Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

So I moved my Avatar Archive to a more recent journal entry
to keep it the first one you see when you go to my journal.
A part of me feels like I'm hiding this,
but if I were, I'd make it private,
which I'm not.
So once again, I've got a "secret" entry
that I hope someone reads.
(Maybe I'll tell someone.)



There's something that's really been bothering me about myself.
I can't open up to anyone emotionally.
And I mean this in a couple ways.

One way, which doesn't really bother me so much,
is that I absolutely will not tell you how I feel about you
unless you tell me you feel that way about me first.
I could be head over heels in love with someone,
and unless they picked up on the signs,
they'd never know
unless they told me they were in love with me first.
And then maybe I'd confess, too.
(Maybe being in love, though, would be strong enough
to push me to a confession.
Can't say I've ever experienced any emotion that strong.)
But this also applies in lesser degrees.
For instance,
I won't say "I love you" even in a friendly way
unless the other person says it first.
I don't mean in the casual "omuhgawd, I love you, lol~" way.
People toss around the word love.
I do it, too.
But when I actually truly mean it,
you'll have to say it first for me to say it at all.

Kinda makes me think of song lyrics I know.
"I might love you and never show it."
I'll probably show it to some degree
(kind of a hard thing to hide, no?),
but you'd probably overlook it anyway,
and I won't tell you or admit it.

I don't really know why.
Fear of rejection or some other similar reaction?
Yeah, probably.


The other way is that I can't talk about myself being upset.
I can't even show you that I'm upset.
(This is where online and real life are a bit different,
but I'll get to that later.)
I refuse to let people see me cry,
and sometimes even if it's just over a movie.
I find it infuriating when someone points out that I'm crying
if I can't escape to privacy to do it.
I ******** know I'm crying, okay?
Just leave me alone.
I think if someone were to be really comforting
while I'm crying,
physically and verbally,
I could get over showing weakness in front of someone.
(I think that's my issue anyway, looking weak or vulnerable.)
But no one ever knows what to do.
I guess I understand, 'cause it's kind of hard
when you're not really intimate with someone
to offer comfort in a situation like that.
Few people have seen me cry
(Mom, Dad, Tina, Jill, Ms. Melchior, ...anyone else?
The last two in the same instance, though),
and most of them have been awkward about it
(or one time almost teasing, Mom, or in the case of my dad,
I'm not sure he really noticed, or cared, through all his yelling;
with Jill, actually, she started crying, too, when I explained
'cause it was an issue of mutual concern in that case;
my cat died, and she loved him, too).
They'd maybe just stand there, perhaps offer a few words of sympathy.
Then I guess try to ignore it?

Interestingly enough, I can tell people I cried about something, though.
A movie, my cat dying, my dad yelling,
some reason I don't actually elaborate on
(which usually means it's about my worries,
depressing thoughts, or something like that),
etc.
I can mention it after the fact, casually or bitterly.
Not sure why.
Seeing is different than hearing about it?
I guess it'd be because seeing it has so much more packed in to it
than just saying, "Yeah, I cried when my cat died."

I hide my negative emotions, though.
If I'm depressed, and you say something to me,
I'll perk up and smile at you.
You'd never know.
I'll look genuinely okay.
The same is true for anger, sometimes.
If I'm angry, I can make you believe I'm fine.
And sometimes I will.
(Granted, other times I'll just be a b***h.)
If you ask me how I'm doing,
I'll tell you I'm fine.
Though I can admit being upset about
the more casual things like being mad about something school-related
or sad about... uh, something not that big?
(can't be bothered to come up with an example).

I can be utterly miserable,
and you could be someone who could make me feel better,
and I'll wanna reach out to you,
but I just won't be able to.
I wouldn't be able to force myself
to admit to you that I'm really upset,
let alone tell you why.
It becomes a lot easier online,
probably because you can't see me then,
and there won't be any awkward standing around
or anything like that.
It's probably easier to be comforting online, too.
But in real life,
you can probably bet I won't tell you I'm miserable
or why I'm miserable.
Online kind of depends.
And I'm not really sure how to explain that.
It's probably too complicated.
But even online, if I'm genuinely unhappy,
I probably won't tell you or tell you why.

There have been some exceptions,
like times when I have no reason for being upset.
That's easy to admit somehow.
Even in real life, I think.
And one time I admitted to someone online
that I cried when I heard some stuff
about my brother that didn't sound promising.
I don't know why I was able to do that actually.
But when I admitted it, I was already over it.
I'd probably have been able to talk about the situation
to someone in real life if I wanted to,
but I definitely wouldn't've mentioned the crying.
Just that there was an issue with him
and maybe that I was worried.

One thing I'm pretty sure of, though,
is that if my reason for being upset
involved you, you will not hear of it.
I'll sooner tell you that I don't know why I'm upset
than I'll admit the truth.
But of course I'd just try to hide it first.

I used to have a friend I could tell anything to.
We were best friends in real life and I was really close to her,
and then she moved away.
We talked online a lot,
and that was when I could tell her anything.
(Online always makes it easier~)
And her being away meant that my issues never involved her,
so the previous paragraph didn't apply
(except I guess when I was concerned
that we were drifting apart;
I don't know that I ever talked to her about that).
I was just so comfortable with her
that I knew deep down as well as on the surface
that it was okay to talk to her.
College started and now I don't really have her any more.
She's always been such a busy bee,
but now more so than ever.
So now I don't have anyone like that.

Now that I'm in college,
I have one friend.
Just one.
Not especially close.
I can't talk to her about anything like this.
And I'm not sure she'd be able to handle it
even if I felt I could.
I don't picture her being good at it.
I never really had a lot of friends,
and the one I mentioned in the last paragraph
is the only real life friend I've ever really gotten close to.
I've had best friends before and since,
but none I felt that comfortable with.
Kinda sucks really.

I have an online friend I'm close to.
But I've hidden this stuff from him, too,
even when deep down I wanted him to know
and I wanted him to make me feel better.
(And to be completely honest,
this is the person I'm currently closest to right now.
I feel like it kind of sucks that my best friend
is an online friend.
I'm not sure I can justify that, though.)

But don't get the idea that I'm hiding a lot of stuff.
Over the course of my life,
yeah, sure it's a lot.
But this sort of thing doesn't come up too terribly often.
So in a month, I might get, say,
one instance of negativity that I decide to conceal.
And even if it's as often as that,
it's probably not extreme enough to cry about anyway.
Just feel upset for an hour or something
and then it goes away.
And that's another thing.
I don't think I'm bottling it up
by not telling anyone.
It just kinda fades.
The emotion, I mean.
The problem is still probably there,
but it stopped upsetting me.

I really wish I wasn't like this, though.
I'd like to be able to talk to people about my emotions.
I guess I just don't wanna deal with their reactions and responses,
especially not the ones who wouldn't know what to do with me,
and especially especially not the ones who are part of what's upsetting me
(which doesn't necessarily mean that they did something,
like with the whole "drifting apart" thing).
I don't think this is something I can easily change, though.

Thanks, if you read this whole thing. heart
Must've been killer.

Postscript :: I hope this doesn't lead you to believe
that I had just been crying about something
and wanted to talk to someone about it.
'Cause, while I was upset,
I wasn't even close to crying.
I was more in a pensive mood, I guess.
And this stuff was bothering me while I was thinking,
so I thought I'd express it through my journal,
where I can say most anything.
I've been wanting to tell someone about my inability to open up emotionally,
but well, that requires being able to open up emotionally. lol