I’ve been going through a lot recently. Multiple jobs, bills piling up, and my current relationship is falling apart. I want to cry. To bawl my eyes out and scream at the top of my lungs. But I can’t. It feels like there’s a wall between me and my emotions. Anyone else deal with this?
I cried a lot in school… I got labeled “the crybaby”… and I’m male so its even worse…
I had to deal with xenophobia and bullying, and also emotionally volitile home… partly contributed by society and financial instability in early childhood…
Then I learned I had to stop crying or everyone would just distance themselves away from me, “mature kids”, especially males, are not allowed to express emotions… society view it as a weakness.
So starting like middle school… I had to hold in my emotions while at school… or at least I tried by best to… and especially in highschool, I has to just hold in my emotions…
So I cried in my room a lot when the situation at home explodes and I get yelled at and feel threatened by my older brother… I just cry in my room, wondering if I should call the police… but involving authorities is very frowned upon… cuz back home in China, people do not ever involve the authorities for domestic violence… its “private family matters” and cops would walk away… so this was just normal for family stuff to be dealt with internally…
So cops getting involved is like: parents and brother be like “why are these American authorities so fucking nosy?”…
Like one of the first things my mom warned me about when we arrived in the US is: “don’t trust CPS, you don’t want to get taken away and never see us again do you?”…
so yea… I cant do anything about it…
Imagine being an immigrant Asian kid in a place with a bunch of white and black kids… yea that imagery felt scary… I felt like I was in foreign land…
So I cry a lot then get tired and fall asleep and then wake up next morning and mom tells me to wash my face so I don’t get reported to CPS for going to school with my fave full of tears…
So I get it…
Recently I found this song called “Because of You”
and this line struck me:
“I cannot cry, because I know that is weakness in your eyes.
I’m forced to fake, a smile, a laugh, every day of my life.”
So I just start singing that song as coping mechanism every time I feel sad…
And I feel like I created this “bubble” where I feel in control… I’m the most proficient English speaker in my house, this is MY language, my realm, distance my self from my family… just temporarily forget about them… I’m in my mind… feeling as if I’m just on this island by myself… build a wall around my “island”, a fortress where I imagine being safe… but that’s sadly only temporary and only in my mind…