Going from an over emotional kid to a emotionally confused adult

@sissy15 (12269)
United States
August 3, 2021 12:36am CST
As a kid, I was always very emotional. I remember crying a lot. I was taught early on to hide my feelings or I'd be made fun of. I had my feelings hurt super easily and after a certain age I learned to shove them down and now I've learned to mostly suppress them and I am not great at handling feelings my own or other peoples. I have always felt what others were feeling but I've never known what to do with it because I'm not great at comforting others. I can feel their pain but I have zero ability to really do anything about it. I'm not comfortable with others feelings. I believe in the good in people but I also don't have a very trusting nature. I have never been great with being emotionally vulnerable. I learned as a kid people don't really want to deal with your emotions so you're better off not expressing them. Now they all wonder why I am the way I am when they helped make me that way. My son is very similar to me as a child. He also feels everything and gets his feelings hurt very easily but he also cries over almost nothing. I told him that it's ok to feel what you're feeling but there are appropriate reactions to some things. I told him crying because you're hurt or because you are actually deeply emotionally hurt is not a bad thing but to cry because you don't get your way or are uncomfortable with a new situation is not a good reason to cry and that it's ok to be disappointed or upset but that you shouldn't feel the need to cry over it. I'm trying to teach him to figure out what he is feeling and why and then to talk it out or do what he needs to make himself feel better. I don't want him to become another me. I want him to know how to handle his emotions and not suppress them until they become bigger problems. I want so much better for him. If I had had someone to help me with mine maybe I wouldn't have the issues I do. He is an amazing kid who is sweet and kind and he just feels everything so deeply. I don't want him to lose that. I was like that once but I learned through the people and the world around me that to have emotions makes you weak and no one really cares. That was my takeaway and now I have such a difficult time expressing them and I don't want that for him. I don't want him to feel a bundle of nerves and have social anxiety because you just know everyone is judging you. I have social anxiety because of the way I was treated as a kid. I have anxiety in general not just social but my son doesn't have a lot of social anxiety yet. He likes everyone. He is probably the sweetest person I know. I want him to take what he is feeling and use it in a positive way. I want him to be able to comfort those around him instead of feeling the need to run because he doesn't know how to make them feel better and is uncomfortable expressing his feelings. I don't want him to get the same takeaway I did. I've only within the past few years been able to even begin to start understanding how to show my feelings and I'm nowhere near anywhere normal in doing that but at least now I can occasionally explain what I'm feeling and know why. I get to feeling so much at once that it's hard for me to decipher it all. If I'm in a room with a bunch of people and I can just start feeling things and I can't get a hold of it all.
4 people like this
5 responses
@FaruMesh (3508)
• India
3 Aug 21
I think you should tell him how you went through this situations when you was a kid and how you tried to overcome it. Now it should not happen once again. Make him to think positive. I think if we have emotion on something we have to open up, no need to suppress it always. Don't when will it burst out and how bad it will be..
3 people like this
@sissy15 (12269)
• United States
3 Aug 21
I think we'll get there eventually. I'm currently just trying to work on appropriate reactions and to have him take down certain reactions a little and put them into a normal range. I have had to struggle a lot with it. I definitely don't want that for him. We'll get through it.
2 people like this
• India
3 Aug 21
It's okay to for her to tell about her past and emotional damage she received ..but he is a child afterall..it is not good to put too much heavy or complex burden on his head..he have his life and will have his own experiences.. She is already doing very good job by giving him important lessons. I don't think she need to tell too much about what she went through..the child will feel sorry for her and feel unhappy too. probably
2 people like this
@FaruMesh (3508)
• India
3 Aug 21
@sissy15 Yes by the grace of God you will reach there... Prayers.
1 person likes this
• Bosnia And Herzegovina
3 Aug 21
it makes me so sad that many teenagers and adults are like that - suppressing their emotions and don't know how to express them or understand them in others. it's really nice that you're trying to do the right thing, even though you weren't treated that way as a child. i hope your child grows into an adult who's not afraid to show his emotions and also has proper ways to express them or suppress them in certain situations. and i hope that you learn to express what you're feeling too. take care!
3 people like this
@sissy15 (12269)
• United States
3 Aug 21
I understand them in others I just don't know how to handle them. I can tell what someone else is feeling but I often feel what everyone around me is feeling and that gets to be too much that I can't sort through them. My own I sometimes have much more difficulty understanding or where it is coming from. I really hope he can figure it out too. I always tell him it's ok to be sad. It's ok to be upset and it's ok to feel what you're feeling but how we express them sometimes needs to be more appropriate than crying when crying isn't warranted. He has been made fun of in the past for how easily he cries and I am trying to teach him how to handle them better. I'm getting a little better but it has taken a lot of time to get here and I'm still not where I need to be. Growing up I was taught that people shouldn't cry and that adults especially shouldn't cry. I thought that adults never cried and I shouldn't cry either.
1 person likes this
@jstory07 (134185)
• Roseburg, Oregon
3 Aug 21
That is your up bringing that made you that way. I was made fun of by women only because my eye was born in the corner and I had several eye operations. Only women acted strange over my eye. It is hard to change or trust after you have done something your entire life. You are doing the right thing by your son.
2 people like this
@sissy15 (12269)
• United States
3 Aug 21
That's terrible. My son was born with a cleft lip so I was always worried that people would make fun of his scar but most people don't even notice it now. It's odd that only women were that way. Women can be pretty mean at times to other women but not always. It is difficult to trust others. I myself don't let many people in. Thank you, I really try. I want so much better for him. I also hate when people think men need to be tough. I think the world's standards for men is what turns a lot of them into violent thugs because they suppress all of their emotions and are taught they have to be "men" and they don't feel like they can be emotionally vulnerable and when they see other men like that they make fun of them and it is a cycle.
1 person likes this
@jstory07 (134185)
• Roseburg, Oregon
3 Aug 21
@sissy15 Yes and it is a bad cycle.
@arunima25 (85238)
• Bangalore, India
3 Aug 21
That's a very common problem in many adults and children too. I come across many such cases in my counseling sessions. We should accept and acknowledge our feelings before we learn to manage them. No feeling is bad or to be ashamed of.
@CuriousGab (3251)
• India
3 Aug 21
I'm also little bit like that..I'm happy this moment and something little will make me sad the very next moment which is unreasonable most of the time But I try to overcome it..I hope I'll succed You are doing good job teaching your child
1 person likes this