Tears

I mentioned last week that I have a propensity to cry, especially over emotional situations. Rarely for physical injury, almost always due to emotions. 

To illustrate this, a couple years ago when cutting firewood I stabbed my self with a pulp hook in the shin. Not that it matters but it can happen when hurrying and not paying proper attention. It hurt bad enough that I went to the ER to make sure I didn't have a fracture; after I finished the load of wood I was working on. No tears, just annoyance combined with a hole in the shape of the end of the hook.

Compare that to me watching some movies and tv shows. And not just sad scenes, but triumphant ones. Yes, sometimes I get tears watching GOOD things. It's like my emotions overload and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

What's interesting is that while it was never quite to this level before my accident in 2016, emotional tears have been a thing for me for a long time. And knowing what I know now, I think it was because of my first accident that happened way back before I was even school age. Back then I fell off a couch onto a heating register, head first, full weight. It's actually a wonder I didn't injure my neck given where I hit. I then followed that up years later when another fall, this time in a clawfoot cast iron tub. In that case I came directly down on my chin, causing a whiplash effect . These were both before bike accident's without helmet's (80's kid) and years of football would add to my trauma. 

The reason I mention the initial accident as a child is because of something my mother would say years later to my step-father while I was getting scolded for crying. She told him that when I was little, I never cried and my tears as I got older were just making up for that. Now, some of that of course is just a mother trying to protect her child. But, it's also not out of the realm of possibility and dare I say, even likely, that I had a change in emotional function following that first injury. I literally landed full weight, on my head, on top of a heating register at somewhere between 3-4 years old. The scar from the stitches is still visible when I shave my head and it's actually a common trait that emotional responses and personality traits change post brain injury (comedian Sam Kinison is an example).

And that brings us to today. Emotional crying has nearly always been a thing but after my accident in 2016 it's escalated. As I mentioned in the beginning, even watching a movie with a triumphant ending can elicit tears. Sad endings now seem to be a given. The Avengers: Endgame is an example of that. When Ironman sacrifices himself (spoiler alter though if you haven't seen it yet, no sympathy), yep, tears. Right there in public in the theater. No choice. Tried to hold them back but to no avail. Hell, watching Miracle the last time, when they beat the Russians and Kirk Russel as Herb Brooks was in disbelief at doing something so momentous, tears. Not necessarily crying but I was misty.

This has all come to the forefront this week as we set up for Christmas because a year ago at this time we found out that our Shepard, Kane, was dying of cancer (he crossed the rainbow bridge January 9th of 2020). Placing his ornament on the tree and hanging his stocking brought out, you guessed it, tears. Now it's not unusual of course to cry over the loss of a beloved pet, but for me, I feel like my emotional response to him passing and still today was overly strong. I question it enough that I'm actually wondering if I have what's referred to as Pseudobulbar affect, a disorder that causes laughing and/or crying uncontrollably or at questionable times. It's certainly something I plan to ask about at my next neuro appointment.

So, why do I write this? I write it because it's embarrassing if I'm being honest and it always has been. I'm a big dude. I'm a beard wearing, weight lifting, gun shooting, deer hunting, woodcutting, car fixing red blooded male. While definitions of the sexes have and continue to change, my definition of masculinity includes such things. 

It does not, however, include crying at the movies. 

And I know I'm damn sure not alone on that one. Knowing this, I could also see how such a scenario could have not just a drastic effect on someone, but potentially a fatal one. 

So I share. 

I share my embarrassment. Because by doing so it:

1. Removes the possibility it can be used against me. It's hard to weaponize an admitted embarrassment. 
2. Because someone else out there may be fighting a similar battle and by saying it out loud and admitting it, it'll perhaps allow them to do the same. 

It's embarrassing, it also just is. The only way to control it is to avoid. 

🠊Avoid going to the movies. 

🠊Avoid watching a tv show or movie with your family because you don't want to explain why you're crying. 

🠊Avoid not just bad feelings, but good ones as well because you're scared of embarrassing yourself in front of others. 

Avoiding life for fear of of presenting an uncontrollable act is no way to live. I've done it and frankly, it's exhausting. If you're reading this and you deal with it, you understand. If you're reading this and don't deal with it but do have issues that present physically beyond your control, you get it too. 

It sucks but let me tell you, even just writing this is cathartic. Knowing that someone may read it and feel better about themselves, feels great. Acknowledging that my issue is not just mine but others out there will understand provides acceptance.

And revealing such a personal trait to the world that can either be accepted or potentially used against me is empowering because it's beyond my control how this is received by others. 

I can only control how I handle myself. 

And that makes me happy. Maybe even happy enough to cry.  

 

Morning Anger: Seeking the Route Cause

This morning a situation presented in our house that caused anger.  And like a virus, my anger quickly distributed itself among the rest of the family.  Thankfully my wife is just as big a hard headed pain in the ass as I can can be, which played a large part in it's eventual resolution, but between the time my anger spiked and that resolution I was able to arrive at a place where investigating the true source of my emotions became possible.  And that's important, because like many physical injuries, it's often not what's presented that's the actual cause, but simply a symptom of an underlying issue.

I'm not going to get into what the situation was today because it's not pertinent, but my subsequent reaction is because it's a situation that happens to all of us.  How often has a situation or scenario caused a surprise emotional response and you're left dumbfounded as to why that, of all things, caused such a reaction?  I'm willing to bet more than you even remember.  In the after, did you investigate the why?  And if you found the why, did you address it?  Did you communicate it with the person or persons who upset you?  Did you stand in the mirror and search for you own role in the situation?

Because nothing is easy about it.  From confronting your own feelings to communicating them to others, the whole things sucks.  And it needs to.  It needs to be uncomfortable.  Because the comfort we seek is often the reason that we feel so shitty.  The avoidance of conflict, even with those we love, seems more comfortable than the 5 minutes of discomfort we'll feel having a difficult conversation.  But what we don't know, forget, or choose to ignore, is the comfort that's on the backside of this discomfort.  As a coach/personal trainer, I see this play out all the time from a physical standpoint.  People don't want to come to the gym but they force themselves to and by the time they're done, they're happy they showed up.  It's the same thing when confronting our emotional well being.  We must show up, even when we don't want to, and put in the work.

Quite frankly, I've been a bit of a mess lately.  I've been pushing extremely hard to get many tasks accomplished before the snow arrives plus continuing with my half-marathon training.  Throw in the upcoming holidays, life events, and day to day tasks and my TBI affected brain is screaming for relief.  And while I've been working to give it sleep, hydration, and better nutrition, I've been ignoring many of its requests for respite.  And that's largely what led into today.  My brain has been giving me signs that I need to communicate my needs better but instead of listening I've simply ignored and continue to pushed foreword.

To my own detriment and to the detriment of solidly being able to communicate with my loved ones.

But while my injury may get some of the credit, it doesn't get all of it.  Because I'm not the only person who does this.  And similar situations would arise before my accident so clearly this is something I've needed to work on for sometime.  As I get older, more experienced, and gain more understanding and insight I hope my ability to confront such things before they get to a point like they did this morning will improve, but that won't happen unless I demand it of myself.  Unless I get more comfortable being uncomfortable.  Unless I continue to work on taking my own advice and the advice of those around me.

Because that's how this this works.  In order to find the causes of our anger and other discontentment, we must both seek the toughest truths and then confront them.  And we must remember that we're generally not alone unless we choose to be.  For me, that's difficult.  I do a lot of things alone.  From working to learning to attempting to diagnose difficult issues within my life, I've spent years approaching such situations myself.  Sure I'll take some input here and there but I've spent more time seeking to solve problems than was necessary if I'm being honest, because asking for assistance was something I didn't even wish to entertain.

There is more information than ever before available on the internet when we choose to seek it instead of looking as ass pics on Instagram and video game feeds on Twitch.  There are people like me writing about life situations and there are those with much higher education publishing information at unimaginable rates that can help us be better.  Be physically more healthy.  Be better in our careers and with our families. To be better emotionally and spiritually.  But reading and watching such things often isn't as fun or comfortable as watching the ball game or scrolling our feeds, so we don't.  And that's unfortunate.

Because we can find the causes.  And we can be better.

For our communities.  For our families.



And for ourselves.