Reflective Essays (School Assignments)

Emotions

Written: 8 February 2016

"Don't let them see how much they're really hurting you," my dad once told me. "The more they see your pain the more it will hurt". The man I had looked up to all my life just told me to hide my emotions of pain so I would not get hurt, so I would not have to experience anymore of the suffering that began to affect me. Even the adults at school told us the same thing. "Don't let your tormentors see that what they are doing is affecting you." Others blatantly told me, do not let those negative, weak, vulnerable emotions be revealed. Do not let those emotions allow others to walk all over for you. Do not let anyone see the dark side of your soul, just as those on earth can not see the dark side of the moon because that will be your downfall.

As I grew up, I believed that everyone only needed to see me smile, all I had to do was smile through the pain and everything would be perfect. The lie that "everything is fine," became something so natural to me, that I never once thought about the consequences. I never once thought that all those pent-up, heart-shattering, emotions could break free. Slowly, those feelings of "not being good enough" those feelings of "where did I go wrong" began to surface. To me, hiding those emotions felt so normal, so mundane, so... ordinary that during those late night sob sessions, it felt good to cry. I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and those weights that we call emotions, simply disappeared into thin air.

However, my emotions were the double-edged sword of the war I called my life, and it was doing more harm than I could have possibly imagined. The emotions I hid slowly grew into the wall that separated me from the ones who wanted me to rely on them the most. I unknowingly pushed away my family and friends because I thought that my emotions were my weakness, and that my strength came from hiding my sob stories, my pain, my worries. I grew up believing that if I wanted to be strong, I could not cry in front of others, I could not allow others to pity me. I had to hide these emotions to maintain face, and I refused to give that up. In the end, that was the price I had to pay for "staying strong", for avoiding pity, for hiding my emotions.

I never once thought about how my feelings, that I decided to hide, could truly harm me. I believed that what I did was for the greater good, that what I did was what I needed to do to move on in my life. I forced smile after smile, but all I felt were those negative emotions that lingered within my heart. The lie that "everything is fine" grew larger and larger and larger, until that "lie" became the smiles I forced, until that lie slowly became my life. I felt like the life I was living was no longer mine. It felt like my life had become the costume I chose to wear to ease the minds of those around me, but in fact, that only made them worry more.

All my life, I allowed the phrase my father told me as a child to rule my life for so long. I thought that all others wanted from me was that reassurance of "she's okay" and that my emotions were my weakness, but I was wrong. They weren't my weakness, but my strength. Those weaknesses that I thought were my feelings shielded me from what could have harmed me. It protected me against the hurricane of my fears, it guarded me from the enemies of my life, and it kept me from looking back, from turning around. It kept me from giving up on everything, even myself. Those nights I cried myself to sleep felt good not because I allowed my boiling sentiments to spill over, but because I was moving on.

Emotions were never meant to be hidden, for they promote growth. They allow us to move forward even when it feels like we have hit rock bottom. Our emotions are what makes us human, and hiding that merely changes that normal human quality into something unrecognizable. As we hide those feelings, they turn into the monsters under our beds that we are too scared to even look at. Those monsters grow bigger and bigger, until they can no longer fit under our beds, and eventually come bounding out to scare us in more ways than one. Our emotions are the fruit of our pains, and they make us who we are. They should not have to be pushed down into the depths of our souls to grow into these frightening creatures. In reality, we only need to set them free and release them from the trap of our hearts.