I don't want to talk about it. OK?

The BBQ Pit
1

There are many valid, real human emotions that do not need to be discussed, shared, or even mentioned. The fact that I don’t enjoy wallowing in every facet of a particular emotional unpleasantness does not prevent me from appreciating the importance of misery. While it may be incumbent upon someone to make their support available to another who wishes to explore some wretched inner struggle with a supportive close associate, that does not imply that every close relationship includes the obligation to announce every emotion.

If I don’t express something, and, when asked, reply that I don’t feel that particular feeling at the time, it is possible that rather than not expressing my feelings, I am simply not feeling things which someone else wishes I felt. While it might be possible to coerce me into expressing those emotions, that would not make them my emotions. If they were my emotions, I would feel them without instructions. Some people find it very helpful to discuss things that cannot be changed, are not likely to ever end, and never really stop hurting. Others find that after a few dozen iterations the benefit of examination begins to decline. Moving on with the rest of life has some advantages. It is not an inability to express emotion, it is a unwillingness to cling to pain. Guilt does little to help reduce this.

The world is filled with things wonderful, and things terrible. Everyone gets a bit of each, and the beautiful things won’t wait for your mood to get better. You aren’t likely to miss out on the tragedy from not being ready for it. So there are some real advantages of actually just not thinking about some things that make you feel bad. You do have to notice if you seem to find yourself in the same sad place over and over. That would indicate your habits are a probable source of your problems. But the fact is that endlessly discussing things that make you feel miserable is not inherently more wonderful than just getting over it and getting on with it.

Sometimes I wish someone else felt something. I have my emotional desires, and want that emotion to be reflected back to me. But when the other person doesn’t have that response, I don’t want to describe to them the emotion that I wanted them to feel. If they pretend to feel that emotion because I wanted it, it destroys something very important forever. That thing can never come back, no matter how much they want it to. I can’t have the emotion I wanted, and now, I can only have pretense. Why would anyone want to instruct me in how to fake emotions for them?

What happens when someone doesn’t feel what I want them to feel is: I don’t get what I want. That’s the way life goes, sometimes. I get some of what I want, and I don’t get some. Then I move on to other things and try to find ways of getting what I want. It makes me sad for a while. Maybe it makes me real sad for a long time. The fact is, I choose how long to spend feeling sad about things. I don’t think a longer time is better than a shorter time. I think the amount of time you feel a thing is about right. Then you feel other things. And maybe you want to talk about it, but then again, maybe you don’t.

Tris

2

Fuck yeah. I hate it when some fucker keeps telling you that talking about it will make you feel better. No, sometimes it doesn’t fucking work that way, you jack-off!! My telling you might make you feeling a little better about your fucking wretched existence, or make you feel like you’re a better person for trying to have helped, but the fact is that it is none of your goddamned business whether I choose to share my feelings or not. I appreciate the concern, but I also respect other people when they don’t want to “talk about it”, so why don’t you get the fuck out of my face and get your own shit together, huh? Huh?

3

There, there. Let it all out (Maggie pats heads of Triskadecamus and ReservoirDog as they sob into her ample bosom). You’ll feel much better once you’ve had a good cry.

4

Maggie,

You know, I am not going to denigrate bosoms, ample or otherwise, since I rather like bosoms. But, the whole “having a good cry” thing is waaaaay over rated. I hate crying. I cry, now and then, and it is usually alone, face down on the ground, and in complete abandon. I hate every minute of it, and I get up as soon as I have the strength to do so. It sucks. And it doesn’t make me feel better.

I am not saying you, or any hundred thousand other people might not just feel great for having cried. I don’t. I cry out of utter desperation and overwhelming pain. It feels terrible, and I don’t get any benefit from it. I get a whole lot more benefit out of figuring out just how the heck I ended up lying on the ground spent and dispairing, and making some changes in my life so I won’t have to do that again.

I suppose I am fairly odd this way, but to me, misery is . . . well, miserable. And it doesn’t make me want company, either. It is not a big part of my life, thank the Lord. It is a part of life itself, of course, but I deal with it, and concentrate on what might lead elsewhere.

Any attention I might pay to your bosom would be far more interesting when I was feeling better, thank you.

Tris

P. S. I don’t know if it is as atypical as pop psych gurus might wish me to believe, but when I am feeling really intense unhappy emotions, I want to be alone. I don’t want someone to share it with me. It sucks. What the heck would I want to dump crap like that on someone else for? They can’t change it. If changing it was an answer, I would have changed it rather than weeping about it. I know they love me, (If in fact they do love me.) and I know the would feel my pain strongly if I told them about it. ** That’s precisely why I don’t want to tell them about it. {/b} And it they don’t love me, well, I certainly don’t trust them enough to tell them about it.

You know, being unhappy doesn’t kill you. You get over it. It usually even stops hurting after a while. And the few things that hurt forever are gonna hurt forever anyway, so you just have to live with the hurt. I won’t pretend that I am always happy, but I don’t think it serves any purpose to wallow in what makes me unhappy. I would rather just cry alone, if I must cry, and then live on. Who is trying to share it is not the point. I don’t want to share it. Sharing emotions does not make them go away, it makes them stronger. These emotions hurt. I don’t want them stronger.

Tris

5

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Triskadecamus *
**
[QUOTE
You know, being unhappy doesn’t kill you. You get over it. It usually even stops hurting after a while. And the few things that hurt forever are gonna hurt forever anyway, so you just have to live with the hurt. I won’t pretend that I am always happy, but I don’t think it serves any purpose to wallow in what makes me unhappy. I would rather just cry alone, if I must cry, and then live on. Who is trying to share it is not the point. I don’t want to share it. Sharing emotions does not make them go away, it makes them stronger. These emotions hurt. I don’t want them stronger.
Tris **[/QUOTE]

Another person who hates to cry, hmmm. It doesn’t make me feel any better either, contrary to what others would state for themselves.

However, it seems that when people try to either say ‘you must be feeling thus and so, why not talk about it?’ it usually has a lot more to do with where they are then, than being able to hear anything you have to say.

But, it can also be a tool to empathize even when it’s not correct. If someone DOES feel better when they cry, they simply want you (or me, or any other hater of crying) to feel better too, and yeah, sometimes it’s selfish, ‘I can’t bear you feeling bad, so cry and let’s go watch the game now.’ Or even, ‘Wow, see how caring I am, I’m a really compassionate person.’ But, it can be out of real caring too, just mismatched and not necessarily helpful.

People in our lives FEEL closer when we share, and if we are the kinds of people who DON’T want to share, what they HEAR is, ‘I don’t wish to share with YOU.’ Rather than the really simple, ‘I need to do this alone.’ They see only the barriers that are put down, and then THEY are alone and scared we might not come back out of the cave. It takes a great deal of trust to be able to back off and just let well enough alone.

6

Triskacademus - maybe there is a support group or 12-step program for people as sarcasm-impaired as you?

7

I agree that all this emotion and getting in touch with your feelings isn’t good for us. Nobody likes to cry. It’s better to take all the crap that life throws at you at just swallow it. Just pack it all away deep down inside you so and compact it into a tiny black ball. Never show pain, in fact… don’t show anything. When shit pisses you off don’t even get mad, just add it to that little black ball inside you. Sure, we’ll all run out of space at some point and when you do just let me know what building you’ll be shooting civilians from.

8

For not wanting to talk about it, you sure had a lot to say.

Next time try this:

LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!

And walk away . . .

Works for me.

9

I’ve been told, God help me, that I’m a good listener and easy to talk to. Yeah, I know no one can take advantage of you without your permission, but I’m ranting anyway.

It’s the reverse side of the OP - I’m happy to go about my life and let everyone else do the same, but instead I get to hear all about how much someone hates their job, spouse, bit-on-the-side, kids, relatives, friends, health, weather, pet…hey, I can get depressed on my own, I don’t need you to help. I’m sick of being supportive, go see someone who’s getting paid for it.

True story: Friend announces that shrink no longer needs to see her because she’s so well-adjusted.

Did you tell her about X? About Y? About Z? Nope.

She’s telling you to start talking or get off the couch, you idiot. Meanwhile, apparently I’m cheaper.

I swear, after the next two-hour phone conversation I’m sending a bill.

10

** Magdalene, ** I know that you’re not that familiar with Tris, but he is a wonderful guy, and I’m not sure what he is talking about specifically, but it’s most likely that he’s just writing out loud about not wanting to share his feelings with a particular person.

** Feynn, ** you don’t really think everyone who doesn’t share their feelings easily is going to wind up a sniper in a depository somewhere, do you?

None of us is getting out of this world alive, and most of us muddle along the best that we can. Just as some people are ‘huggers’ and there are those who aren’t, neither are “best”, just different. So it is with those who ‘share’ and those who would need to feel like their feet are well under them before talking about whatever is going on in their lives at a particular moment.

The ‘Mark Bartons’ of the world show up as killers NOT because they didn’t share, but because they never care for people in any other way than being extensions of themselves. * That does NOT describe Tris. *

** Felinecare, ** You have one of those kinds of faces too? When I used to work at a retail store, I was forever having people confide all kinds of personal things, stuff I would NEVER have said, much less to a stranger. I wasn’t allowed to work as a cashier because it was forever holding up lines. :wink:

  • I hope today is better for you, Tris. *

Judy

11

I listen to friends talk about their troubles. I don’t mind that at all. I listen to them talk about their deep inner emotions, and their fears, and foibles. I get a lot of that. People trust me. That’s all fine with me, I think someone my age owes the world a bit of compassion, and some wisdom, from time to time. People can express their feelings to me at whenever they choose, unless I am absolutely involved with some other matter that duty must place first. I don’t have a problem with that. Actually, I like that.

Sometimes I have emotions that I wish to share as well. Sometimes I even want to share my problems. Not often, because, frankly I seldom get much help with finding solutions for my problems by talking with friends. And the key here is that if I want to talk about problems, the thing I am looking for is solutions. I know that is not what most people want. They want someone to tell them that their problems are real, or that they are not bad people or that they can get over the difficult times. Or they just want someone to sit and listen and be willing not to rant and rave at them. I don’t want that, if I am talking about a problem.

But the thing that really torques my ponytail is when someone tells someone else that they “Have to get in touch with their feelings, and talk about how they feel.” Although there are states of mental illness characterized by low affect, and disassociated emotional responses, sometimes folks who are not expressing an emotion are simply not feeling that emotion. What the pseudojungies want is for you to mimic their emotions. They want you to express emotions that they feel you should be feeling. And they want you to be grateful about the chance to do it. Well, I express my emotions when I have them. When I don’t have them, I don’t express them. Silly, perhaps, but I find it less confusing that way.

Chapter two of the Mental Health on the Oprah model is the assumption that you have to share every emotion. No feeling is valid unless it is publicly displayed and analyzed. Well, that is crap, pure and simple. Some of my emotions are private. Some are intimate and only shared with one person. Some are trivial and deserve to be dismissed as soon as they pass. And some are deep and hard, and heavy. Even those are my emotions, to be shared at my whim, and kept to myself when I feel best holding that part of me as mine. That doesn’t mean that I cannot open up to someone else, it means that I don’t choose to open every window in the house of my soul to achieve some public state of Psychiatric Grace. And to be honest, aside from my close friends, I would really prefer that everyone else played a few of their cards a bit closer to the vest. Doing it on television has the sole saving grace of the off switch.

By the way, Anti, thanks for the kind words. It is nice to know that I have a reputation deserving of forbearance for a snit.

And, don’t worry. I won’t be shooting folks from high buildings. In the words of my firearms instructors in the Army, “I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn if I was locked inside, with an AR-50!”

Tris

12

I take all of my fear, anger, and hate
And I put them in my hand and crush them.
When I open my hand, I have a diamond.
That diamond is rage
I have diamonds in my eyes.

13

I’ve heard that one before red_dragon60… I found it interesting…

And Tris some people just like to share their emotions… I’m one of those people who is easy to talk to as well. But I rarely talk to others about whats happening with me. shrugs It takes all kinds…

14

Ya ya ya ya ya…

This is all fine… but I think this is a textbook example of the repression of your true feelings. If you looked deep inside, you’d find that you really do want to talk about it. It is only conditioning and reverse transference that makes you think you don’t want to talk about it. You must be just aching to get it all off your chest.

Let’s talk about it. Tell me about your childhood…

heheheheheh

:: running for cover ::

dewt

15

Yeah. I notice you didn’t say that until ** after ** I mentioned what a terrible shot I am.

Where’s my shotgun? Does anyone have a hand grenade?

Tris.

16

Tris - shotgun’s are for wimps.

:: passes over Nuclear Flame Thrower 9000 ::

Try this. :wink:

17

I concur.

18

It isn’t very often that I have a chance to visit SD and it’s even more rare that I venture on this board. I’m glad I did.

I understand what your saying and am very much like that myself. It’s difficult for those close to me to understand how I can be “so emotionless” much of the time concerning my precious little grandson. Of course, I’m not.

Your words really hit home. Thanks, Tris. I’m reassured that I’m normal. :slight_smile: