How Do You Deal?

Emotions.  We all have them.  But not all of us deal with them the same way.  I know I can only speak for myself, but I don't know how to deal with them at all.  There are lots of emotions.  Happiness, sadness, anger, love, joy, and fear are some of the major ones.  We all feel these emotions, but not all know how to respond to these emotions.

How do you be happy?  Is it something you learn.  I think for many people they confuse "I'm not unhappy" with being happy.  This isn't true.  I'm not unhappy most of the time, but I can't say for sure that I'm truly happy.  Maybe I never learned what real happiness is.  Or maybe over the course of life through a series of events my default became "not unhappy" instead of happy.

What about sadness or anger?  Some negative emotions.  Frustration.  Confusion.  I remember back when I was a teenager when I felt these things the ways I knew how to express them were to make threats or act intimidating.  I know I ran away a few times.  I punched walls.  I punched my truck once, put a big dent in it.  It was on Spring Garden Street just outside Giant across from M&T bank.  I know who was with me and I know it was on the drivers side front quarter panel, 1995 F-150.  I yelled.  I made threats.  I threw things.  I've smashed vacuum cleaners (two of them).  I've had to replace all the doors in our house, one of them twice.  I've never hit a person in these moments, though.   That doesn't make it right, because seeing me do that isn't helpful.  Where did I learn that?  Where did it start?  Why did it start?  Like I said....I remember acting this way when I was a young teenager.   I remember lots of these vividly.  And I know that the things or people I was mad at weren't the source of the anger.  But there are always these emotions that well up inside of me that I don't know what they are or how to express or feel them.

So there.  Now you know.  I have an angry side.  I don't know if it was anger though, I think the response of the emotion looked like anger.  It wasn't always pretty.  And since starting anti-anxiety medication, anti-depressants and seeing a therapist and psychiatrist things have gotten much better.  My mood has stabilized and I can stay in the moment longer.  I don't worry as much about the what if's.

I think that growing up with an alcoholic father has a lot to do with why I don't know how to process emotion well.

I've heard that children that grow up with parents that are pastors or overly committed to the church have the same issues.

There are real, long term effects to your brain when you  grow up with an addict parent.  Thankfully though, my dad has been sober for years.  And I'm really proud of him.  But for me, I'm just learning that a lot of what I struggle with was because of my childhood.  I should have dealt with that much earlier in life.  But problems don't always manifest at the best times and you don't always realize how to solve them.

This is just the beginning of learning and I hope to be able to share alot of what I learn about my own brain chemistry with others that may not even realize that much of what they struggle with mentally could be learned behavior from childhood.