I don’t know how to cope with my emotions. Okay, if we’re being real here, I guess I never have known. I never had the chance to learn how to deal with unpleasant emotions in what may be classed as an ‘emotionally healthy’ way. As a child, if I slammed the door or punched the pillow in anger, my father would react with more anger and forbid me to do so. If I was upset and in tears, it’d also be met with irritation from my father and he’d yell at me to stop. Growing up, there was no sympathy nor comfort in times of hurt and sadness.
During my most recent hospital admission, my parents came to visit. My mother questioned me on what OT activities are available during the day to which my father then asked what OT is. I suppose I gave him a bit of a look. I’ve only been studying OT for the past over a year. But ya know, whatever. He then got angry at me for “looking at him like he’s dumb” and I in turn got upset at being attacked and started crying. He then accused me of being ”too sensitive,” “mentally weak” and asked “How do you expect to be an OT and deal with patients when you get upset so easily when people are angry at you?!” This is just the most recent example of what I’ve grown up learning- that my emotions aren’t valid and I’m not allowed to be feeling what I’m feeling.
So I try my hardest to quash my feelings, ignore my emotions, cut, eat, purge them away. There’s only so much a person can try to bury before it overflows though. Given recent events, now more than anything, they feel uncontrollable, unmanageable, and I just don’t know what to do. Feelings of being backed into a corner with the psychiatrist I saw, feelings of abandonment in having to cease therapy with D, feelings of isolation in not having anyone to confide in, feelings of hopelessness when it seems as though nothing’s ever going to get better, feelings of rejection and hurt when suddenly discharged from hospital, feelings of apprehension in starting therapy with someone new all over again, feelings of inadequacy and stress when attempting to complete uni work, feelings of alienation, being judged and misunderstood when reading comments I’ve received on my blog, feeling unheard when it seems as though nobody cares, feelings of loneliness in not having friends to hang out with, feelings of desperation when I think about this life I’m stuck with… Which has resulted in me reacting by rejecting services, pushing people away, overdosing, angrily venting on my blog and resolving to make my own decisions in regards to wanting to die. And while I acknowledge it’s difficult for people to understand instead of being condemning, and it hurts that so many have proved that they can’t, I so badly wish they did. I just don’t know any other way, I’m desperate, I don’t know how else to cope, and I want these feelings gone.
