Emotionally Muted

Yesterday in counselling my counsellor used a very interesting term to describe me that I'd like to share with you guys.

She used the term emotionally muted.

This got me thinking a lot. I realised that this is a very good way to describe me and how I feel. I went all the way back to childhood and thought about this phrase.

I feel like as a child I wasn't allowed to express emotions that would be considered negative. If I cried at a sad moment in a movie, my parents made fun of me. They always said that crying is a weak thing to do. Big girls don't cry. This made me feel like I needed to internalise and hide my emotions. I got good at hiding, I refused to let my parents see me sad because I knew they wouldn't be happy about it. I also feel as if I had this idea drilled into me that I shouldn't be sad because people around the world have more reasons to feel sad than I do.

So I spent all my life keeping bad emotions and feelings in. I muted these feelings. I refused to let them reveal themselves.

It wasn't until this summer that I realised I lacked other emotions. A friend pointed out that I never laugh at things that I find funny, I just smile a bit. It got me wondering why I don't have the natural reaction to laugh. My body just never has that reflex to laugh, it's not a natural thing to come out of me. And I felt bad because my friend said she couldn't tell if I was enjoying the movie we were watching. I was enjoying it a lot, I just don't know how to express that physically and emotionally.

It's as if I muted all of my emotions in order to become invisible. No one notices a person who fades into the background. Sometimes it's easier to be invisible but I know I want to be visible. Everyone wants to feel noticed and valuable.

So that's where I am now, trying to understand how to feel emotions and express them like a non-muted person would. It seems impossible at this point but who knows, maybe I'll learn to laugh again