I’m having a bit of a brainstorming session feel free to play along, it’s like a “who done it” with an emotional damage component.
Have you ever felt so incredibly devastated that you can physically feel your body melting into some unseen vortex of space as every ounce of joy or happiness is drained from your soul. An unwelcome tingle ripples just below your skin as your conscience tries to make its escape from the emotional pain. So, you refocus your eyes with rapid blinks and stretch out your hands for a tactile confirmation of reality?
Well for starters if you haven’t I’m here to tell you it sucks. If you have I’m sure it was in response to the death of a loved one, ending of a relationship, natural disaster or some major life event and for that I send my deepest condolences. For me to evoke such a wretched emotion is to simply be told NO. Well, truthfully, it’s ANY words that when strung together convey anything remotely close to something I may perceive as NO.
Well, let me dial that back a bit. There are in fact levels of this feeling. Think about ordering hot wings and they typically have a scale from mild to atomic. My atomic level is exactly what I described above and the mild hardly registers above fit throwing child. At any given time on any given day any given NO will place me on the scale. Depending on where I land I’ll do anything from spit out curse words carefully crafted together like handmade popcorn tinsel to power drinking Cabernet as though it were the secret to eternal life, followed by balancing on the ledge of a 30 story building for an encore. This sober thing has really left me with no plan for level Atomic and the 30 story building doesn’t seem like such a great idea without the poison. <heavy sigh> So I decided I’d just dissect this frog myself and see if I can’t take some round up to the root of the issue.
First things first, the root. Where does this obviously dramatic over the top response to something so common place come from? Well that my dear is one of many questions to which I have no answer. If I were raised as a spoiled child one could assume I was accustomed to having my own way all the time thus explaining my disproportionate response. But, I wasn’t, not even close. I was actually the opposite of spoiled and literally had no stroke on how my life was playing out. I’m ruling that one out.
So based on an neglectful childhood I should be accustom to the word NO. That doesn’t mean I liked it and looking back I know I didn’t. Ever seen that kid laying on the floor of the grocery store kicking and screaming over a box of cereal, snot running down their beet red face flailing like a fish on land? Yup, that kid was me. I’m that hot mess all grown up. The kid that every onlooker thanked God wasn’t theirs and every parent used as a real time lesson in how NOT to act in public. And although that was a delightful memory I shared from under my rug, that only explains this aversion has existed well before adulthood. It still doesn’t tell me why.
For those of you playing along at home here are a couple more observations to add to the your clue card:
#1 I have a stronger aversion to being told no by women. And more specifically the age of the women as it relates to me and the respect I have for that women’s opinion directly correlates to my level on the wing scale of emotion.
#2 The lower levels feel more like anger and the upper tiers like more of an emotional wound wrapped in sadness.
So that’s it … here I am. I sliced the frog right open. Little pieces of innards staring at me and still no closer to why. No need for the round up and I’m gonna need to bring in a professional for the postmortem. Turns out all that Oprah and Dr. Phil I watched growing up literally taught me nothing. But I do feel a little bit better by trying to therapy myself. I obviously suck at it, but at least I talked myself off the ledge and the old Atomic Cabernet routine.
Conclusion: This is obviously smothered in mommy issues and I’m not ruling out my complete inability to properly recognize or name emotions properly as a possible secondary culprit. But hey, I’m still sober, I’m not dangling from a bridge and I haven’t used any other tools from my emotional numbing toy chest, so no regrets. I think I’m gonna call this one 8:49 PM, Lola for the win!
P.S. If anyone developed a working theory I’m all ears. Thank you for playing.
Lola Trying 