I am about to admit something that I often try to deny. Something that everyone around me is well aware but I still tend to put bocks up and pretend it isn't so. I, am a very emotional person.
My Husband often says that I am ruled by my emotions and that I need to try and not live my life by them. It may be to my misfortune that I simply don't understand this. How can you NOT live life by your emotions? That's like saying to someone to ignore the physical pain of something and allowing oneself to break a bone. To me, there is no possibility of living without using your emotions to guide you. Yet, I do get what he's saying.
It's not that I'm emotional. It's that I'm overly so. When I feel something strongly, it tends to come out in a very passionate manner. Much to the chagrin of those around me. I have a strong sense of justice and injustice. Of what is socially acceptable and what is not. When I am wronged, I take it very personally even if it was not meant to be so. Then again, I seem to also take everything at personal to some varying degree.
When I discuss something of which I have strong emotions, be them positive or negative connotations, I tend to show my passion without realizing that I am doing so. I frequently "talk" with my hands, raise my voice and have even been known to jump around. At times, people take this as my "yelling" at them, when in fact I'm not actually yelling. I'm simply speaking at them at a higher than what is most likely an acceptable volume. When I YELL at someone, you will absolutely know it ;-) When I am passionate, there is a difference; it's just whether or not a person knows me well enough to tell the difference.
The downside to all this (aside from the obvious) is that I also have a tendency to flow downward into the pits of depression quite easily. Even a misperceived slight can be cause for alarm in my fragile emotional realm. Someone forgets to call, someone says something snippy or makes a joke at my expense are all cause for emotional discord. A friend can be upset about something and while it usually has nothing to do with myself, I more often than not immediately jump to the "are they mad at *me*?? What did I do??" dialog in my head. On the rare occasions I speak up about it, I get the "are you crazy" look or the quick brush off of "it's not always about YOU Kat!"
It's not even that I'm a self-centered individual. Or at least I would like to think that I'm not (someone please correct me if I'm wrong!). I give everything I possibly can to my husband and child, sometimes at the expense of myself. I have been known to go out of my way, bend over backwards as one might say, to help people I barely know. I think for me it's the deep-seeded desire to have people like me, to have them want to be around me, despite knowing that my over-emotional nature tends to push people away. It's a double edged sword. Being too emotional drives them away, yet I'm such a social creature that I easily become disheartened and sad when I have no social outlet.
The dilemma is always ripped open anew when I meet new people or am around acquaintances I barely know. Am I acting right? Am I being too weird? Did I let too much of my "true" nature show too quickly? And my nature is often the cause for discord within my own home. The majority of couples fight about money, kids, in-laws/family or infidelity/perceived infidelity. We, however, tend to fight about how I'm letting my emotions get the better of me yet again. The guy that cut me off in traffic causes me to become so bent out of shape (HUGE infraction of justice right there!) that I've been known to cry, scream and rage behind the wheel to the point where I must pull over or risk an accident that I had barely avoided which caused my rage to begin with. THIS is what my Husband and I argue over. Forget fighting about money (why fight over something you don't have in the first place?), it's all about my over emotionally charged persona.
And it's not that I don't want to change...I do. But medication only goes so far and no matter how much I try, one cannot forcibly change their true nature. It goes against self-preservation after all.
What's a girl to do?
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