Freedom To Cry or Not Cry

I have had people say to me that I am an “Ice Queen.” They have called me “cold”, “harsh”, and even “uncaring.” These people were supposed to know me and love me. I have thought about this for some time and in the past I thought, maybe I am a cold-hearted b!@$#. I found it so confusing because they would say those things yet, they would also say things about how loving, caring, and compassionate I was – even expressing that I care too much about people and things. They would claim that I was TOO sensitive. See my dilemma? It did not make sense, how could I be a cold-hearted b!@$# and an overly sensitive compassionate person?

After this morning, I finally understood that the people were speaking out of emotion.

I am not sure why it all clicked for me this morning, but it did. They were speaking their words of anger toward me because I was not responding in the way that they expected or wanted. I had flashes of certain events and realized that at the time the person was trying to make me cry – they were trying to get some sort of emotional response out of me. When people become emotional, especially if they are angry I shutdown and lose my words. I have so many things rushing at my sensory system, mentally, and emotionally – the violence of the words literally feels as if I am being beaten against my flesh. Harsh words thrust at me cause me physical pain. I go into a similar state when people are sad or emotionally hurt. When they are physically hurt I feel the pain intensely, but I go into “help” mode and it trumps the pain that I am feeling because my main concern is to help them.

It is interesting that I have a high pain tolerance for myself.

Continued ... Freedom To Cry or Not Cry