Disproportionate Disappointment
It came as a surprise to me to discover that the people closest to me, who cared the most about me, perpetually feared disappointing me. If something that I was looking forward to didn't happen, regardless of reason, I would become extremely disappointed and sad. So much so that it would also sadden my loved ones, especially whomever had to bear the bad news.
Why is my disappointment so extreme!? Since this affected people I love, and since I was already seeing four different shrinks to help me cope with Jim's stroke, I decided to talk to one of them about this to see if I could do something about it.
In response, I was handed a homework assignment. In my childhood, had I suffered some huge disappointment? After chatting in depth with one of my close friends about it, I thought we'd tracked down the source incident.
But when I reported back to the shrink, it didn't feel quite right. It didn't seem to fit as neatly as it should. Apparently the shrink agreed because he lead me along another path of memories, and we thus quickly stumbled over it.
"Gosh, it seems so obvious now that *you* say it. Why didn't *I* ever think of this before? Oh wait a minute, I know that one. It's because I don't like remembering my childhood, and so I can't make the associations."
If you had a past wherein you lost every single thing and every single person who ever meant anything to you, how would you react to things that appeared on your horizon that you believed could possibly come to hold value to you? Would you be afraid to have any faith in them because you were used to every such thing spontaneously vanishing from your life, or would you voraciously latch onto them in a desperate hope of filling some of the emptiness that myriad previous losses had created? How would you react when someone new became important to you? Would you be too afraid to let yourself get close to them because everyone else you've ever gotten close to had been ripped out of your life, or would you crushingly grip them in an effort to keep them from suddenly exiting your life, too?
A long, long time ago I was an "army brat". Until I was in high school, we moved every one to two years, and so did everyone we ever met. And even high school had a guarantee that I was going to move again upon graduation, so it only afforded me four years of consistency. Every friend I ever made, I knew from the start that I could lose them at any time with only a week or two notice due to one or the other of us moving. Every friend I ever made, I knew from the start that at best we'd only be friends for up to two years. Throughout my entire childhood, everyone I came to care about got pulled out of my life, and I just had to internalize the disappointment, sadness, and grief. "Big boys" weren't supposed to show their emotions, and certainly not cry! So all of those emotions are still buried inside me now, intermingled amongst the memories of the first two decades of my life. There are an awful lot of those emotions, and collectively, they are an incredibly strong force within me.
Possessions were the same way. With every move, much of our stuff was broken or lost or just outright stolen. For instance, every single one of my childhood toys vanished when I was 8 in our move from Italy to Virginia. To value an item meant risking more pain, but I frequently did so anyway, and ended up with a whole lot of emotional baggage as a result.
Similar to all this were lost opportunities. Any local place I wanted to visit, I had to do so quickly or I'd lose the chance with the next move. Anything I wanted to do with anyone had to be done before one of us moved. But of course, as a kid I didn't have much say-so in where I got to visit and what I got to do, so I watched despairingly as chance after chance after chance slipped away with absolutely no control to seize any of them.
Apparently, I have had it. Every opportunity I wish to indulge, every person I get close to, every possession I come to like, I latch onto with a steel grip while feeling terrified that I'm going to lose them anyway. Every place I live, I nearly kill myself trying to visit local attractions before that next move that my mind is sure is just right around the corner. With every plan that falls through, every possession that's broken or lost, every friend or lover I can't stay tightly close to, a lifetime of coagulated disappointment, sadness, bitterness, and grief rises up and washes over me, instantly destroying my mood and leaving me depressed for days, if not weeks. It's a struggle to get it all reinterred. But of course, it's then poised to overwhelm me again when the next minor disappointment comes along.
Thank gawd for shrinks.
So what in the hell am I supposed to do about all this? I certainly can't change my past. I can't even remember all the friends and things and opportunities I lost in my youth. I can't find all those memories, much less try to deal with each of them one by one.
The trick, apparently, is to just wait for the emotions to come up on their own. Every current disappointment lures them from subterranean hiding places, so they're actually much too easy to find. Then instead of trying to stomp them back underground, I just let myself feel them. When they wash over me, I am to go swimming in them. "Emotions just want to be felt," the shrink told me, so once I do that, I've satisfied what they want and they thus go about their business and leave me alone forevermore.
I've been trying to do this. It feels like drinking from a fire hose. There's just so much of it that's been waiting so long to be felt. One little disappointment saddens me for days, and it's difficult to let myself continue feeling it while trying to not let it affect my interactions with co-workers, friends, and loved ones. But I notice that each time it's easier. Each time there are fewer emotions available to wash me away. Each time is less and less overwhelming. I still feel sadness and disappointment appropriate to the situation, but it's getting to be more proportionate each time.
In fact, my biggest disappointment now seems to be that it took me so long to figure out how to deal with this problem. But I hope that by finally doing so, I've made the remaining two-thirds of my life a much happier place for me and everyone I care about.
Why is my disappointment so extreme!? Since this affected people I love, and since I was already seeing four different shrinks to help me cope with Jim's stroke, I decided to talk to one of them about this to see if I could do something about it.
In response, I was handed a homework assignment. In my childhood, had I suffered some huge disappointment? After chatting in depth with one of my close friends about it, I thought we'd tracked down the source incident.
But when I reported back to the shrink, it didn't feel quite right. It didn't seem to fit as neatly as it should. Apparently the shrink agreed because he lead me along another path of memories, and we thus quickly stumbled over it.
"Gosh, it seems so obvious now that *you* say it. Why didn't *I* ever think of this before? Oh wait a minute, I know that one. It's because I don't like remembering my childhood, and so I can't make the associations."
If you had a past wherein you lost every single thing and every single person who ever meant anything to you, how would you react to things that appeared on your horizon that you believed could possibly come to hold value to you? Would you be afraid to have any faith in them because you were used to every such thing spontaneously vanishing from your life, or would you voraciously latch onto them in a desperate hope of filling some of the emptiness that myriad previous losses had created? How would you react when someone new became important to you? Would you be too afraid to let yourself get close to them because everyone else you've ever gotten close to had been ripped out of your life, or would you crushingly grip them in an effort to keep them from suddenly exiting your life, too?
A long, long time ago I was an "army brat". Until I was in high school, we moved every one to two years, and so did everyone we ever met. And even high school had a guarantee that I was going to move again upon graduation, so it only afforded me four years of consistency. Every friend I ever made, I knew from the start that I could lose them at any time with only a week or two notice due to one or the other of us moving. Every friend I ever made, I knew from the start that at best we'd only be friends for up to two years. Throughout my entire childhood, everyone I came to care about got pulled out of my life, and I just had to internalize the disappointment, sadness, and grief. "Big boys" weren't supposed to show their emotions, and certainly not cry! So all of those emotions are still buried inside me now, intermingled amongst the memories of the first two decades of my life. There are an awful lot of those emotions, and collectively, they are an incredibly strong force within me.
Possessions were the same way. With every move, much of our stuff was broken or lost or just outright stolen. For instance, every single one of my childhood toys vanished when I was 8 in our move from Italy to Virginia. To value an item meant risking more pain, but I frequently did so anyway, and ended up with a whole lot of emotional baggage as a result.
Similar to all this were lost opportunities. Any local place I wanted to visit, I had to do so quickly or I'd lose the chance with the next move. Anything I wanted to do with anyone had to be done before one of us moved. But of course, as a kid I didn't have much say-so in where I got to visit and what I got to do, so I watched despairingly as chance after chance after chance slipped away with absolutely no control to seize any of them.
Apparently, I have had it. Every opportunity I wish to indulge, every person I get close to, every possession I come to like, I latch onto with a steel grip while feeling terrified that I'm going to lose them anyway. Every place I live, I nearly kill myself trying to visit local attractions before that next move that my mind is sure is just right around the corner. With every plan that falls through, every possession that's broken or lost, every friend or lover I can't stay tightly close to, a lifetime of coagulated disappointment, sadness, bitterness, and grief rises up and washes over me, instantly destroying my mood and leaving me depressed for days, if not weeks. It's a struggle to get it all reinterred. But of course, it's then poised to overwhelm me again when the next minor disappointment comes along.
Thank gawd for shrinks.
So what in the hell am I supposed to do about all this? I certainly can't change my past. I can't even remember all the friends and things and opportunities I lost in my youth. I can't find all those memories, much less try to deal with each of them one by one.
The trick, apparently, is to just wait for the emotions to come up on their own. Every current disappointment lures them from subterranean hiding places, so they're actually much too easy to find. Then instead of trying to stomp them back underground, I just let myself feel them. When they wash over me, I am to go swimming in them. "Emotions just want to be felt," the shrink told me, so once I do that, I've satisfied what they want and they thus go about their business and leave me alone forevermore.
I've been trying to do this. It feels like drinking from a fire hose. There's just so much of it that's been waiting so long to be felt. One little disappointment saddens me for days, and it's difficult to let myself continue feeling it while trying to not let it affect my interactions with co-workers, friends, and loved ones. But I notice that each time it's easier. Each time there are fewer emotions available to wash me away. Each time is less and less overwhelming. I still feel sadness and disappointment appropriate to the situation, but it's getting to be more proportionate each time.
In fact, my biggest disappointment now seems to be that it took me so long to figure out how to deal with this problem. But I hope that by finally doing so, I've made the remaining two-thirds of my life a much happier place for me and everyone I care about.