Pretending I’m dead.
I remember having this big blow out with my dad when I was a kid. We were out on our farm counting cows or something. He wouldn’t let me sit in the driver’s seat with him and pretend to drive the truck back, which angered me to all hell 👿
It was late, it was getting dark, and I refused to get in the vehicle because I was a fuming little firecracker. I decided in that moment that I hated him. And I insisted on walking home.
Then—absolutely livid that he had actually driven off and let me walk home, and that he didn't chase me, and that he didn't grab me and hug me, and tell me he loved me, and tell me that I could have my own way and steer the truck—I didn’t walk home.
I decided to punish him instead.
I slinked away into the darkness of the early evening and hid on a hill so that he would think I was dead. I decided to disappear from his life forever so that he’d have to live with the torment and guilt for the rest of it. That’ll teach him.
I pretended I didn’t care about him anymore. And as I sat in the tall grass, totally raging and imagining how much his life was going to suck from here on out, I distinctly remember feeling a deep, deep sense of loneliness.
I'd run away to ensure I got my revenge, but in doing so I was disconnecting from my safest place on earth. It was pure lack of emotional control.
Self-sabotage alert 🚨
I craved connection and love so desperately in that moment, but I didn’t have the emotional skills to act in a way that would get it. So instead of taking the appropriate actions of like, you know—calming down, thinking rationally, saying sorry for being a little twit and asking for a hug, I did everything I possibly could to quite literally drive him away from me.
My absence eventually set off alarm bells at home and by the time he got back from searching the paddocks for me, I was already washing off my sins in the bath because my mum found me sneaking in through the laundry door while he was out.
My dad wouldn't talk to me for hours! Lol. Backfired 🔥
Obviously I was just a dumb little kid at that point. And it probably would have done me a world of good if my parents tried to understand why I developed such intense rage about things, and perhaps, I dunno, got me a therapist or something.
(Amiright, millennials? What do we want?
“To blame our parents!”
When do we want it?
“Now (that we’ve all got self-awareness)!”)
Anyway, fast forward to adulthood and, surprise! I occasionally suffer from the same emotional immaturity of the snotty-nosed kid version of me.
It’s an impulse control issue. I never properly learned to sit with the discomfort of hurt feelings. I never learned to self-soothe. So I make quick, short-sighted decisions to temporarily escape from the yucky-doos feeling of a hurt heart, or racing mind.
Reckless and destructive behaviours in response to emotions are trauma response symptoms, but The Holistic Psychologist says these are also attempts to self regulate. To numb and/or avoid pain.
Some people resort to things like drinking or eating or spending or sexing. I do like feeding my sads with food. And I like to spend money on travel I can’t afford. I also like to run away. And, unfortunately for the men I’ve had in my life, I also pretend to be dead or seek emotional revenge.
Whatever your poison, all of these reactive behaviours lead you to experience regret and ultimately feel worse. Because it is total self-sabotage. Drinking makes you hungover. Overeating makes you obese. Spending makes you poor. Sex makes you, um, pregnant? And hurting the people you love is a double-edged sword.
Emotional dysregulation sucks eggs but every person on planet earth experiences it. I’ve been working hard to learn to pause and actually feel and understand my emotions rather than acting blindly to them. Sometimes I still mess up and end up pregnant.
Lololol. I’m not pregnant.
But for example, I’m feeling rather compelled to leave Australia indefinitely. I’ve been sitting with some hard feelings of late and my inclination is to go distract myself from them with adventure. Maybe make people miss me. But I did this exact thing last year when I went to the UK. It was good for a bit and I’m confident I needed it. But I eventually ended up feeling dreadfully lonely.
I am happy with my life as a nomad for now, but I do occasionally need to check in with myself about what I plan to achieve by going to certain places and being with certain people and doing certain things.
Working on reframing the idea of my life on the run to being my life on the slow, considered and mindful walk.
Some people go to therapy, others journal, meditate or pray. I make videos👇👀👇👀👇👀👇👀
Over and out chicos.
PLEASE EXCUSE TYPOS.
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