I spent a great deal of my life burying my emotions and keeping my feelings locked away. I convinced myself that silence and emotional restraint were forms of strength, but over time, that choice cost me dearly in ways I’m still learning to understand.
Yet I’ve also come to realize that the opposite can be just as harmful. Allowing emotions to consume you, letting pain and fear dictate your actions, can leave you just as lost.
I thought that finally opening up—speaking honestly and vulnerably about what I was experiencing and what had been weighing on my heart—would be healing. I believed that being open with the people I cared about would bring understanding, create deeper connection, and perhaps even help those relationships grow.
But once again, I realize that my approach was wrong.
Maybe the lesson isn’t that I should have stayed silent. Maybe it’s that there is a difference between expressing your emotions and allowing them to overwhelm you; between being vulnerable and placing the weight of your pain on someone else.
I opened the door to a part of myself I had kept hidden for so long, only to find that doing so left me feeling more exposed, more misunderstood, and somehow even emptier than before.
And perhaps that is the hardest part—to finally find the courage to show someone what is behind the shell, only to wonder if maybe the shell was easier to live inside after all.
