“Basketball players don’t cry.”
What makes people think just because I play a sport means I can’t have emotions? Basketball players cry a lot, at least this one does. I cry over being bullied, I cry over my life situation, I cry over my crush not accepting me because they’re studying abroad next school year. Sometimes I don’t even know why I’m crying. I just can’t stop the tears from flowing.
Truly, I have always been an emotional person, a crybaby most would say. The truth is people need to stop running from how they feel. Oftentimes growing up my father would tell me to “Stop crying or he’d give me something to cry about.” That is the toxic behavior that instills into people making them think they aren’t allowed to feel emotions. Emotions are not a bad thing. They aren’t the problem. The problem is the people who refuse to acknowledge their emotions and simply call a person weak for showing them. In reality, it shows strength to let yourself show emotions, to be vulnerable. Stop telling people with depression to just go outside, you wouldn’t tell that to someone with cancer, would you? People with disorders such as depression can sometimes not have very good control of their emotions. If you always feel numb and nothing, you would want to feel something, at any cost.
Society has made up this allusion that you must always be happy all the time when in reality this is not possible. If you were never to experience sadness, you would never know the thrill of excitement. No one likes feeling upset, but hiding that pain does nothing but hurt you more.
Now I’m not telling you to hit someone because they stole your french fry, but you have the right to tell them to stop doing that.
So let’s all just be a little kinder and consider each other’s feelings. Just because you don’t get upset and someone who ate your sandwich doesn’t mean you can eat other people. I know that is a dumb example but the point still stands. Trauma has clawed at some of us; even simple mentioning of simple words triggers us to have flashbacks. Some things are sensitive topics for people, for example, I get upset when people flaunt food I can’t have because of my restrictions. I miss being able to drink coke so don’t chug one right in front of me, it’s super disrespectful.
