Unexpressed emotions- The tears I had all life kept

Emotions: strong feelings deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.

Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings/emotions of another.

How empaths experience emotions and how mere emotions can help them slip into eternal peace?

“You see, I never wrote it down. I never talked it out”, I’d slid into my sheets, my eternal comfort zone, my bed; where I’d lie mentally paralysed and nobody would ask why.

“I am not angry,” I used to tell myself. I wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable yet I felt like they were too ignorant to realise I’m merely a human being just like them. Maybe they did, or maybe they did not. It didn’t affect me for he blessed me with an understanding heart. And because of that, I’d always come to the conclusion that their things are worse than mine or maybe, maybe God sent me to heal all the broken ones and what could be better than him choosing me for the purpose?

Yet, I had broken down at times. Not because of the overwhelming burden I had on my shoulders or the storm that I kept inside, but because of the lack of compassion, the lack of empathy, and the lack of humanity I witnessed on daily basis. I’d see men telling to man up, to get up and go face the reality and then, I’d see feminists advocating that it is totally okay to cry.

It was not a war with men or women. Or how their biology worked. Or how the world portrayed it. It was my war. A war within myself. I didn’t want to win. I only wanted to know if it had ended. I loved battling the insides and maybe, maybe at that point I was a bit tired and I only wanted to know the results. I hated that I’d get tired at times.

I hated that I wasn’t living up to what God sent me for. If I was sent for them, who did he send for me? I didn’t hate giving, but in moments like those, when I’d think I have almost won the war, I’d go back, exit the battle zone and go looking for myself for I knew I had lost myself somewhere in the war. That’s when they’d get raged. I didn’t mind that. But the labels that came like bullets, the selfish and egocentric, the ungrateful and the unkind, the sleepyhead and the dramatist, the attention seeker and the oh-so-loves-self-pity; would open up my wounds like anything and I’d get back on my feet, run back to the battleground, witness their injuries and tell myself “You have to be strong for them!”.

But did they ever realize I was one of them and that I wasn’t fighting for them rather we were fighting for us? For mankind that had long forgotten God-like virtues. Their silence killed me. Their ignorance ate my insides. I didn’t need their shoulder to lean on. I didn’t need their sympathy. I didn’t need their support for I knew we were all slaves to one Lord. I didn’t bow down to them, I bowed down to their King.

But often at times, when I’d hit rock bottom, I’d ask myself where do all this strength come from? I was a strong believer that unexpressed emotions do not die, they’re buried alive and come forth later in uglier ways. Yet, I was unable to cry. My chest would feel heavy as I’d put my head to sleep, I would feel tears tying a knot in my throat. I’d feel a storm coming but it never came. I waited, and waited, and waited for it but I always fell asleep without ever experiencing it.

I used to wonder, where do all the emotions go? Do we really explode one day or do we carry them to our graves? Now that I lie under this mud, my body wrapped in white with grace, I realize he never sent someone for me. For he was the one, for he is the one. For he understands and calls upon his beloveds. They come by and build my tomb, talking about how surprising it was for I showed no sign. Oh, in the same times, in the same skin, what do they mean by it? As they sit and let out their cries, I realize these are my tears that they’re crying. Glory to the Lord who didn’t let me break down in front of them. He knew they wouldn’t realize my worth for I don’t bow down to them, I bow down to their King.

Unexpressed Emotions- The tears I had all life kept:

I rest my head for eternal sleep, the lines; noted down with a bruised but not a broken heart, written in a very unthoughtful way, disappear in the cemetery, for they didn’t deserve to know, for her worth was not that low, as they read:

Kept things to myself

For the people around

Needed me for themselves

Buried emotions deep down

And didn’t let the storm out

I told myself every day

Stay strong, bae

For the ignorant never understood

For not everyone was kind

So I went to sleep without crying

Thinking when will I let this out

Waited for someone who understood

Until finally I met my beloved

As I lay deep under the ground

The mud covering my corpse

I realize he was the one,he is the one

As they come by and sit on my tomb

And cry their hearts out

For I have gone

For I never looked like I would be gone

I realize this was it, this is it

These are my tears that they shed

The tears I had all life kept

More by this author at https://theuncoiled.com/author/zainab/
Read on mental health at https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/issues/mental-health-and-development.html