Managing emotions

This video is definitely millennial western parenting, where it is alright to feel all the negative feelings and make sure to move on from there. And it is true, having to acknowledge means that whatever you feel doesn’t get swept away under the carpet and doesn’t mean we have to be pretend to be happy when we are angry. After watching it, I cried because the father in the video actually said that he will respect her feelings.

I grew up with parents whose characteristics are from the Mad Men series. My father is like Don Draper, while my mother is like Megan Draper. While my father doesn’t work late, but emotionally he was absent. I could not talk to him about stuff because he gets really offended with sensitive topics. There is something I cannot compute. He is a pHD holder and encouraged people to think but when people think and ask questions, then he shuts me off because it is not biblical. And that’s also my issues with Christians. You want people to question their own faith so they can convert to Christianity but what about the people who have grown up in the Christian background? Why you don’t allow them to question?

Up to today, I have only an “ok” relationship with my father. Partly because he was like Don Draper. He doesn’t allow me to be angry and whatever expression I have is not healthy. Also he doesn’t want to admit he is wrong when he has hurt others.

The problem with this upbringing? I grew up to be emotional and not many people knew how to handle when I get emotional. I couldn’t express it at home and sometimes this trickled to my relationship with my friends. This is not good because the emotions I expressed is so strong that it is hard for people to see that I was hurt and to them I am overreacting and I should “get over it.”

Until today, I am grateful that my friends are still with me despite of my emotions. I wish that they know that I have learnt my lesson, and I do want to think that my outbursts are less these days.

Marrying my husband is one of the greatest gift I have so far. He told me to acknowledge whatever emotions I have and not pent it up. The problem with my family is they never allowed me to acknowledge it because it is ‘negative.’ Sometimes we do need to think positive, but if we don’t acknowledge the negative, the forgiveness is hard to come, and the emotions while hidden, will manifest in different ways and it will destroy other relationships.

In fact, when I shared about stuff which is happening to one of my circle of friends, my husband help me to process some parts which I can’t see because I am such a feeling person. While he told me to be aware of my emotions so that it would not stop the conversations having for me to regret it. Well, in that circle, I am already living with the consequences of being too emotional as now my friends will plan something separately and then call me once they have plan it. I am alright with it and accepted it because I know personally for myself, I also can’t handle some of the complexities on my own.

My husband also told me that I don’t have to deal with certain drama in the friendship unnecessarily. It is true there is someone in the group that irks me and I feel damn pissed about it, but also, I can choose to walk away when it gets into me, and get back to it to deal with it when I am calmer. And as much the friendship is fragile, but maybe the relationship needs to break before it gets stronger as people have more time to think and reflect? I guess the important thing is the closure and how do we move on after everything else goes down.