My tsunami of emotions
There is a tsunami of emotions inside of me, and I have no idea how to deal with it. I’ve been breaking, one by one, the shackles that have kept me hostage to my ill thoughts, pushing me down and hindering my growth. I still believe we are in this world to better ourselves, so I keep working myself towards that.
Inner reflections, raw and honest, have helped me to understand why I’ve kept letting myself down so much over the years. Why I fail no one but myself and in the end, feel miserable by feeling I accomplished nothing. Yet, none of these words are true.
Despite having the wrong motivations to achieve greatness, I still did it through righteous means and I am acknowledged for that. I just have, still, a hard time doing it myself. There are days though, where I look at myself in the mirror and feel proud and in others, a complete failure. Regulating this tsunami of emotions is yet the biggest challenge I face to this day. My heart controls me, no matter how much I use my brain. And my heart is loving and caring for others, but a devil bastard to myself.
But what triggered all of this? And why now? As ashamed as I am to admit, my father’s passing, more than three years ago, has forced the space inside me, locked with all my childhood traumas to come out. And with everything else I am going through in life today, I feel exhausted, hopeless and mentally on my knees.
I still remember when I begged for his affection and got none. When my mother said I shouldn’t be a problem to her, because she already had too many. That despite getting the highest grades in all disciplines at school, I was still perceived as ‘not good enough’ by the ones I loved the most. And in the end learned that nobody cared about me and it would be better to lock myself in a shell, in hopes to not bother anyone.
And as the years progressed, without friends and no one to share my feelings with, I learned to be self-sufficient still determined to prove to everyone that I was worthy of being loved. Because I was successful, smart and a nice person. The recognition came when one day, my father said I should write a book about my story, as a survivor who was able to thrive in life despite the odds. That was the greatest compliment he ever gave me. And even though our relationship improved over the years, the feeling of worthlessness was, and still is, ingrained in me.
I still crave the need of feeling loved, but because of this belief of being unworthy of love, I cannot perceive all of it that I receive on a daily basis from the people around me. Because of my disability, others suffer and this line of thought just drags me down in a way that make it hard to find a way forward.
Over the years I’ve been convinced that my personal mission is to help others. The truth is that I crave the feeling of being useful to others, for being treated as bother by my family for so long. Judging that they would be better without me and cutting ties with them only materialised how I felt. Reinforcing my beliefs, the rest of my family spared no criticism for my actions, not caring a single moment to understand how I felt and my reasons for acting in such a way. Everyone always knew I grew up in an unhealthy environment but still expected me to behave like everyone else. Well… I am not everyone else and I am not sorry for my actions. If acting for self-preservation is a crime, I am happily going to jail.
The tsunami of emotions continues crushing me inside, and I lack a compass to anchor myself and calm down. I thankfully have my husband and my cats to remind me that the real life goes on. I pray it is enough to help me find myself again and find a way to move forward after all the destruction happening inside me.
There will be a new version of me emerging, which is the one fighting to survive this tsunami. Regardless of the outcome, this is worth going through. And I don’t need anyone to validate this.
Because I am worthy. Because I matter. And that’s the ultimate truth, even if the world tells otherwise.