Over the past year and especially the past 6 months or so I've been working on being okay to let myself feel emotions and work through them instead of pushing them back down and ignoring them for the rest of forever. Apparently this isn't a healthy way of dealing with life. This has been an unpleasant change for me and to be honest I haven't done that well with it. I let myself feel things for maybe a fraction longer but then I shove it back down into my emotion pit or whatever you would like to call it and try to ignore it. However, my ignoring them isn't happening either since I now have loving family and friends aware of what I do that strongly encourage me to not do that and to work through it. It's been an exhausting fight for sure but I have slowly learned and realized something about myself over these past 6 months that has me feeling all sorts of things (unfortunately)….I can't feel love from others.
As most of you know that read the blog telling of my story growing up, I didn't have much love around. On top of that the circumstances I grew up in I learned the best way to survive and protect myself is to shove any feelings and emotions I had down deep inside of me and replace it with humor and sarcasm. I learned that if you just joke about everything all the time along with replying with sarcasm about everything then people tend to leave you alone. I didn't do this as much as a kid but definitely teenager age up until present time I've mastered this. A side effect of pushing internal emotions down though, that I've recently learned, is not being able to feel outside emotions and feelings...especially love from others...be it friends or family.
I'm sure some of you are wondering how in the heck did I get married then. Well I definitely fell in love with Duke and even though I don't really feel the love that I know he has for me doesn't mean I never felt it. In our twitterpated stage of life when we were dating and newlyweds I didn't have to face reality. I had someone where I was his whole world and center of attention and I loved that because he respected me and still wanted me even though I had a messed up history and such. In that time of my life I was able to feel love from Duke and it was awesome! As we all know though life continues and as we started having kids, Duke developing his career and just the overall maturing into adults my prior habit of shoving emotions down to not feel which results in me not being able to feel love from others started happening again.
I know that for some of you this is hard to understand. I mean how can you not feel love from others? Especially when those that care about you tell you that they love you and do things that show their love. Well, it definitely is complicated to explain and I will do the best I can at it. Personally, for me I guess I don't feel love from others because I've gone so long without letting my feel things (until it explodes out of me) and that has just made me numb. Another reason I think is I convince myself that my friends and family don't really mean it when they say they love me (except Duke...he is definitely the exception). So, with recently being taken in by family as their daughter I've not been able to feel any love from them-except on a rare occasion or two. As a result I'm constantly trying to tell myself that they really do love me and want me around but the stronger part of me tells me that none of it is true. They've told me they're not going to abandon me or anything but I'm just waiting for them to tell me I'm too much to handle and that it's not working anymore. This goes for my friends as well. I'm just waiting for everyone to leave me because I'm not getting better, or working hard enough, or just keep pushing away. I have this fear with Duke as well (sorry babe). I mean I know he loves me but what's too much for him? I'm used to acting a certain way for survival that to change the way I live and act is proving to be so much harder than I thought it would be. I truly believe I'm not lovable or worth any effort for anything....and I've been trying to change that way of thinking but it seems the harder I try the worse I get. I'm seriously just stuck...and as a result still don't feel the love and care others say they have for me.
The ironic and sad part is that I so desperately crave the love and caring...especially as a daughter from parents. I've been so deeply hurt though by those who were suppose to love and care that I've built what I feel like is this impenetrable wall to protect myself...even though I'm starving for it and it's there for me but I just can't let it in because I'm convinced it's not real, will go away, or I'll just get hurt even more.
I don't know why I'm sharing this publicly but I am. I'm not looking for sympathy or anything like that. I'm still trying to work on this whole emotion thing for the most part (basically when I feel up to it). I guess I'm sharing this in hopes that if someone else out there feels like this just know you're not alone. It's hard for us and for those around us who tell us they care...but we can't feel it. We certainly can give our love to those we love and care about but we just can't receive it back and it makes us feel (at least me) crappy and like there's something wrong with us. I really don't have anything encouraging to end on I guess except to say keep going as much as you can.
Those that I love and care for that might be reading this. Know I don't write this to hurt you in anyway...just trying to help you and maybe others understand.
