Recently I have been going through a few past-history blips. It is a difficult thing for me to talk about, to be honest my past would've made the best seller list a few years ago if I had bothered to write it all into a book. I don't know if I could though. It's really hard to understand why the hell someone would want to read about all the bad shit that happened to me as a kid, it's bloody sick really.
You know I did read one of those books, when they first became popular, I thought it was about a kid that leaves home and travels to far away lands, I didn't realise that it wasn't about that, but something completely horrific and terrifying. The book made me feel bloody awful and dragged memories up through the muck for me and it was a really crappy week after that book. I buried the emotions of those memories a long time ago, so I could have a calm and productive life. I did not want to have them dragged back up because of a poor library choice.
Anyway, it happened, and being the person I was, I couldn't just close the book half way, I had to finish. I suppose it was meant to be an uplifting tale of struggle and eventual freedom, but for me it was just miserable and depressing and brought back a lot of shit I thought had buggered off forever.
I re-repressed the emotions and they did stay buried for a while. But recently, they have been coming back at the most inappropriate times and they are causing trouble for me, both at work and at home so I needed to do something about that.
As a kid, I saw X amount of counsellors, which all pretty much sucked. These people came from well-adjusted families with plenty of money, loving parents and they went on holidays to France once a year. They had no bloody idea, no emotional connection to what I had been through, so sitting in that sweaty office, drinking warm orange squash, talking about my 'feelings' was a complete waste of time and it bored the hell out of me. I wized up pretty quickly, I gave them what they wanted to hear, played the system and when the 6 week observation was up, I was denied any more time which suited me perfectly.
You see, my childhood taught me to fend for myself, rely on my own judgement and wits. Not to need other people to help me. I didn't need the silly women, with their perfect hair, loving husbands and 2.4 kids. I didn't need their designer handbags to listen to my pathetic story. I didn't need their nude tights and black court shoes to hear about how I felt about XYZ. I didn't need their gold framed picture of their son holding a foot ball to see my pain, confusion and anger. These women were as emotionally involved as their possessions and they simply didn't care. I could tell that they were just earning a pay-check and the bragging rights at their cocktail parties... "I help poor children".
So as always and before I helped myself. I shut it all off, the good and the bad. I was an emotional black hole. Not happy, not sad.
I learnt to mimic the appropriate emotional responses. You might think that I was/am a socio-path. Not true. I just blocked off my real feelings and replaced them with newer, shiner, more appropriate ones that everyone else wanted to see.
You must understand, my ordinary emotional responses to situations were, well, shall we say... inappropriate. Well, not inappropriate exactly, but off-kilter. These off kilter emotions disturbed people slightly, they weren't quite right, ever so slightly 'off'. I would laugh at a joke a second too early, cry a little to late. It made people uncomfortable. So I faked it.
A couple of years ago, I noticed that my fake emotions were being spotted. I don't know why this was happening but it was. I decided to stop faking it and try to go back to the real emotions. I didn't know how hard it was going to be. This time of my life was the hardest.
It took me about three to four months to stop faking. It was such a part of me that I don't think i am 100% fake free, even now.
But I managed to get everything back and I'm 'normal' again. Although bringing all of the original emotions back has caused some problems...
Namely the major problem of flipping out at innocuous gestures, looks and words. I'm coping with this. Someday it's easier than others, but I have been trying Art Therapy and it's working...
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