This truth worked just fine as long as my feelings were of the positive kind, as they generally were in my early twenties. When feelings of uncertainty, insufficiency and general unhappiness started to fill my mind as graduation was approaching, my ’don’t ask, don’t tell’ stance on all feelings had left me completely inept with dealing with them. I told myself that as long as they were only in my head they were not real, not knowing that bottling them up would only make them more dangerous. This paved the way to a depression which lasted more than two years to which the cure turned out to be something as simple as opening up about how I felt, something I had spent two decades learning not to do.

While dealing with and exposing emotions is in no way one of my strengths today, as anyone close to me could tell you, my fear of having feelings has been ousted, allowing me to practice the skills I lack due to my stern views growing up. Human beings are not supposed to be robots, no matter how practical and efficient that may make us, and part of being human is accepting the irrational feelings which provide our lives with some spice. Denying them is denying a major part of yourself, and doing so will inevitably cause conflict within you at some point.

To wrap this post up I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to those who were there and helped me break through the barrier, you know who you are!