“Emotion” is a dirty word.
I spent the better part of my twenties oscillating between bipolar highs and lows. Ever since my diagnosis, I’ve been wary of any emotion. They became something that would make me vulnerable, fragile, and weak. Prone to a relapse. Yet, this fundamental inability to admit and discuss my emotions, even in front of myself or my therapist, the lack of skill to navigate and work through them, and the suffocated curiosity to realize what underlining internal disharmony they indicate, have kept me in an emotional and psychological pressure cooker. This denial of emotional affect I’ve diligently practiced has led me to transform into a person who is overburdened with emotional and psychological stress that no amount of self-help books or weekly therapy can quick-fix. I have emotions. Big ones. I’m an emotional, driven, type-A, intensely passionate, and overwhelmingly sensitive soul. I’ve always also had low self-esteem and have cherished the approval I’ve seen in people’s eyes as a reaction to my overachieving momentum. I learned to bury my emotions under all sorts of addictions. I was addicted to playing the piano, dancing, theatre, studying, overworking, and smoking a pack a day. And just getting immersed deep in any activity or fixation I could get my mind obsessed with in a desperate effort not to think about my emotions. I’ve spent the past four years trying to undo the psychological and emotional damage I have consistently caused myself my entire life. Because I systematically denied myself feeling pain, sadness, anger, or grief. It took me way too long to realize that you can’t solve problems you’re unwilling to have. And by that time, I had no muscle memory in place. So I have to train my brain to process unpleasant emotions. Not to bury them. Not to rationalize them. Not to distract itself with anything and everything. But to face them, acknowledge them, embrace them, accept them, understand where they’re coming from, and eventually reach the root causes of their existence. When we try to control or eliminate our emotions, we deprive ourselves of experiencing the richness of life. We numb them all because we can’t selectively numb them. We feel it all or nothing at all. If we want a life full of deep meaning, true love, and emotional strength, it will involve the risk (and often the reality) of discomfort, conflict, and loss. It means there will be sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. If we eliminate negative emotions and experiences from our lives, we will be poorer and weaker for having done so. And the truth is, by denying myself sadness, I’ve lost joy. One of the greatest consolations of old age is that while older people have negative emotions just like the rest of us, they suffer less from them. One reason is that they have learned that although adverse events are inevitable, negative emotions are fleeting unless we choose to hang on to them. They figure out that they get a head start on feeling well not by avoiding negative emotions but by simply choosing to let them pass through them. I learned that when I resist these emotions and suppress them, I close up my heart and begin erecting inner walls within me. I pull myself into a restrictive space and hide in the darkness. I do this for one simple reason: to avoid feeling that pain again. But there lies the problem. When I fail to create for myself the space I deserve to sit with the pain of my emotions and fully feel them, I am blocking my inner flow of energy. So instead, I hold on to this pain without even realizing it. It becomes a soft, sensitive spot for me—a weakness. It becomes an unmet need—a trigger point. And anytime someone touches that or an event triggers that memory, it’ll rise instantly, and I’ll feel the pain all over again. I can’t run away from fear, anger, sadness, grief, or pain. It will simply chase me again. Running away from my emotions gives them more power —it lights them up. They become louder, clouding my sky and filling it with noise. The truth is, while we consciously work to face the darkness and attempt to free ourselves of our inner emotional traumas and pains—and while we might completely dissolve their hold on us—the scars will stay with us forever. And so we might feel them once in a while, but that's okay. Scars. They’ll always be there. But their stories are how we choose to write them. The scars are not there to hurt us or draw us back into the void. Instead, they serve to remind us of the progress and growth we’ve made. They help to remind us of how far we’ve come in our strength and transformation. They remind us of the person we consciously choose to become for ourselves and others. I’ll be riding the waves of sadness until I find joy again.
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AuthorI was born in 1986 in Lebanon. I'm still trying to find my passion in life and in the meantime I'm learning to navigate my bipolarity and redefining stability. Archives
February 2024
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