You pack them into tidy little boxes and place on a shelf for a later time.
But what happens ehen you run out of storage?
Grief, sadness, anger and fear. All have a place but get in the way happiness, joy, excitement, and contentment. And when all the emotions and some that you didn’t know existed fall on you all at once you have to put some away until you’re able to deal with them. At least, for me, that’s my new process. I used to just push them down but after they’d make me physically sick after fermenting, they’d bubble up and out causing more damage.
But then I discovered compartmentalizing. Put one in a box and deal it with later and in small increments. This gave me four almost five years of healthy living and I was even able to empty a few of those boxes but then a major event happened and 10x the amount of emotions I had fell on me until I was swimming in a pool full of overwhelming amount of emotions. It took a year to put them in boxes and pack them neatly away. No time to deal with any of the existing boxes.
I’ve run out of storage room- if I can squeeze a box on the shelf another one moves just enough to push the lid off of another and I’m faced to feel all the things that are associated with that emotion.
I’ve called a help line offered through my employer and they haven’t called back. It’s been 11 months…I think they forgot about me. But then, so did I.
So now, I start dealing. Im not a writer but I used to dream about it because I’ve a lot to say and never felt heard. (One of those feelings I packed away decades ago and was tipped open when cramming another box on the shelf).
So this is raw and unedited and although I’m in my 50’s, sounds very teen angsty. Maybe that is why I am irritated by teen angsty characters in books and on the screen. Oooh, I think I just made room in a box!
