While doing some reading this week I came across the term ‘Emotional Hoarder’ and in more ways than one I knew I had to write a piece about it because it describes a very big part of who I am. You may wonder who or what is an Emotional Hoarder? Well from what I gathered at that reading session and doing some research on my own the term can be summarized to mean somebody who emotionally holds on to and stores things that are unnecessarily.
I know a lot of us hold on to certain emotions that mark milestones and important experiences in life, but what I am talking about is a case of severe hoarding. I would say that in my case it is so bad that even updating this blog has always proved to be difficult. Most of the time I have an idea of what I want to write, but when I actually get down to it I am stopped in my tracks for fear of exposing thoughts that are too personal to share.
I can go days and weeks just thinking about something I wrote in a public forum (read Facebook, Twitter…) and how that particular thought/observation will portray me to the outside world. Its because of this that I eventually end up deleting most of what I write.
Now you know why those Facebook statuses keep disappearing a few minutes/hours after being posted *cheesy smile.*
Many nights, I lay awake trying to justify somebody’s actions, asking myself why somebody treated me the way they did or why certain things are happening to me. A good example is a recently relationship that just ended. It was long and tumultuous and in a sense it almost broke my heart. And i mean this not in the usual sense of the word ‘break’ but in a deeper, darker way. In many instances a fight between us would end up with me in actual physical pain. Pain not inflicted by any physical force but by the actions, words or events that transpired.
There are days when I would have this pain in my chest and no matter what I did I could not stop myself from thinking about my actions, what I could have done different, what people now thought of me ( our verbal exchanges were mostly public and very loud) and worst of all I wallowed in self pity and kept asking ‘why me’ (uugh! I hated this time in my life and the person it had turned me into)
In trying to understand why some people can go through the exact same experiences and yet come out unscathed yet my own slight brush with the same events would end up with me reeling in some emotional limbo, I have to go back into my past, waay back.
Growing up I was such an emotional child, any incident that most kids would easily get past would have me crying for a very long time. I shut myself in a lot, refusing to talk to whoever I thought was the cause of my misery.In my own little universe even a scolding from my mother meant the end of the world. I needed so much to be accepted, to fit in, to always be right and perfect. In my eyes I never was good enough.
I took on so much more than a child at that age should have to. I remember that for most of my life, my dad worked two hours away from home so it was more logical for him to live in the city while we stayed home with my mother (she worked close to home). He came home every Friday and left on Monday. I loved my dad, no scratch that I LOVE my dad and every time he left would be a terrible day for me, not because I would miss him (which of course I would) but because I was always in fear of him being in a road accident and being seriously hurt and dying. You can imagine me and my young 9-10 year old self walking around like a zombie in school in actual terror EVERY few days. What an incredibly large load on my innocent shoulders.
That was around the same time I started developing migraines. The doctor said it was my eyes, and this consequently led to my eyeglasses, but the headaches never stopped and like everything else I also learned to keep that to myself. Most of that emotional weight I carry with me to this day.Yes here I am an adult with an almost perfect memory of all the ‘terrible’ things that happened to me from childhood. Most of it is exaggerated, but try telling my stubborn brain that.
Now that I am older and wiser 
I look back and realize that a lot of the heartache I went through could have been avoided. I wish I had learned back then to let go of things that I do not have any control over. I certainly had no control over early puberty, or that I was nerdy and loved to read. Among many other issues that caused me a lot of anxiety growing up.
I have come to accept that this is who I am, I will always be sensitive, emotional and as I like to call myself, a ‘fatalist’. I know that I cannot change who I am but for the sake of my sanity and longevity, I have to find a balance, a median that will help me hold on to who I am while at the same time letting go of the ‘MONSTERS’ that feed on my soul and always ask ‘what if…’ (and not in a good way). I NEED to learn to live in the moment, to enjoy the present and to understand that the only person’s thoughts I can control are my own.
I am still a work in progress but like the say, the first step to healing is acceptance, right?
