used that method of managing our world because the alternative would have been to suffer continued attacks on our level of performance by people around us who gave the impression of caring about nothing else. Taking in the idea of choice, on our terms, without the judgement that it had first been presented to us with, was probably the best thing we could have done for ourselves at that point, even if the relief it provided was only temporary. That being said, I would never take on such an idea as my primary view of the world. I have too much creative activity to enjoy to worry about how much I should express something in my work. There are issues in my life, especially regarding the system, where I can’t afford to lack passion in the points I present. My world does not revolve around intellect, and if it did I probably wouldn’t be here today, because there are certainly enough facts about this place that make a solid case for ending it all.
I have seen far too many people in my short lifetime as Maria take the choice of reaction much too far. These people went from being able to cry and empathize with others, to being frozen or overly intellectual about everything they went on to live through. That’s not something I want to be remembered for, and just as emotions are not everything I am, intellect is not everything to me either. The idea that I went where I did as far as expressing things, even if only for a short time, is frightening to me as I look back on what I wrote while in that state. It’s a place that I hope never to go again unless I really do have no other option besides being hurt in that aspect of my life as I know it. The things I am capable of saying while in that state of choice, when I look back on them from a state of full expression, are chilling, both because of the harshness of my words and the seeming lack of compassion that such non-reaction displays to someone who shows more of what they feel, particularly if the other person is in emotional pain.
If I have hurt anyone by the words I have written here, or anywhere else, regarding emotional expression being a choice, I am truly and deeply sorry. Hurting people by those words was never my intention, yet the idea that I have done so is my greatest fear as I read through my recent work. I know where I lie on the expression-choice spectrum, and showing my path to this knowledge was my only desire when I posted “Shifting Focus.” I would never tell anyone to follow any path if it didn’t feel right to them, and my way of discovering my place on the expression-choice spectrum may not be yours. Please, if something doesn’t feel right to you when you read it, don’t take it to heart and make the mistake that I have when I did just that. If you find yourself liberated by the idea that you can choose your reactions and rationalize your way out of difficult feelings, as I was doing by the end of “Shifting Focus,” if that method of relating to your world is something that you find works for you without causing problems in any area of your life, and it’s something you’re comfortable with doing, then by all means, keep doing it if that’s what you want to do. But if you’re someone who feels like that idea in practice would take away from who you are as a person, if you aren’t comfortable with the way that choosing reactions and rationalizing your way out of some emotions impacts your life, then there is one choice you can make, and that is to not choose, at least not in that way.
Personally, I know that some reactions must be avoided, such as those that might harm another person or myself, but I don’t think it is necessary to control my emotions the way I once did, questioning myself out of feeling some things that came into my life as a response to specific situations, at least not while the people who demand such a questioning are out of the picture. That kind of enquiry, while helpful to my emotional survival in my school situation, was only going to cause me, not to mention many of the other members of the system, further problems if I let it continue. It is part of a survival mentality to me, and if we are truly safe from any further harm, we shouldn’t feel the need to use it above anything else. I think there were a lot of things at play when I accepted the idea of choice and its associated states of being as a natural part of my life, and, being a spiritual person, I believe that someone wiser than myself was lending their assistance so that I could live in the world in that way without being disturbed by how I was thinking and feeling about things in my life from that prospective. While I am grateful to have finally understood this way of thinking, free of its judgements and messages of shame, and while I may have to use it in the future when I return to school, it is not something that I want to depend on for everything, and never something I would advise anyone else to use unless they were so overwhelmed with pain that they could not handle it in any other safe way. Even then, I think something like this must be used with extreme attentiveness to the resources that someone already has available to them to manage their emotional life, to avoid something like what I originally experienced when this school of thought was introduced to me. This way of interacting with my life isn’t something I’d use lightly, and I’m glad I realized its full implications while in it, and that I’m back to the way I used to be, the way that feels right. I have learned a lot from this experience, and I hope that these words will aid in your own learning about this subject.
It’s good to be back.