It's Okay! (Definitely NOT Okay)

    Growing up, negative emotions were never allowed in my home. Whenever I was mad, I was shut down, and my anger was invalidated. Whenever I was sad, I was told to stop crying, and just breathe. My parents cultivated an almost warlike environment, with my father's battalion of negativity being combatted by my mother's force of toxic positivity. Never have I had a sense of comfortability within my home, although I pathetically sought it constantly, acting as the mediator for my parents throughout my entire life. After much reflection, and many therapy sessions, I have come to the conclusion that these circumstances have effected me profoundly. For one, I struggle immensely to confess my true feelings to people, due to a looming fear of rejection. Additionally, this fear leads me to pushing down my feelings. or succumbing to the desires of others despite my own objections. Today, I would like to explore these struggles of mine on a deeper level,

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    I spend a lot of time masking my feelings. At my job, at school, in public, and even in my own home. It has become second nature for me, and is part of the reason I decided to start this blog in the first place. I wanted to start sharing my true thoughts and feelings with not only others, but myself as well. This masking is inherently tied to my people pleasing. As I have mentioned before, I feel like a chameleon at times, blending to my surroundings to hide. Or in this case, staying silent and/or asking people what they want. I avoid making decisions, or telling people how I feel about things often. My fear of rejection unfortunately has a tight grasp on me and has become debilitating. 

    One of the current tendencies that I have surrounding this topic, is telling people that something is okay when in reality I feel the exact opposite. The most common time that this happens, is when I am with friends, If we are trying to make a decision, and asking if everyone's okay with it, I will always say yes, even if I am not. I do not want to be the person who ruin's everyone else's plans, nor do I want to seem selfish, or whiny. I want everyone to feel happy and comfortable, even if it is at my own expense. A more harmful time I do this, is when someone disappoints me, crosses a boundary, or does something to upset me. Even when I am truly hurt by something. I still find myself telling whoever that "it's okay", even when it's not. This is an incredibly harmful habit, I know it is. The way I justify to myself, is by saying their comfort is more important that my own hurt. I know I can handle being upset, I don't know if they could handle upsetting me. Obviously, saying this into the world, I know it doesn't make sense. I am a liar, and even if my intentions may be "good", lying is not a positive nor productive thing to do.

    I struggle so much with this. I constantly am fighting with myself, and have so many different voices screaming in my head. One voice claims that I'm a liar, and don't deserve to have friends, love, anything. I am deceiving those around me, and that makes me a horrible person. Another voice shouts that lying is necessary, no one WANTS to know how I truly feel. I can't lose the people I'm lucky to have in the first place, by telling them my true feelings and scaring them away! I have to be selfish and lie to keep them in my life, even if I am being hurt in the process. A third voice tells me that I'm overthinking. and being illogical. I need to just tell them how I feel, and if they truly love me, nothing will change. That voice is, of course, the most logical one. But unfortunately it is often drowned out by the others, which are much louder. 

    Thankfully for me, I have an incredible support system. My friends and girlfriend have realized how much I struggle with speaking up for myself, and as a result have tried to include me, even if I try to pull away. For example, my girlfriend will give me a choice on what movie we watch, and I typically will tell them whichever they want to watch, in order to avoid deciding. But she knows this about me, and now will make me choose, to help me face this anxiety that I have. A couple of my friends will do the same thing. It is very stressful, They know me well enough, and care for me enough to help me face these fears. I am so grateful to ball of the people in my life for this. Without them, I don't know if I ever would be able to face it myself. 

   Thanks to therapy, and my friends' encouragement, I have gotten better at sharing my feelings. I still have a lot of work to do, but progress is slowly being made. Over the last year especially, I have begun to feel less fearful. I'm excited to keep working on this part of myself, and hoping that one day, all of those voices in my head will quiet. 

    This was a shorter post, but the topic itself doesn't warrant a lot of conversation. I may speak more about it in the future, but for now, this is all I have to say. I hope anyone else who may struggle with this issue feels comfort in knowing they aren't alone. As always, thank you for reading. I'll see y'all soon!

XOXO

 - Rach