Have you ever watched something fragile fall? Like you can see it and it’s happening in slow motion in your mind’s eye, and you can both see and feel the second it hits the ground and shatters into a million different pieces. Do you know what that feels like? Well I do, because I feel like that every time someone breaks my trust. I feel like I’m watching a piece of me shatter inside. A piece that I’ll never be able to get back, no matter what amends are made.
I knew early on that I was a bit different from most people, or at least I thought I was. I felt too much. Literally. When I was angry, I would feel the blaze of rage from the very tips of my hair to the trembling toes on my feet, and oh boy, was it easy to get angry. But it wasn’t just anger. I could feel pain like a knife in my chest whenever someone hurt me in any way, and it was always the worst kind of pain when I felt betrayed. Now, the thing is, I never showed it, not outside my house. Oh, at home I would cry myself a river and throw pity parties that would make any melancholy green with envy. But outside? Nothing. Neither a wince nor a tear. I acted like ice was in my veins even when I could barely breathe because of the pain I felt. Unbothered and untouchable on the outside, with a skin of sun baked leather, but shards of glass pointing inwards on the inside.
Because of this, it was pretty easy to be misunderstood by both my mates and the adults in my orbit, and the more they pointed fingers and accused me of being unfeeling, the higher the walls grew, until I had myself a full castle, like something straight out of a fairytale. But yeah, I felt too much. My emotions were big and really intense, and to be honest, nobody ever really taught me how to regulate. Don’t get me wrong, I have fantastic, amazing parents and I wouldn’t change much, but let’s be honest, our parents didn’t really come from a generation of emotionally available and present adults. They did what needed to be done, and provided all that they could, but heart to hearts with their young children didn’t really top that list. And now, most of us have relationships with our parents as adults that we would have given anything to have when we were younger.
Anyways, I built walls and they helped keep everyone out, but they also kept me in. I became a prisoner of my own mind during my teenage years and early adulthood, constantly second guessing and doubting myself and my abilities, having brilliant ideas and not doing anything about them, starting projects because I love them and giving up halfway through because I wasn’t sure if I could actually do it, and leaving people behind the moment they gave me the slightest reason to.
About wrongs, now you need to understand, it’s not the forgiveness part that’s hard for me. On the contrary, I usually understand the motive behind most people’s action, at least from a logical standpoint, and while I may not be able to condone it, I can rationally follow it from start to finish. This makes it easier to forgive, so that has never been an issue. It’s the forgetting part I have a problem with. Because, you see, my mind is really funny, and it likes to play tricks on me. Most days I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast, but I can give you a play-by-play of the very first friendship breakup I had, what caused it, what the weather looked like, and the hollow, dreadful feeling I woke up with that day. That’s how it works. Recalling the bad at the snap of a finger, but halting at the good and sometimes, completely skipping over the mundane.
The only thing that helped, at every moment when the pain was suffocating, was school when I had it, and work now. I hid behind my books, choosing compartmentalization over imploding from all my feelings, and although I now know that it’s unhealthy, I’ll be honest and say that sometimes I still do it. Because it’s way easier to focus entirely on something reassuring and basic, than battling with trembling fingers and a drowning heartbeat. At least it’s easier in the moment. But it’s like what happens when you shake a can of Coke. A thousand tiny implosions happen, and they swell and swell until the can can’t take it anymore and it explodes and spills on everything around it. And I don’t want to do that, not anymore.
So I’ve been learning, and I’m still learning. I’ve been learning to deal with the ebb and flow of feelings, to redecorate my mind space so that it feels comfortable, to know myself truly enough to actually like myself. I’ve been learning not to give up at the drop of a hat, on things, and on people. And most importantly, I’ve been learning that I’m not alone.
So if you’re out there, and you’re learning too, here’s my advice to you; Stop, and start. Stop listening to the intrusive thoughts, and start talking to yourself about who you really are. Because who you truly are is amazing, you just have to get around to becoming them.
You have my heart, and in some way, I have yours, and that’s enough 🤍
