A text from a good friend brought me back down to earth this week: “I love you so much, Claire. All that you feel is so real — that’s what makes you human. I hope you know that you never have to be alone in those big feelings if you don’t want to be, though.” (Side note: Can you tell she was raised by two psychologists?)
Emotions have always felt like one big, fat roadblock to all things good in this life — relationships, productivity, respect and rationale seemed to wash away the moment I was hit by the tidal wave of tears. To summarize: as a child, I regularly sobbed over spilled milk equivalents. Constantly confused and frustrated by why life seemed to affect me so deeply, I felt as though I must be clothed in the world’s thinnest skin.
For as long as I can remember, I was labeled (and came to strongly identify with) the label of “sensitive.” The thing is, this descriptor is never handed out in a complimentary manner, always shrouded by the connotation that you are a little too sensitive.
I learned to justify my reactions as overreactions and feared that any display of emotion would be seen as some desperate attempt at attention-seeking. I forced myself to morph from an emotionally-full, living, breathing human being to a timid shell that constantly asked for permission to exist. Adapt or die, as they say.
This shift from under to over-emotional regulation is a common phenomenon among those who invariably feel as though they’re taking up too much space on this earth, one I have dubbed “the false maturity complex.” In the presence of discomfort or disrespect, we turn outward to the world, rather than inwards to ourselves, in a meticulous process of determining what the most acceptable type of reaction would be. All the while, we label ourselves as “mature,” claiming to handle things like easy-going, non-problematic adults.
The unavoidable issue is that when we abide by this strict obedience to some code of reaction-acceptability, we are constantly sending our brains the message to stop trusting its stimuli-analysis methods. We are telling our instincts that they are wrong, overreactive and need to be hidden. We are chipping away at the sacred value found within ourselves.
Although it often feels like the only safe option is to placate the world by making ourselves invisible, the truth is that there is no safety to be found in self-disrespect. Your emotions are not biodegradable — over time they won’t disappear but will instead contort and conglomerate into something even harder to digest. In the face of conflict, stress, disappointment or whatever it may be, each emotion deserves to be acknowledged, understood and expressed. Allow yourself to be the advocate for that sensitive child inside of you, validating the way she felt the world around her.