Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Can I Cry in Front of You?

I recently listened to a woman describe her shame about crying during her first chemo. She didn't describe it as such, but the way she talked, it sounded like shame to me. Feeling like she was less, weak, wanting to hide.

I can't imagine what it must feel like to be diagnosed with cancer. To sit through numerous doctor's visits at which the topic of conversation is my life expectancy. But crying during the first chemo session is not something I would consider shameful.  Talking with some new friends later, I realized, this woman is not alone.  Though I have not experienced chemotherapy and the emotional rollercoaster that being diagnosed with cancer must be, I, too, have often felt shame for displaying certain emotions publicly.

Not all public displays of emotions trigger shame, but in my experience, it's the ones that we'd consider negative that seem to make people particularly uncomfortable.
Our two-year-old will not smile just to make people happy.
And I love that!
During my first year of marriage, I quickly realized that my husband and I became angry over very different things. In fact, I realized that my husband was more prone to anger, and I was more prone to sadness.  Sundays were one of the few days of the week that we would ride in the car together toward a place where punctuality kind of mattered: church.  Our apartment was next to a megachurch (not the church we attended), which created a lot of traffic, both car and pedestrian. So there we were, most Sundays running late, and my husband would begin to rant.  There were bad, slow, or unaware or inconsiderate drivers. There were pedestrians who allowed their tiny children to walk across the street with their tiny little legs at their very slow pace.  There were lights that turned red at the most inconvenient times. And the ranting grew, sometimes into expletives.

Sitting next to him, I became more and more uncomfortable because I wasn't experiencing the same emotions he was; I wasn't as bothered the drivers or the children or the lights.  I was definitely affected by his anger, but without understanding it, I didn't know how to respond. I remember now going through a process of responses.  At first, I became super quiet, unsure what I should say, totally uncomfortable. The emotional response I saw and heard (boy did I hear it) oozing out of him was not one I could relate to.  I didn't want to engage him, but I couldn't ignore him either.   The next response was to become aggravated with him for reacting to this situation differently than I would.  In my mind, this was not a good reason to become so angry, and yelling at people who couldn't hear him was not doing any good.  Of course, this second response was not good for my marriage, especially if I vocalized it.  Anger at drivers soon became anger at me, and with good reason.  Why should my emotion be the correct one?!  My last response, though looking back, I'm not sure it was a good one, was to sort of join him.  I could not honestly become angry at traffic, but I would pretend to, jokingly.  I sort of mocked him, began to curse at traffic myself and became even louder than he was.  We would both laugh and his anger would subside.  Thankfully, he didn't take offense at this, though maybe he should have, because what I wanted was to diffuse the situation to make myself feel more comfortable.

Going back to the woman undergoing chemo, I doubt that anyone in the room would have judged her, and she didn't describe that happening.  In fact, I imagine that many if not all could relate to her.  But living in a world where "negative" emotions make people uncomfortable, often I think we want to hide them, unsure how others will respond.  If I cry in public, all of the sudden I become extremely aware of the strangers around me, instantly caring about their well-being, their discomfort, their questioning looks, and possibly their judgment.  If I show offense at someone's joke, I might be seen as uncool, uptight or too serious. And this has been going on since childhood.  Who hasn't heard the threat, "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about"? Too common is the idea of telling a child, often a boy, to toughen up.

On the flip side, when I see others display emotions that I can't relate to or am not currently experiencing, what is my response?  Is it difficult for me to be close without feeling the same things? Can I engage even if I can't understand?

After nine years of marriage, I've become a lot more comfortable with my husband's anger at things that I would consider trivial: traffic, clumsiness. But I also experience emotions that don't make sense to him (do I ever!).  There are times when I don't even understand my emotions, but they are still very real.  So what's the deal with having to either understand others' emotions or feel the same way? Why can't we just allow others to feel whatever they feel, and if it's our place, with a friend, spouse, child, provide whatever comfort or sympathy we can.  Who knows why we experience so many things differently? Personality, family of origin, sleep deprivation, hormones, or past hurts.

Sometimes, the only true thing to say is, "I'm sorry you feel this way."  It's not my fault, nor my responsibility, but I am truly sorry that another human being is feeling something other than happy.  Trying to manipulate others to act happy to make me feel comfortable doesn't seem like the answer.  In fact, as a parent I've noticed that the opposite is true.

My two and four-year-old daughters often feel things that I can't match.  They cry over a doll that doesn't balance on their shoulders.  They throw themselves on the floor in anger after being unable to open a cabinet door.  My least favorite, the helpless arms hanging lifeless with eyes rolled back as if dying because she can't seem to buckle her seatbelt.  Not only can I not match their emotions, often I find myself annoyed or angered by them.  I want to scream, "THIS IS NOT AN APPROPRIATE RESPONSE!" But in that moment, appropriate or not, it's what they have; it's all they can offer.  And that I can relate to.

What my husband and I have realized is that usually all they want is for us to notice and sympathize. In our better moments, we'll say, "Oh no, that stinks," "Aww, I'm so sorry that happened," or "Oh man, that seems really hard."  Of course, it's the tone, the actual sympathy that usually begins to break down the intense emotion and allows them to move past it.  More often than not, they look at us when wailing their arms and it's our response that makes it either escalate or gradually subside.

I think that's all we ever want from others. They don't have to understand.  They don't have to agree.  They definitely don't have to feel the same way.  We just want someone to see our pain, to really see us, even in our less than happy moment, and accept us where we are.

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