Big girls don't cry... or can't they?

Is it because I'm getting older that I'm starting to feel less emotional or have I just learnt to get on with life?

As I leave my teenage years, I've noticed I have become a lot less emotional. I’ve always been a very sensitive person throughout my teens. The saying “Don’t give it, if you can’t take it” was so prominent in my mind. Obviously I’d have a laugh and a joke with people but I would never take the jokes too far as I knew I could never handle someone going in on me too harshly. Maybe that’s because I was so insecure and self deprecating as a teen that my mind was already hurling enough hate at myself. I didn’t need another person to add to that negativity and lack of confidence.

But growing up I’ve always been so sensitive, anything would upset and overwhelm me. I remember when I was 16 sitting my GCSEs, I would come home crying every night to my mom. Whether it was too much homework or I’d lost my PE kit… a flood of tears and anxiety would rush over me. I’ve always had this tough cookie exterior but I was such an emotional person inside. And to be honest I actually loved being a sensitive person as really feeling my emotions and letting them out with a good old cry meant that I could let it go after the tears. It felt so cathartic, it was a release like I was letting go of the hold the problem had over me. But as I get older, I wonder whether I’m starting to feel things less?

I’m not sure when I became a rational person but looking back on my emotional 16 year old self in comparison to my nearly 20 year old self, they are very different. Which is obviously going to be the case, but the way I react and feel my emotions have done a complete 180 turn. Maybe it was during lockdown I changed, maybe being inside with my feelings all day overwhelmed me to the point of numbness. Or maybe I just grew up and changed as a person.

I’ve been told by most of my friends that I give great advice as I can take a step back from the emotions in the situation and rationalise it. However, that rationalisation started to weave its way into my own personal issues. I found myself taking a step back from situations and processing it by acknowledging my feelings but not actually allowing myself to feel them. When having a journaling session with my best friend Eleanor, she said something that stuck with me. “You find a solution for your issues and alert yourself of the feelings you have. But you don’t allow yourself to experience those emotions”. This hit hard. Am I just emotionally cruising and ignoring my feelings?

I think one of the reasons I give such good advice is because I observe all the situations and feelings that my friends go through and note how they handle it. Also through life we gain more experience in how to handle things. Yet when I’m going through things that I've never lived through before and must learn how to deal with, I still try to rush the process of healing. I know in my head that I am upset but the tears just don't come like they used too. I am aware of all my feelings and journal pages upon pages of my thoughts and reasons for things and I feel relief. In my head, I've moved on but I'll still find myself hung up on situations months later. So I guess my way of writing down my emotions but not feeling them isn’t actually healing me like I thought it did.

I find that bottling up your emotions isn’t always as simple as just keeping every feeling inside and not talking about things. I talk to my friends in detail about how I feel and why I feel that way and it truly helps but I can't shake the feeling that my emotions still feel repressed. For days on end I feel low and worn down, it’s like my feelings are a dark cloud over my head but I just can't get over it so easily.

The thing is with our feelings, time does really heal all but so does dealing with them in a healthy way. I've always struggled badly with managing stress over anything (school, dance, work, friendships, life!), but I feel as though I’m getting older I'm still not sure on how to handle it. As when I was 16, I would have an outburst of tears at any minor stressful event and now that I'm older I know how to rationalise my stress and to only stress about the important things. Although stress actually causes emotional numbness, is it really numbing all of my emotions? If anything, stress motivates me to become more organised and put together. But is just getting on with it repressing my feelings or a part of maturing?

I guess as we get older we all need to become more rational. We become more aware of the real world as an adult and have to understand what is important and what is just a minor inconvenience that can be dealt with. We don't have these raging hormones pumping around our bodies like we did as teenagers, affecting our moods, feelings and actions. I think as well with emotions, when we are younger we rely on consolement, from our parents for example, as the fix for our problems. We look for comfort. But as we get older we are looking for solutions more. As well we learn how to cope with feelings and situations over time as we gather more experience and resilience towards life. As we become adults we can't keep relying on our parents and others for comfort all the time as there are gonna be times where all we have is ourselves, so we've got to learn to cope. As at the end of the day, the person who will always be there for you, is yourself. So flourishing your self love and inner strength and perseverance is just as important as leaning on our friends and family for support and comfort.

I also think that as adults we are not feeling our emotions less, but we just have more perspective. I don’t get upset or stressed over some situations now that I am older as I've gone on to meet such an array of people who have it so much worse off than me. I’m so much more aware of my privilege and don't obsess over little things anymore, as they are so insignificant. And I am not invalidating my own feelings just because they're not on the same scale as other people's problems, but sometimes we just need a slap in the face with reality. I have two loving parents who are still together, a close relationship with my sister, a roof over my head, food in my fridge, a nice warm bed, a happy childhood, beautiful friendships around me. I am extremely lucky and grateful and I think taking a step back sometimes and looking at the bigger picture can help for a lot of situations.

The thing is that I am such an empath. I feel other people's feelings so much and I am so aware of how others will feel in situations. But if I feel so much for others, why can't I just feel more for myself. I'm more likely to cry over a tik tok of a family reunited at an airport than I am at my own life.

Sometimes though I just wish I could cry until I am empty, to drain myself clean. Feel refreshed and ready to move on instead of constantly having lingering thoughts and feelings. I just wish I could cry more because I know the thoughts are still there in my head, as they keep me up all night. I'm clearly still bottling things up and I just wish I could cry out all my problems like I did when I was 16. I wish I could cry out all the hurt and memories of everyone who ever hurt me. Maybe these people and situations don’t deserve my tears in the long run, I’m not sure. I just wish things didn't have such a hold over me all the time, but I guess that's part of me. I feel big. Although I may not be a cryer anymore, I am still that sensitive girl at heart and I think there should be less judgement on how we feel and react to situations.

So whether you use up a whole box of tissues for your tears, journal pages until your ink runs out or run the ear off your friends about your feelings, as long as it is out there in the world there is no wrong way to process your emotions. And who knows, maybe one day the switch will flip and I'll be the biggest cry baby you've ever seen.