Residuary

In my last entry, I mentioned the fact that expression wasn’t allowed in my home and I want to elaborate on that. I think I’ve discussed it here before but I obviously need to reiterate it for my own peace of mind.

My mother felt like she was the only one who could show emotion. If I was a bit silly, she would call me out on it and say I was being childish. If I was sad, she’d coldly tell me to grow up. If I got angry with her, she’d get angry with me.  That just made me feel worse until I found myself apologizing to her instead of her apologizing to me, which is the way it should have been.  Eventually, I just learned to keep everything inside because to express myself meant facing ridicule from my mother.  And maybe that's why I'm so open now.  Maybe that's why I might over share in some situations.  Maybe it's my way of making up for all the times when I couldn't be silly, and even worse, when I couldn't be mad or sad.  I realized that you can't keep yourself bottled up in your body.  Yet, I'll admit that maybe I take that epiphany a little too far sometimes.

When I discovered writing, I discovered a way to let out all those emotions that had no where to go.  I was finally able to be silly or creative or mad without the fear of anyone putting me down for just being.  Over time, the writing transferred over to people.  It's not something I mean to do but one thing leads to another and suddenly I find myself laying out too much too soon and I have to start backing off.

And how about this for a leap:  this is also why I wanted my former roommate, Keith, to be such good friends with me (I know, when am I gonna stop talking about this guy??).  He was one of the first people I knew outside of my family and my small town bubble and I hoped that he'd be the one I could finally open up to.  I saw him as a potential mentor, someone older and wiser who would help me develop into a mature adult.  Of course, when I did open up to him, it blew up in my face.  He basically had the same reaction as my mother always did.  He was cold and uncaring.  Dead end with him.  I realized, despite my limited experience at life, I was actually the more mature one.  The disappointment with his attitude was all the more crushing when he not only didn't become my mentor, but became my menace.  So, then I went to that lame counselor who told me everything was all my fault so I had to stop going to him because he made me feel worse.  And then I had no one.

Sure, it's pretty sad that I don't really have anyone to talk to.  And sure, there are a lot of people who offer their ears but I doubt many of them truly mean it.  People always extend that offer but rarely ever follow up on it.  Plus, everyone else is so bogged down with their own problems that it would seem unlikely that they'd take on someone else's baggage.  My dad is made of brick and isn't easily approachable and my sister doesn't care about anyone but herself so I'm pretty much left to myself and my blog.

You could say my over sharing might be an inadvertent cry for help or a natural response to repressed emotions.  And I would probably agree with you.  Then again, I guess it goes back to whether or not sharing yourself with people is good or bad.  It depends on the person and how much you share and how soon.  Just because because I have a natural inclination toward sharing myself doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing.  I just happen to share with people.  I don't think that's the trouble.  I suppose the true trouble comes from choosing the wrong kind of people to share information with or maybe coming on too strong with certain tidbits.  And that's something I'll have to work on over time.  And that just comes from interacting with people and maturing as a social person. 

Ha, yeah, like that will happen.