Why do I get too emtional?

Hello Everyone! To my faithful blogging buddies and the occasionals that stop by I would like to ask your forgiveness on how long it has taken me to write this blog. My computer was down (still is) and I have bronchitis. Please keep stopping by, though.

What I would like to talk about to today is my emotional reactions! I don’t know if it’s because I “stuff” my feelings, I am an overly passionate person, or if it has something to do with my mental illness. I can totally see the stuffing of emotion. Most of the time, in life, when something bothers me I don’t show it. This causes me to feel abused by people when they don’t even know they are hurting me. I really need to speak up! I know a lot of my followers know what DBT is (and if you don’t I can do a blog on that). Anyway, I been through it now, I believe, seven times. In short it teaches a person to express their emotions and do what is best for them, not the other person. However, it does it in such a way that you are getting heard not criticizing someone. I sit in DBT and everyone says I know it like the back of my hand. I just have to put it into practice. One of the reason I can see this happening is because when I don’t say anything it builds and builds, finally just blowing up. My body can’t take all that stored emotion. It’s not healthy. I think what I need to do is ask God to give me courage to speak up. Will you all pray for me to do that?

I can also see it being because I am a passionate person. When I love, I love with my whole heart. When I take on cause, I see it to the end. I don’t help someone half way. I can still remembering being a little girl and balling my eyes out because my parents’ friends told me point blank animals don’t have a soul (I am not here to argue that so don’t write me about animals and souls). Anyway, I was so crushed. I thought the whole world dependent on the fact that they believe me that my little doggies were going to heaven. I can say that I have grown a lot because just a year ago I saw the same couple, now in their sixties, on a day trip with my parents. This sixty something year old couple has grown close to us over the years and I feel like they are my grandparents which is why I came with. However, I think they like to argue with whoever, wherever, and they said point blank to my face that Obama was a communist (again this is to illustrate a point, my blog is not political so please don’t make that your focus). You know what I did? I just looked at the two of them and said that I plead the fifth (which is freedom not to comment). I didn’t feel like they are going to get half of America to not reelect Obama. They are just two older people that are very much loved by my family. It did hurt, and learning from what I just wrote in my pervious paragraph, I should have said how it hurt me. Not anything to do with Obama, but that they would attack a certain political figure because they know it would hurt me. However, maybe because I didn’t say anything is why they didn’t know they were hurting me. So I guess I answered my first question about if it was because I was “stuffing” it or being passionate. It seems the two are tied together.

Now about my mental illness. Why I can see this is because I just had a toxic conversation with my Mom. Before I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, I could just yell back at her and get all my feeling out, but today I cried. However, as I am writing this I am wondering is yelling really all that much better then crying. I do have to tell you all that early in my diagnosis when I would get in fights with my Mom, the crying would turn into me wanting to hurt myself. That’s just not right. My Distress Tolerance Skills (see I use some of my DBT) helps me to calm down once the moment passes so I don’t stay in emotion mind. I am just wondering if yelling is all that good either. I mean what if I didn’t carry a diagnosis? What if I graduated my first college with my B.S. in genetics going on all the way to get my PhD, married my “dream man,” and had already popped out a couple kids. Would when one of my kids did something inappropriate, would it be appropriate for me to scream at my children? Now, I know some of you are parents and I know that is very proper to raise your voice to a child. However, discipline and going “nuts” with an emotional scream feast are two very different things.

Maybe this gets to another point? Maybe it’s how I was raised. To live in a pretend world where you’re pretending to be happy until it gets too much and then you scream or cry! Mixed with my mental illness and the fact that I am passionate doesn’t not do well for me “stuffing” my emotion. Courage. Let’s try that.