Dear Me,
I have been conditioned to quiet the voice inside of me that feels negative things. What do I mean by this? I am saying that every time I'm angry, hurt, upset, disappointed, sad, frustrated, and taken aback by a situation, person, or thing, I suppress it out of fear of disapproval from others.
You see, growing up in a saturated Haitian household meant that I could not oppose the will of my parents and elders, and I also was not encouraged to open up with the things that bothered me. Although my mom create a space of freedom of expression, for an introverted girl like myself, I didn't just need space, but the encouragement and validation to speak.
And when I did speak, I was redirected to move on if it were something that could not be fixed, without delving deeper into what I was actually thinking and feeling around the problem. I remember being upset about something that happened at school between my peers. I was frustrated and feeling rejected and I came home bothered. After explaining the situation which I can barely remember now, I was told since there was nothing that could be done about it, I should stop feeling upset. That response was a record that replayed in several other scenarios growing up and replays on my conscious today.
Several months ago, I decided to go to counseling after realizing that I had dysfunctional patterns and behaviors that weren't going away. One of them is the fear of rejection if I tell one of my closest friends I was mad about something that was done. This fear is so large that I spend several years in multiple relationships never telling anyone when they did something that pissed me off. I was training to associate rejection with expression, and I actually lost my first best friend in middle school because of this association. I approached her lack of communication with me in my frustration and after what I believed was reconciliation, she never talked to me again nine years later.
In fact she ignored me for an entire year in school, as if I wasn't there and transferred school after that.
I still hold the responsibility that I was problem in that situation. Though I consider that she returned from summer vacation with anorexia, had been strange towards others, disconnected from loved ones, and stopped communicating her thoughts at the time, it's hard from me not to separate my expression of frustration with the reason of rejection in that relationship back in middle school. And I haven't been able to do so successfully since.
I still blame me.
I have some really close friends who allow me to be courageous enough to share how I really feel, but very few ever see my raw emotions, unfiltered and organic. Most people receive my pretty side, or if I don't want to deal with possible rejection, the side where I will leave the situation so I won't get hurt again. I remember one summer God telling me to "stop filtering myself." I didn't understand the impact of that simple word until now.
I need to stop filtering myself.
I want to be okay with being human just like everyone else.
And I want to tell people how I really feel in a safe, validated space.
But if it's not safe or validated, I still want to share my truth.
I hope one day you do.
Love,
Stephie
