They say witnessing kids grow and navigate life, in all its glory and detriment, selfishly gives us a second chance to relive and reflect with what we know today. Cynicism accrues over time, our dogmatic fantasies shape into pragmatic realities. But if you spend time with kids long enough, their reactions polish what we now see as mundane, worn, and dull. They breathe new perspectives and remind us of the hidden joys and novelties life continuously offers us. Everything suddenly feels new and limitless and magical. It is easy to become lost in their world and we try to prolong their fantasies, decorated in naivety, for as long as possible. However, the pangs of reality and its accompanied cynicism are inevitable.
I am not a parent and I am by no means qualified in pediatric psychology. But, via my limited interactions with my nephews and baby cousins, I learned kids absorb more than we realize and develop habits inherited from us—for better or for worse. Years later, as every generation does, they’ll unpack these experiences and habits over multiple therapy sessions which will transpire into hard conversations over the holiday season. And the cycle persists.
One of my nephews is an ebullient bundle of love. If you could bottle sunshine and pour it into a single person, his name would be Odin and he is turning 1…2…3 (!!) this October. Odin loves making everyone laugh; strangers fawn over his giggles; teachers fight over which daycare group he’ll be in next year.
However, toddlers are rambunctious munchkins and they enjoy pushing boundaries. One evening, Odin did something very bad—he threw food on the ground. My brother was, understandably, upset. I saw Odin’s cheery expression shape into confusion and worry. For a brief moment, his gaze turned downward in what I presumed was shame and sadness. I wanted to tell him it was okay to cry, but the words clumped in my throat. He soon jolted out of his seat and into his playroom, frantically searched for a toy, and reenacted a bit that was once awarded with laughs and claps and praise from his now upset parents. I wondered if he interpreted his father’s reaction as something he needed to fix and the role he had to play to negate his father’s disappointment. My heart ached at even the possibility. And so, the cycle persists.1
ad vitam…
“Put on a brave face.”
“Don’t let your personal problems affect your work.”
“Why are you crying?”
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit emotional?”
One of the greatest failings we have done to generations of youths is ingraining a subconscious habit of prioritizing their means of production over the validation of their humanity, and all of its accompanied chaos and mess. We create an entire education system so kids have “clear” pathways toward earning an honest wage with benefits. While equal educational opportunities are important, I wonder if we’ve over-indexed on providing resources to steer kids towards productivity and extrinsic awards (e.g. grades, standardized test scores), and yet we never equip them with the resources for healthy coping mechanisms.
We encourage kids to push those “bad” emotions down; we tell them the world will continue to push forward; we tell them it’ll only get harder from here. Some may argue “well, that’s the parent’s job!”, but if parents were never equipped with handling their emotions either,2 then naturally they will also accept these habits as a default. Rather, many see this as simply a part of society and the cycle continues. And some question why we’re in a mental health crisis today.
For the majority of our lives, and especially during our most impressionable years, we are rewarded for holding in and pushing through our sadness, stress, and anxieties—especially when it’s for success, in any form. The kids whose parents berated them at the dining table as they were doing their math homework are now the ones with accelerated career paths because they did The Work—even if the cost meant late nights and missed birthdays. We’ve been told to understand everyone else’s emotions (“read the room”), but we’re never given the tools nor dedicated time to safely (and affordably) understand our own. We may be screaming inside but when anyone asks us “How are you feeling?”, our immediate responses are, “Good” or “Fine.”
…aut culpam
Growing up, I was a model student throughout my elementary, middle, and high school. Most adults described me as “disciplined, pleasant, and smart.” I attended a “prestigious” college; I now have an “admirable” career. But, I’m also chronically depressed and highly anxious.3 I checked all of these boxes because I was good at pushing through, and yet I can barely mention my feelings without my eyes watering.
This sadness is accompanied and conflicted with guilt. My mother is incredible; she’s lively, loving, and showered me with affection. I knew if I didn’t stir trouble, if I scored top of my class, if I attended a good college, then I’d receive praise and it’d make my hardworking and devoted mother proud and happy. And so, I did.
But, as a quiet and introverted child, I never learned how to express, understand, and accept my “bad” feelings. They were blockers that stood in the way of my achievements. So it’s easy to develop a habit of pushing those feelings aside to redirect my headspace towards studying or working. I strove to somehow “fix” this sadness by doing activities I knew would eventually receive some dopamine rush of approval. But, rarely did I sit with and understand those emotions. They were always a part of me I vehemently rejected.
Emotions are hard and so, we (attempt to) escape them. We (attempt to) hide from them. But, they are also like your shadow. You may not always see them, but they’re an inevitable and everlasting piece of you.
schroeder's stairs
During my spring semester of sophomore year, I resented my college’s environment and the people in it. I was floating in an abyss; I considered dropping out. My solution was to escape to another country on another continent for an entire year. But, even with this distance and a dramatic change of scenery, those looming feelings followed me.4 And they grew. If I couldn’t find a home or a place to plant roots, then did I truly belong anywhere? I returned to the abyss and only climbed deeper in it.
We chase happiness and fear sadness. We push away addressing the hard feelings because they’re uncomfortable. Someone once told me, “You may feel fine next month or maybe even tomorrow, but those emotions will always be there. You just learn how to cope with them over time. But if you don’t address them now, it’ll only be harder in the future.”
Three years ago, I could barely find the words to describe, much less attribute the triggers to, my sadness and anxieties. I’m now in my late-twenties and I only recently became acquainted with my emotions and started cherishing all of them as equals. Through years of therapy, trials and errors and tears, I learned how to unbundle the tangled chaos inside my mind and place these feelings in their designated boxes. But I still struggle to proactively acknowledge when my orderly boxes of emotions—carelessly taped over in hand-wavey, self-deprecating epigrams and aphorisms—begin to overflow.
Over the past month, I stopped categorizing any emotion as “bad.” No emotion is necessarily “bad” or “negative", we just allowed them to be.5 Rather, all emotions should be given the space to be fully and respectfully acknowledged. If we view our sadness, anger, or stress as negative emotions, we perpetuate a habit of not wanting to look them in the eye, as if we’ll turn to stone. Oftentimes, we either reach for ways to cope (e.g. drinking, drugs, texting your ex)6 or we simply run from them. And just when we believe they were figments of our imagination, they reappear again; during the quiet moments in empty rooms; during intimate 3am conversations after the party ends; when that song begins to play; everything, all at once, comes crashing down.
In all facets of our lives, we should give ourselves the space and time to understand and accept these parts of us we’ve pushed aside for so long. After all, we cannot outrun nor separate ourselves from what is already an irremovable piece of us.
you carry your heart
The first time I cried at work, it was during a performance review where I was attempting to express how stressed I was feeling. My voice cracked; I apologized; I hoped they didn’t think less of my capabilities to succeed at my job. I’m not quite sure where I learned showing raw emotions at work, especially to your managers, was something to be ashamed of. When you spend the majority of your weeks with your coworkers while experiencing the mountains and valleys of work and personal stress, these creeping feelings are bound to slip through the cracks. And that’s okay. After all, we are human.
Pushing or numbing emotions (and being rewarded for it) is an escape wrapped in a socially constructed and accepted excuse. This encourages bad habits.7 Like many of you, I’ve sobbed for an entire evening and the next day, logged onto my laptop to smile and crack jokes over a Zoom call. I would tell myself that work is an escape; it’s nice to not think beyond my desktop screen. But, I don’t think that’s a good thing.
We instinctively compartmentalize our personal troubles for the sake of our work, even if it comes at the cost of our mental health. In reality, the person who was crying the night before is still the person sitting at their desk today. I don’t believe showing emotions in the workplace, or privately telling your manager you’re feeling emotionally under-the-weather and you’re either 1. taking the day off or 2. working at half-capacity, is a controversial stance. In fact, it should be the standard and it should be encouraged.8
When we create distance between our emotions and our work, we remove ourselves from our humanity. Otherwise, we’re boiled down to units of labor. This distance means removing any meaning or purpose behind the work we do and who we are as living, breathing people. We are constantly experiencing life every second of every day. These emotional triggers should be framed as a beautiful signal of our humanity.
But oftentimes, we need reminders and reassurance from our managers, our peers, or via pixels on our screens.9 Sometimes we find ourselves stuck in perpetual cycles which feel uncomfortable and ill-fitting, but it’s fine.10 There are moments though, when someone shakes us; they look us directly in the eye and ask us how we’re really feeling; they ask us what we want; they tell us that they care—truly and genuinely. We should hold onto these words and remember this relief, no matter how brief or fleeting. Even if there is no practical or reasonable solution in the moment, we’re reminded that these emotions, in all forms and shapes, make us human. And suddenly, the cycle begins to crack.
My brother and his wife are thoughtful and patient parents. They ask their kids to express their emotions through words over actions. They explain to them why they’re upset. They reflect on their parenting often and with devoted intention. But, it’s inevitable that kids will experience a form (or many) of trauma. The key here is to be aware of it and teach them how to understand these experiences, the emotions that surface, and how to address them.
Hello, fellow first-gen kids. This is now our support group.
I wasn’t diagnosed with depression or anxiety until I was 23 and I could afford a therapist and psychiatrist. And even then, I waited until I hit a breaking point because I wasn’t aware that these feelings weren’t “normal.”
All that being said, Cape Town is still my favorite place in the entire world with the warmest and kindest people I’ve ever had the luck and pleasure of befriending.
I often think about how describing any emotions with the human language limits the depth and visceral feelings they evoke. How do you begin to describe love? And so, how do you begin to describe sadness? Or grief?
In August, I started a “Healthy Girl Arc” and decided to be sober. Unexpectedly, I realized the emotions (stress, anxiety, sadness, boredom) I was habitually and subconsciously trying to escape.
Just because a room of people are sharing the same opinion doesn’t mean they’re right.
We take time off when we’re sick with the cold or flu. Why shouldn’t we take time off when we’re feeling a wave of grief or sadness or stress? Those emotions are symptoms, akin to a sore throat or runny nose, and you should allow your headspace to rest.
Hello, these are the pixels on your screen reminding you to take care of yourself.
It’s easier to swim with the current than against it, but if you’re already drowning then does it even matter?