Giving Myself Permission to Feel Down ①

This is the first installment of the "Weird Auntie Gets Depressed" series!

I had a fight with my husband.

We fight often, and that part is business as usual, but today was a little different.

The damage was unusually severe.

Up until now, even when something unpleasant happened, I lived by converting that negative energy into anger.

My motto was

I won't fall down for nothing. If I fall, I'll grab a stone🪨.

Pretty alarming, right? But having grown up in a dysfunctional family, that was the only way I knew how to survive.

But this time, I took a lot of damage. Is it poor health, or is it my age...?

And when I shut myself in my room to face myself, it didn't turn into anger. I just felt incredibly sad and helpless.

So I decided to cry. I decided to let myself feel down.

And yet,

no tears would come.

Me, unable to cry

That's when I realized.

I thought, "Oh, come to think of it, I've always just been angry and never really cried."

I was afraid that if I cried, I'd just stay depressed and never recover, so I'd been running away from crying for a long time.

I used to think of that as "strength."

But when I finally encountered myself wanting to feel down but unable to, I understood for the first time.

That wasn't strength; it was just clumsiness.

I just can't cry.
I'm terrible at crying.

Even when I wanted to feel down, I'd think, "Oh, I have to make dinner," or "I have to write my blog," and there was a part of me that wouldn't allow myself to feel down.

Permission to feel down

This was painful in its own way.
I think I must have been making a really strange face, all alone in a dark room.

For now, I put my phone down and watched the clouds outside the window.

Then, finally, a tear trickled down, and I was able to cry for just a moment, letting out a sob💧

I must have looked really ugly, haha.

But it was the first time I had given myself permission to feel down.

For a while, I kept repeating the cycle of "cry -> return to reality and overthink -> but I want to cry."

My son's indifference

Before long, my son came in.

He crawled into my futon as if nothing had happened and tried to go to sleep.

Wait, really?! You're just going to ignore me?!

My son is a bit of a "tofu-mental" type and often gets hurt, and I've always desperately tried to be there for him and comfort him.

Naturally, I thought he would do the same for me today, but

is he ignoring me?!!!

That made me sad all over again, and tears spilled out naturally.

And then, I was finally able to pour out my painful feelings to my son.

I'm the type who can't talk about my troubles with anyone, but for some reason, I felt like I could talk to him. It's strange.

Of course, I don't usually do that because I don't want to use him as an emotional dumping ground, but today, I just couldn't hold it all in.

He didn't say anything, just listened quietly. I felt a little relieved.

I thought I was the one helping my son, but maybe I'm the one being helped.

The strength of a sensitive person

I realized one more thing here.

My sensitive boy who is always crying.

But when things are tough, he is able to say, "It's tough." He rests when he's tired and doesn't force himself to be cheerful.

Wait,

is this kid actually better at handling his emotions than I am?!

I thought he was mentally weak, but it might be the opposite.

He's not weak; he's able to be vulnerable properly. That might be a form of strength.

And he's actually facing his emotions quite well.

My son, who always seemed unreliable, suddenly looked dependable.

Was his sensitivity not a weakness, but an incredible strength?

In this crappy world, my son had already mastered his own way of coping.

He was taking care of his mental health much better than I, who can't even cry, ever could.

Giving myself permission to feel down

I'm still clumsy at it, though.

While talking with my son, I thought I wouldgive myself permission to feel downa little more.

Running away from my own pain is proof that I'm not facing myself.

From now on, I hope to learn from him and find ways to live without pushing myself too hard.

Next time, I've given myself permission to feel down, but now I can't rest?! How clumsily am I living my life!

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