August 7th… I completely broke down.
My emotions completely took over my mind, and body.
Disgust with the chores that have to be done around the house.
Anxiety about all the little things that need to get done before baby Isabella arrives.
Guilt for doing a puzzle instead of checking items off my to do list.
Worry about whether or not I would be a good enough mom.
Overwhelm due to not being able to explain how I was feeling.
Helpless because all I could do was cry.
I just broke.
I felt every emotion, and every emotion so intensely.
I express most of my emotions through tears. I’m sad? I cry. I’m angry? I cry. I feel overwhelmed? I cry. I’m overjoyed? I cry.
So when they all come at once, you can only imagine the amount of tears that came. It wasn’t the cute cry that can happen when I’m watching a sad movie, or feeling love so strong that tears come — it was a full on ugly, intense cry. Tears were streaming down my face mixed in with an abnormal amount of snot coming from my nose. I couldn’t stop. Hyperventilating started and my chest got blotchy. I started sweating profusely and could barely get a word out in-between blowing my nose and trying to catch my breath.
I told my fiancé that I felt overwhelmed with everything that we had to do before the baby comes. He instantly got up and started doing things in order to relieve some of those emotions for me. The thing was when he started to move around the house — I felt even more overwhelmed. There was so much I wanted to get done I didn’t know where to start. I couldn’t sit down and make a plan because that felt too overwhelming as well.
So instead of accomplishing any chores or tasks of the to-do-list, I just cried.
My fiancé got me a coffee, my computer, and some water while I started to calm down. He reminded me we just need to take one day at a time, and one task at a time. We decided it was for the best that we both took a breather and when we were feeling more relaxed and in a calmer state, we would make a plan.
…
I have been working on healing for quite sometime now. This includes figuring out who I am, why I say, do, and act the way that I do, and finding out who I want to be.
Looking back at my breakdown reminds me of something I have learned about during this healing process. A lot of my actions and reactions stem from childhood. The way I handle how I react to big emotions stem from childhood. You see, when I was a baby or a young kid… I was pretty innocent. I had a huge imagination, I would sing and dance without a care in the world, I would ask questions that were on my mind, and I would take in the environment around me.
When we are at a young age, we don’t have the capacity to understand emotions and feelings. We feel them, of course, but to understand what they are telling us is beyond our capacity of knowledge at such a young age. We do, however, feel them and remember the feelings. We then are taught how to cope with the emotion we are experiencing either intentionally, or unintentionally.
For instance, when big emotions occurred for me when I was a child — I was pushed away. I was told to be quiet and be thankful for everything that I have. I was told by caregivers, and other adults that they were the adult and what they said goes. I was told not to make a scene. I was told I was being selfish. I was told by my caregiver “I’ll give you something to cry about.”
I was being asked to make myself smaller and ignore these intense feelings that were coming up as if they would never occur again. I wasn’t sat down and talked through how to cope with them in a healthy way. I wasn’t reminded that big emotions happen to every single person on earth and that it’s okay to feel them. I wasn’t taught that talking about how I felt would help me understand the situation better. I wasn’t encouraged to feel my emotions, rather, I was taught to push them away and not show them.
The thing about this is that it carried on throughout my whole life. I’m 29 years old and still struggle to regulate my emotions. When the same feelings I experienced as a child come up, I feel them in my body, and then respond to them the same way I saw when I was just a kid.
I will go quiet, as if trying to shut out my emotions because I believe they aren’t supposed to be felt. I can hyperventilate until I’m almost puking because I’ve tried so hard not to feel the emotion that it has start to overtake my body. I will push whoever is close to me away because comfort was something that was foreign to me and it doesn’t feel safe when someone offers it. I will start talking negatively to myself. I’ll tell myself other people have it harder than I do, so I shouldn’t be upset. I’ll tell myself I’m being selfish. I’ll tell myself I’m not normal for feeling the way that I do. I isolate myself. I disassociate from everything and everyone. I do all of this because it’s all I know.
I do this because it’s what I saw and was taught to do as a child. Not out of lack of love or not caring about me. I was taught this because it’s the tools that the people that helped raise me had. Growing up they weren’t shown empathy or compassion when they experienced big emotions, either. They were told the same things that they eventually started to tell me. It’s generational trauma that will keep going until someone decides to stop it.
This scares me a lot when I think about raising a child. I worry that my big emotions will show too often and I will still be struggling with how to cope with them in a healthy way.
But, on the positive side, I’m thankful I am now aware of this. I’m thankful I can start to be kind to myself when I feel so overwhelmed that it’s as if my body is being taken over. I can start to train myself to take a step back when I notice my physical symptoms appearing, for instance, rapid heartbeat, sweating, clenched fists, fidgeting, zoning out, and more. When I notice these symptoms I can remind myself that a big emotion is festering and about to show. I can talk kindly to myself and not continue the negative self talk pattern that is all I know.
With hard work and dedication, I can show my little girl that it’s okay to feel big emotions. It’s okay to feel out of control sometimes. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to be scared. She can watch me talk to myself kindly while I work through big emotions, and by doing this, she will start to be kind to herself when she feels them as well. By practicing these I will be able to not only handle my big emotions, but Isabella’s as well. I’ll be able to show love and compassion instead of irritation and control. I can be the role model she needs growing up.
The Pink Rose Diary 