Why I Can’t Ever Let You See Me Cry
I choke out a laugh and paste on a wobbly smile as I stare at my reflection in the mirror.
When did it get this way? I’m in the privacy of my room, so why can’t I cry? My breaths are coming out too fast and my chest feels too tight. I’m overwhelmed and I desperately need to release all of this darkness held within me. Cry. I stare at my fingers; they tingle with numbness. Cry. I study my face in the mirror, there’s nothing there. Dead, I do not wear my emotions on my face. Cry. Let it out. I’m shaking as I witness myself rocking back and forth in front of my full-length mirror. Cry, cry, cry. I’m chanting inside my head, or am I whispering it aloud now? I don’t know, it seems I have lost control of myself. Or is it that I have too much control? I do not know, I do not know. “Cry, cry, cry. Just cry goddammit!” I’m dry heaving, gagging on the emotions I refuse to let surface. My pride rejoices. Am I strong now?
…
I told myself that I would write up an elaborate narrative on when and how it all began, only when I went to start it. Well, I found that I could not write. The thing is, I do not know when it first began, I cannot pinpoint a specific time when my mother first began teaching me to not cry.
Actually, I can’t even recall a time before when I was not being taught to hold in my emotions.
So, alas, I could only gift a reader a glimpse of what used to be a familiar, recurring event in my life. Because, you see, a huge part of who I am today came from a family instilling “crying makes you weak” into children’s mindsets. I was one of those children. But before you go ahead and hate that family, just know that they truly believed that they were helping set their children up for success in the real world.
But back to why I could never seem to cry and how that factored into the inhibition of my ability to trust.
I spent so much of my childhood believing that emotions and expressing them would debilitate a person, that when it came time to get personal, I could never. I was so disconnected from myself and my emotions that I often felt nothing– and whenever I did feel something, it was impossible for me to name it. This really became shockingly apparent when, during my senior year of high school, my teacher assigned PIQs or Personal Insight Questions. Students were expected to declare their stories and prove their growth to universities with these answers. They were expected to get into these colleges through telling stories of themselves. I didn’t even know who I was! I knew that writing about the sports I played or the classes I took just wasn’t going to cut it. I needed to be creative and personal.
What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?
I wracked my brain over and over for what I could possibly write. Running? No, I don’t even like running nor am I great at it. What about discipline with my education– No, I’m always slacking off. And, anyways, it needs to be personal. Personal. My nightmare put into one, simple word.
And then it finally hit me: Survival. My greatest skill has always been survival.
I finally had it, now to write about it…without giving too much away.
And here it is:
I fell in love with the ocean, the sound of waves crashing against the shore became a familiar song that comforted me in ways that nothing else ever could. The way it breaks apart when embracing the rocky cliff, only to mold back together again and again. Its blue-green depths that seem to hold so many secrets.
Staring into its expanse, I realize the ocean’s greatest expertise is simply being there. No matter what the world throws at it, it continues to lay ever-defiantly in our presence. It’s here where the true connection sits, bonding me to the ocean because my greatest talent ever has been surviving through life.
The same way the ocean seems to break when obstructed, simply to return back to its whole form, is the same way I seem to bend and snap from the struggles of life. Eventually, always shaping myself back to who I really am.
The way the ocean fights through seasons of chaos, storms, and tsunamis; but always returns back to its calm, peaceful form. Is the same way I survive through the turmoil and craziness of life, still dutifully coming back to myself.
Even after being polluted by the hands of humans with chemicals, oils, and everything bad. The ocean still always somehow manages to overcome it, through time it returns back to itself. Even through these changes it still accomplishes in being its eccentric self. Just like the ocean, I’ve learned to deal with changes. Pushing through when it seems that the world is all too willing to reach out, grasping and dragging me down with grimy hands. When everything and anything appears to always be ready to taint me. Despite this all, I continually somehow carry on, washing away what pollutes me.
And when misfortune strikes, both the ocean and I, we remember how to survive. Thriving on adversity, in which we gain strength from. Always recalling that tragedy is a part of the gift of life.
I’m proud of it, and happy with how it turned out. I’m so sure that I got the point across in a creative way–and without giving anything away! How thrilling!
I turn it in.
My teacher reads it and compliments me on my creativity and overall writing. There’s just one thing missing, a small something really. A personal connection. That is what I am missing. The feedback terrifies me, sends me into hysteria.
How do I say that for a while, the ocean both excited and calmed me only because of the
possibilities? The endless possibilities in which I could die at sea. How do I say that my mother
refused to ever let me cry?
I was a deeply miserable person and, yes, I was suicidal–but that was my own secret to keep. It was my story that I wanted people to know, only without me having to quite literally spell it out. I pondered whether to embed my secret in it or not. How much could I lay out?
I wish I could say that I had some sort of epiphany or that it was at this time that bravery finally kicked in. But the truth is, I never revisited it to change anything. I left it as it was and, yes, I submitted it to colleges. Shockingly, or maybe not, I got into two out of the three colleges I
applied to. I was elated and even made plans to study at one.
Then it kept happening. I was getting worse and, with the pandemic, it was just too easy to hide. I was back to the beginning of this story, only this was happening all of the time. Until I finally broke, I came undone, and it was mental breakdown after mental breakdown. I cried without tears, sobbed with snot running down my face, even wailed into the night sky at some point. All of those overwhelming emotions I refused to let out were rushing out.
Exhausted and desperate for an end, I went to see my doctor. I was petrified of what I wanted to do to myself because I did not want to exist. So, I told my doctor all of these things– how I couldn’t even swim anymore because the idea of drowning was too tempting. My prior suicide attempt. And all throughout the conversation, I did not cry. Yes, I thought. I am being strong.
My doctor did not believe me. Neither did the nurse, for that matter. In fact, I was basically told that I was too pretty to want to die and that “many people love you” and many will continue to do so. It was all one ginormous slap to the face. But here I am now, alive, and what’s more–writing about these experiences. Because since then I have learned quite a few things, and so has my family.
Pain is okay. Feelings are okay. Being human is okay.
And lastly: I am brave, not for never revealing my sorrows, but for finally doing just that.
Tragedy is a part of the gift of life.