A Sunday Afternoon Ramble That Rambled A Little Long....

I don't like how emotions make me feel.  I'm a control freak.  Whether my hatred of emotion feeds my need for control or my need for control feeds my hatred for emotion isn't really relevant in my opinion but they are eternally linked.  Well, it isn't accurate to imply that I hate all emotion.  There is one range of emotion where I feel totally at peace and in control.  Oddly, that is the Anger/Annoyance range.  I feel totally calm and level headed when I am angry at someone.  It's kind of nice. It feels like a "Force Push" release of all my built up unwanted emotions.  I can totally focus.

During a very enlightening therapy session once, my therapist asked what I "do" with all the other emotions if they happen to creep in?  I thought it was an odd question because in my mind I was blocking those emotions out when ever they tried to creep in.  He had a very different (and mostly correct)  point of view.  That all those emotions were still there.  That I decided I couldn't/wouldn't process them so I put them behind what he called me emotional "dam".  Don't you love all these cute little catch phrases?  Anyway,  my dam would work for quite a while and then when it would fill up I would get angry.  Since anger was my safe emotion I could use it to let out of little bit of overflow from behind my dam.  Not the healthiest but as as single person it served me well.  Once I got married not so much.  In marriage you can't be in total control, you know since there is another living thinking person in the mix (but believe me, I tired).  I didn't like it.  Not at all.

Even after realizing the damage this type of "Force Pushing" could do I had a really hard time stopping.   Stopping meant finding another way of letting emotion out of my dam.  Yes I still have a dam, I'm only human after all, you can't have everything!!

So, some years/months/days were more successful then others.  For me, as with most people I think, the worst emotion is sadness.  I just can't seem to deal with that well.  I get stuck.  It's like this sticky gooey pit you can't get out of and even if you manage to, you can't get all of it off before you fall in again.  The last 4.5 years with Emmeline have been educational to say the least.  In many many ways.  It's like I'm in a crash course on dealing with emotions because they swing back and forth so quickly I think I have whip lash.  Sometimes me feelings literally hurt.  It's like every nerve in my body is stimulated and can't turn off.  Just a constant ache.

I hate crying very, very much.  It is hands down in my top 5 of things I hate to do and I've had to do some pretty awful things.  We Perkins girls, as I have said before, are not pretty criers.  We don't get all dewy and have tears silently fall down our cheeks.  We get puffy and red and the snot tends to flow faster then the tears.  It isn't pretty.

 I have designated places where I try to cry.  Yes, I said try to cry on purpose.  The thing with my dam is, sometimes I can't gauge just how full it is until it's too late.  I'm either in a situation where I can't really get angry appropriately or I don't have time to figure out an exit plan.  This can lead to several outcomes.  I can either get really hostile, shut down or cry.  Since like I mentioned before that sometimes you can't work mean into the appropriately and I hate crying I needed another option.

Forced crying.  I try to make myself cry to let out just enough emotion to function nicely with people.  Super healthy sounding I know.  Since my crying freaks more then a few people out I try to do it in private.  My 2 favorite place are the shower and my car.  The shower works well because I don't have to worry about getting all dirty and gross from crying because I'm already in the shower.  The car is more for convenience.

It wasn't until recently that I have been second guessing the car.  I was sitting at a light trying to cry when I realized something.  People can see me.  Stupid I know.  Before I figured that even if someone was looking at me closely as we drove past each other they likely wouldn't realize I was crying due to speed, but at a light it was pretty obvious.  Do they wonder why I'm crying?  I would if I saw me.  I would worry, what would make this person break down in their car at a light?  What is happening to them?  Maybe I should get one of those pull down baby shades and write "I swear I'm not abused!"  on it.

Why aren't there more private places to cry?  Yes I have a home but there are kids there.  All the time. Am I the only person who likes to cry alone? I doubt it.  I really think there should be a business where you can just go and cry.  No one would bother you, or ask what's wrong or if there is anything they can do.  Because let's be honest, sometimes it is just something you have to do alone and although they mean well it doesn't really help, and sometimes that's hard and sometimes you need to cry.  Alone.