I had to teach myself positive emotions

 

I Had To Teach Myself What “Good” Felt Like

I am unique and extremely bizarre. The way in which I was raised could be categorized as sick, twisted, sadistic, and perverted. My dad and grandmother taught me to be both their whore and whore to many other strangers and men.

In a way, it was to my emotional wellbeing that I never experienced happiness, excitement or joy because I felt my miserable existence was perfectly normal. I did not miss out on my childhood, rather, it was just a childhood with a different scale, an emotional measurement. I think most unabused people have a wide range of emotions from a 1 which is very bad, awful to 100 which is pure happiness and bliss. My scale simply measured bad, worse, awful or agony. It was a very small, narrow scale of emotions that I had to work with. In a nutshell, things that happened to be were on a scale of badness. If it wasn’t bad, I did not know how to categorize it. The only positive thing I can remember from my childhood is birthday cake. Birthday Cake was great!!

I felt no love, only handling and use and care not to cause me enough harm that I’d end up at the hospital or require medical care. I could be used but not handled too roughly. There was no love there.

When I moved to Oregon, I started going for walks in these big, beautiful and bountiful old growth forests lush with carpets of ferns under foot and trees wearing blankets of hanging moss. As I walked, I felt not bad. But I could describe it no further. So, I tried something. I started repeating “this is good”, “this is what good feels like”, “this is what not hurt feels like”, “I like how this feels; this feels good”. And I walked and walked and repeated these new and strange thoughts. I was pretty sure that what I was feeling was a positive emotion and I guessed that the feeling was “Good”. Before that, I didn’t really have first-hand knowledge of what Good felt like. I had to teach it to me. I discovered I could feel Good. And I let that feeling grow.

My emotional growth had been stunted, stomped on and eradicated to the point that I had only experience with negative physical feelings. Growing up there was no one feeding me love, care or kindness. It was a devoid, empty and flatline way to live but it was all I knew.

I’ve been expanding and growing. I’m becoming aware of the telltale signs that what I am doing or where I am “feels good”. I’ll notice a subtle or wide smile upon my face. I’ll notice a warmth in my heart and tears of wonder and happiness falling on my face. No one taught me this. There was no one demonstrating these emotions to me. I have had to teach myself what others innately know or have most likely experienced.

God, I know I am bizarre and my upbringing, my days have been filled with agony, torture, unbelievable perversion and crimes committed against me by those called family.

I’m 59 years old and I am just finding the words to explain an existence beyond outrageous.