Emotionless
"Do you want to watch The Passion? The Damansara Utama Methodist Church is holding a screening — I could get you a ticket," Emmy said.
Do I want to watch The Passion? I'm not sure. All the hype has me curious, but stories like this one leave me deeply reluctant to actually see the movie.
I'm afraid it will make me feel too much.
The realisation floored me. Suddenly a lot of things make sense — my insistence on happy endings, the feel-good movies and romance books, being uncomfortable when Mom starts emoting, pulling away when I know I'm beginning to need anyone too much...
Holy cow. I'm scared of emotion.
You may or may not have realised this, but I analyse a lot. (Ha!) I'm doing it now. In a way, it's easier for me to think and analyse because that way I can stay detached. I don't have to be involved in the situation. I don't have to FEEL.
Looks like I'm very much my father's daughter. Scary thought. And I remembered this post, which I wrote on Nov 14 last year but never published...
Sometimes it seems like there is a wall around my emotions and I can't feel anything deeply. Either that or I feel all the negative emotions too deeply, and the positive ones elude me. That's... quite scary.
If you were to ask me whether I care for people — I'd tell you, yes, of course I care. And I try very hard to show that I care. I try to be supportive, to offer a listening ear, to help out wherever I can, and so on.
But all too often I don't feel a thing. Is that quite normal?
It's like I'm doing all the right things, and yet I feel so disassociated from all the things I'm doing, all the things I'm saying. I'm outside my body, observing myself, watching myself nod in understanding, exclaim in empathy, advise with compassion, and it seems like an act.
A friend says she's broken up with her boyfriend? Give the "sympathetically shocked on her behalf" look. Ask with concern, "What happened? Are you OK?" A friend doesn't feel well? Look worried and tell her, "You'd better get more rest. Take care of yourself, all right?" A friend has just gotten engaged? Grin like an idiot and congratulate her effusively.
I swear, I feel like I'm going through the motions. And I try hard at it, afraid they'll see past the façade into the great nothingness of my heart; I don't want them EVER to doubt that I care — because I do. I know I do. I just don't know why I can't FEEL it.
Compassion used to come naturally; now it's something I have to simulate through my actions. I know I ought to be feeling it, but I'm not, so I make up for it by acting compassionate. I'm not sure it's quite the same thing, but so far nobody seems to have noticed.
How on earth I got into this state, I really have no idea. I used to care very deeply — often too deeply. And then, through a series of disappointments, tiny hurts, I taught myself not to care.
And now I can't feel a thing anymore.
It's the same with God. I remember a time when His love was so real to me, it was the only thing that kept me going. Knowing that He loved me with an unconditional love, that He accepted me just as I was — I clung onto that with everything I had; it carried me through the teen years when I was clashing with my parents and hurting from Dad's harsh judgements.
But now the word 'love' is to me just an empty four-letter word, a word like any other... you can say "God loves you", but what does that mean? I know it's true — I don't question that — but I want to be able to feel it. I want it to be real to me.
This issue of "real-ness" has been an ongoing one for, oh, about 5 years now. Dear Lord, will it never end?