Last night I had an insightful experience regarding my emotions, whether or not I wanted it to happen. I've grasped from my self work regarding my mother that I often was not allowed to feel my emotions and be responsible for myself, as my mother was constantly trying to take care of me and, to this day, is still trying to form an enmeshed relationship, me taking care of her emotions and she forcibly trying to take care of mine, and so on. Living with Dustin, a person who has overcome a lot in terms of self reliance, personal and professional development, and emotional regulation, has brought light to how my life has gone, and these are the insights I've seen thus far:
- although it is hard for me to truly pinpoint different examples, my mother handicapped my emotional development in a lot of ways. The more obvious example would be that whenever I was sad, my mother would try to nurture me not by listening and giving me a hug and allowing myself to come up with my own solutions, but by doing things for me. It is questionable whether her behavior is nurturing at all or if it was simply because she had deep sad feelings herself and could not handle that her child had them and she had to observe that. It is probable that her behavior was due to the latter.
- The even more obvious examples of my mother and my father handicapping my emotional development is that they did not push me to do anything that would agitate me or make me angry, including chores. I honestly didn't do any chores as a child, besides making my bed. I didn't do the cat litter box until I was age 14 or so. I didn't ever cook meals for the family. I didn't learn how to do my own laundry until I got to college, and I didn't learn how to cook for myself or do my own dishes until age 20. I didn't ever completely clean a bathroom or a kitchen until I was nearly age 21. As a child, I was only nearly spanked once for yelling at my dad when I was 10, and I wriggled away from it- and he didn't follow me after to actually do it. Now, I'm not for capital punishment necessarily, or for parents being hard asses, but a considerable amount of work can be expected from a child just so that they are part of the family, i.e. chores and helping with family meals. While these things might seem easy and mundane, it is the mundane things I've found that are the hardest to overcome at first. Try getting a child to do the dishes. Growing up without doing them didn't make me any more mature in my emotions once I actually had to do them. The thing about learning how to do mundane things as a young adult is that you have emotions like a child, but you are in your early twenties, so you look like a spoiled brat/idiot- which I guess I still am at this point. Nobody likes doing the dishes, but being an adult, I can't rage out and pout, and stomp my feet and get mad at others who want me to do my dishes. Ridiculous I know, but if you never had to do them and all of a sudden had to, you might understand.
- coinciding with the learned helplessness and lack of emotional regulation, my mother never encouraged or permitted in her mind or verbally that I could or should have had a job while I was a teenager in high school. While some of my friends had jobs and I was intrigued that this could be an opportunity for growth, I was not pushed to get one or even encouraged that it would be a good idea, and so I never did. My first job was my tuition supporting position working in custodial my freshman year of college. This is where Dustin and I differ. His first job was cleaning icecream buckets at age 14. His mom had pushed him to find a job as soon as he was legally able to. He faced a lot of anger about having to do mundane jobs- like working at KFC when he was 16 and McDonalds when he was 19- that he felt he was above, and yet, he pushed through them and realized that if he wanted to do better, he had to work for it, and find new jobs, get interviews, develop his resume, etc. Now at age 28, he has already worked for electronics depts, Realtor.com, GoDaddy, and LinkUs cable installation. All jobs that seem relatively mundane, but very involved, complicated and engaging in reality- and which make good money, too. Here I am, almost 23, and I have only worked in disability services, custodial services, gardening work, and a little bit of retail. I'm mad at myself that I went to four years of college to get a psychology degree, probably because I wanted to figure out my mom and fix her- take care of her emotions like she taught me to. I didn't get a business degree, which would have enabled me much better for getting jobs that desire having people with bachelor's degrees. Basically, my degree is useless and I have 30,000 dollars in debt that I have to pay off through entry-level positions.
So, last night all of this came into my mind while I was talking to a person I knew from my adolescence on Facebook. She is a young, single mom who still lives in her hometown where she grew up. I remember visiting her mom's apartment when I was 14 years old, and it was nothing special, in a creepy neighborhood too. She had re-added me because I thought that we weren't really friends anymore, but apparently, she liked seeing my life on FB and thought of me as a healthy food advocate for herself. Flattered, I kept talking with her about our lives, and I learned that she works at Walgreens as a pharmacy technician. I asked her what she made- entry level about 10/hour, certified 11/hour. That made me excited, because I realized that it was more than I had ever made at any other job I had. This experience spiraled me into circular thinking that I needed a job that made that kind of money, and definitely more since I had a bachelor's degree, except it wasn't a bachelor's in business, so it meant nothing, and here I am, I can't even get my resume off of my broken computer without my boyfriend having to do it, so I tried figuring out how to get my hard drive out myself, but I don't have the right tools, so I'd have to wait until morning, and I could be applying for more jobs if I had my resume, etc. etc. etc. .. and I realized, ...that I was angry. And I felt embarrassed, and overwhelmed. And I didn't tell Dustin, or show him in any way that I was angry- because I believed that I shouldn't, couldn't, and didn't need to show him or anyone else I was angry. This all comes back to my family of origin issues, where no one was allowed to be angry, irritated, sad, doubtful, jealous, or hateful- besides my mother.
Dustin, not knowing anything about what was going on inside me- that I was thinking about needing a job- saw that I was breathing hard and making a mean face while I was trying to take apart my computer, and asked, "Why are you so angry?" Because of my previous life experience in this kind of question, I assumed that this was further validation that I shouldn't be feeling angry and I replied, "Because I haven't felt angry for years." We then talked about how I could get a new part tomorrow morning to open my computer when I realized I didn't have the right one, but I didn't say anything about my feelings beyond that. Then I just got up and walked into the bedroom, went to the bathroom and then got in bed to sleep. And I cried, because I felt so stupid that I was so angry about needing to get a job, when all of my money needs pointed to that I needed a job. And I cried because, deep down, I knew that I would not be able to ever have emotional independence and self-sustaining integrity unless I was able to get a job by my own means, or take responsibility for my survival into my own hands. Realize my own death, and my life.
Dustin eventually walked into the bedroom and asked, "Honey, what are you doing?" in a soft tone. I replied, "Trying to fall asleep. Going to bed." He crawled onto the bed, onto me and said, "Why didn't you tell me?" in a sad voice. I said, "I didn't want to bother you with my feeling angry." He laid next to me. "You don't bother me," he said. We talked more about how I felt I couldn't be angry when I was around him, and how he didn't even know what thoughts I was having in my head. He said, "You need to realize that you're not the only one who has had these feelings." He laid on his stomach, hugging a pillow. I said, "But everyone else had these feelings when they were younger; I'm almost 23 and I'm still feeling angry about having to get a job for myself." He replied, "I was going through those feelings too, when I was 23." I didn't take him seriously at first- I thought he was just saying things. Then I actually looked at him in disbelief, and asked reluctantly, "You did?" He replied, "Yeah, I did." I felt a little bashful, and then quickly let it go. I looked into his eyes, and he looked into mine. I kept looking because I realized that I needed to keep looking into his eyes- that he was seeing me for who I was, with care and love, and that he was telling me the truth. He then told me that I was never going to get to where I wanted to be- guaranteed- if I didn't allow myself to feel my feelings. I told him that I didn't want him seeing me showing my anger, throwing things, seeming like a child. This, again, was part of my messages growing up; that I was silly and it was dumb to show my emotions. He raised his eyebrows, shrugged, and said frankly, "I don't care if you show your emotions." I realized that I was allowing my own messages to filter how Dustin was seeing me, and I was the only one not allowing myself to feel. Anything. Anger, sadness, happiness, sexuality, joy, frustration, irritation, any of the negative feelings especially. It's now up to me to allow myself to be angry while in front of Dustin. He is a safe person to be around, and although I still don't believe him, I will take his word for it that he will not be scared of me if I am angry, upset, irritated. More honestly, I think that I do not want to see myself this way. I do not want to see myself as angry. This is something I need to realize about myself, and allow my thoughts and feelings to be however they are. Including when I think about how my life is fucked up, and that I have to get a job.
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