Painful Life Lessons

I am going through a very painful period of life where I learn to navigate grief and feelings of sadness I was not allowed to express all my life. It is family and self related, so I will be taking as much time as I need to handle these very deep, in your face, emotions and thoughts. For those who do not know, I was raised in a household where negative emotions were always brushed under the rug. As a grown man, I have been learning those *negative* emotions are not negative. They are house cleaning emotions which allow you to function as a human being. Not allowing someone to cry or be sad is robbing them of their dignity and humanity. This, I think, is the series of lessons that I was not allowed to experience as a child/teenager and even a younger man. It quite interesting to realize that I am finally doing this, as a 32 year old man.

For those who also do not know, I have major PTSD from my childhood abuse and neglect and from the Marines combined. So combine that with not knowing how to clean house with sadness and expressing other *negative* emotions, and you'll get the emotional wreck I am right now. If I could just get a handle on learning how to use sadness in a good way and as a tool to help regain my dignity and humanity so that my brain can get cleaned up, I can experience the richness of life and the interpersonal human connectivity I was denied for my entire life. It feels as if my true self, my heart, has always been denied real, in depth feelings. If anybody else feels like this, you are not alone. Find someone to let your guard down with, to be vunerable around, they can help you.