I’ve just had therapy, or as I like to say, got my head shrunk, and let me say I’m not fixed. Ha ha, no. I’ve been stumbling my way through years and years of sessions, and though I work very hard to not be a drunk, or depressed, or enraged, or disappointed with everything, I have concluded that something is broken inside me.
My therapist, bless her, is cool, edgy, cerebral, and life-affirming, and clearly admires and likes me. That’s crazy considering she knows me better than anyone in the world. I’d say her starting basis is how amazing I am, and a hope that I would believe it. I sometimes ask myself, do I pretend to be someone I’m not with her? No way. I am my most comfortable, true, articulate self.
So, WTF is wrong with me? I know why I’m messed up. My blog is a testament to my broken childhood. My broken heart. I can’t figure out how to heal.
After Covid, I started watching a local Black led church online. I was drawn to attend in person. So eventually we did after about a year. What I wasn’t expecting was my own tears. I found week after week, at some point in the service, this person who couldn’t cry started weeping, and couldn’t stop. I tried. The more I tried, the more i became a snot-nosed, blubbering fool. Embarrassed, I frequently ran out to the lobby because I wanted to be in control.
And I am afraid. I can say that now. I don’t understand, and I’m afraid. Eventually, we left the church. Lots of reasons. We’re not Pentecostal, but for me, it was mainly fear.
I don’t cry. Tom cries at movies and shows, writing songs, normal, sad stuff, but I’m usually unmoved. I feel dead inside when I see someone crying. The last movie I remember crying at was The Killing Fields. I’ve always been broken in there, and antidepressants make it worse; like pouring cement in the desert.
It really is a conundrum.
Logic & Imagination 
When we don’t have practice dealing with something in our lives. When we’ve had years and years of dealing with emotion, thought, experience, etc in other ways, it can be overwhelming to react differently. Your tears are not something you’re used to. For some people, dealing with what you have dealt with in your life would be overwhelming to them. You’re used to not having to deal with this natural, and very human side of being a person. A living, breathing person… of which you’re entitled to be. However, there are aspects of your journey that have either by necessity or by practice that were shut down. Learning to live in those moments without feeling like the world, or even yourself, are ending is the next step in healing. Those fears are natural. None of us like to be in places where we don’t have a handle on how those places are affecting us. Please don’t hear this like a criticism. But, for you to continue through this healing process, you’re in a good place. When you sit in that place and let the tears wash over you like waves at the beach, you’ll find yourself getting in touch with parts of you that you’ve had to “manage” to survive. Perhaps, you’ll realise that fear is nothing to be afraid of because it will not consume you. Continued grace in the journey, Sis.Charles Burbank
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