Emotionally Disconnected

"You're so calm."

He said it with a smirk on his face as he wiped the counter in front of her. "That customer was livid, but you were barely phased. Are you always so calm?"

In a split second a million thoughts ran through her head.

Calm. Am I calm? No. Calm isn't the word.

Technically, she was never calm. She didn't show emotions so people assumed she was very in control of them. That wasn't really the case, though. She had absolutely no control over her emotions. It wasn't necessarily that she didn't want to show emotion; it was more along the lines that she didn't know how to anymore.

There were times, such as today, that she knew there were emotions somewhere inside her, but they seemed distant, dulled. The attitude and tone of voice given by this specific customer is one any rational person probably would have reacted to with anger or annoyance. The customer was complaining that the coffee was too hot, that every other coffee shop makes sure the coffee cools off a little before serving it.

She did really well with complaints, because she seemed so level-headed. When customers weren't able to transfer their anger to her, they tended to calm down. Today, however, this customer was obviously looking for a fight. From the moment the customer asked for the manager, it was in a hostile tone of voice. Most customers that complained like this were simply hoping for some reimbursement or something free.

When it was obvious this customer wasn't going to receive that, the anger escalated.

"I'm reporting this place to the Better Business Bureau. There are obviously incompetent idiots running this place. It's a wonder you even have customers that still come in here," she snarled, leaned over the counter.

She forced a smile and said, "I'm sorry you feel that way, Ma'am."

The customer, fuming, looked for an instant as if their head may explode from all the anger evident on their rubescent face. Putting the cup down on the counter, almost throwing it, the customer turned to leave. As the coffee splashed all over the counter, the door slammed.

She knew that almost anyone else would have gotten angry and possibly shouted back, probably thrown the customer out of the store. She replayed the scene in her head after rush hour had calmed down.

She imagined herself slamming her hands on the table and shouting back at the customer. She wondered how satisfying it may have been to insult them. She hadn't felt any of that at the time, though; she didn't have the urge to yell or be angry. She honestly wasn't sure how to respond to the initial complaint, so she defaulted to her usual customer-service complaint response. She did feel slightly relieved that the customer hadn't continued yelling afterward.

Today was just one example of emotions abandoning her. They seemed to come and go as they pleased. Most of the time she would feel nothing, and then every once in a while she would burst with emotions, usually all of them at once. That typically only happened when she was alone and it almost always involved hysterical crying, sometimes throwing or hitting or breaking things. Ninety-nine percent of the time, she regretted it, especially the time she accidentally knocked over and broke the vase she had inherited from her late grandmother.

Her lack of control was obvious when she was alone. She would find her eyes watering during something as inconsequential as a car commercial. She was aware how crazy that seemed; this commercial should not have affected her emotions at all.

She questioned it herself: What was it that made her sad? Was it that she wanted the car, or the actor subconsciously reminded her of some deep seeded memory of someone who made her sad?

And she laughed at extremely inappropriate moments. She laughed when she got into a car accident last week. It was a small fender bender. The person who rear ended her was obviously angry, sitting inside his car screaming at whoever was on the other end of the phone.

She stood outside of her car after checking the damage and leaned against the passenger door. As the rain started trickling from the sky, she began giggling. She couldn't explain why. It quickly turned into side splitting laughter. The man from the other car came running up asking if she was okay. When he realized she was just laughing, he slowly backed away and sat back in his car.

Most of the time, though, she had no idea what she was feeling. Emotionless; that would be a better description. Not knowing what you're feeling ninety percent of the time; not knowing whether you should be laughing or crying. Feeling empty inside most of the time, now that was the perfect description.

She was slow to react to most news, good or bad, because she didn't feel anything. She didn't know how to react to most situations. She learned over time how to gauge the type of reaction her friends were expecting based on their tone of voice, and she began acting accordingly.

People had been complimenting her on her "being calm" skills so long, she almost forgot what it felt like to not be calm. She had a few vague, distant memories from high school that she could remember where she actually felt something.

She wasn't calm then, she knew that much. She wasn't one of those people that are psycho, constantly angry, and flip out at the drop of a hat either, but she used to be hyper. She was always laughing and surrounded by people who were all goofing off just as much as her. But she was also called weird on more than one occasion.

She always liked the idea of having a huge group of friends, but usually she just fell silent in the group conversations. Most of them would comment on her weirdness, but seemed to be amused by it. Typically, she bonded with only one or two of the ones who didn't seem to think she was so weird and grew somewhat distant from the rest. She eventually ended up with no real friends.

Maybe that's when she slowly started becoming "calm". She always said things without thinking and it usually attracted a lot of awkward silences, bewildered glances, and an occasional "You're weird..." from people that weren't as friendly with her.

She never really felt like she belonged anywhere, including at home. She didn't have a bad home life. Her parents loved her and although they were part of the lower middle class community, she and her siblings didn't really want for much. Her older sister and brother may have tormented her like siblings often do, but they were the first ones to jump to the rescue when she would come home from school crying.

She knew they thought she was weird, though. Every single one of them had told her this at one point or another, not maliciously, but they had said it.

There weren't many people she truly felt comfortable talking to anymore. Especially not since she got back. Not many people understood what it was like while she was gone for those four years. The ones that understood what military life was like still couldn't wrap their head around what she went through, personally. When she tried to talk to people about it, most gave her a very skeptical look. Some told her they thought she was probably over reacting.

She blinked and realized he was still waiting for an answer. Although it seemed she had been lost in her thoughts for days, in all actuality, it had only been a moment. Was she always calm?

Finally, she responded, "I'm the manager. It's my job to always be calm."

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