23 July 2021 – My current mental state: If you hug me too long, I may melt.” It sounds melodramatic, but it’s not. The truth is that I have built up so much emotion and carried so much baggage throughout my life and especially over the last few years, and I think it’s time to let so much of it go. I still have things that I have not worked out. I always will. I will probably even add new things to my walled-in heart. But right now, much of it is ready to be purged. I haven’t had a good cry in a long time, and I love the catharsis of crying. It might be time. I also haven’t had a hug in a long time, so that might make me melt all by itself.

For me, the hardest thing I ever do is watch those I love hurt. I want to take the concerns and turmoil of others and make them my own. I want to carry their burdens and make them my own. Of course, that is not possible, and it makes it that much harder for me. My therapist has told me that I am a compassionate empath. She explained that this means that I internalize other people’s pain, and the more deeply I care for the other person, the more it affects me. She said that if it ended there, it would be okay. The problem is that I let other people’s feelings and needs come ahead of my own. I shake my head because my feelings and needs are not even important if someone I love needs love and support.

The bigger issue is I have a tough time asking the right questions or saying the right thing at the right time because of the walls I have built. My fear of rejection causes me to feel like I am prying or being a pest or something. Then I start to feel guilt and anger because I am not there for others the way they need. All of this just causes me to carry more pain.

So I am full of emotions, and my body doesn’t want to carry all of it anymore. Some of it I don’t need anymore. I understand why people get overwrought, have nervous breakdowns or worse. When a person carries so much pain of self and others but doesn’t have a healthy outlet, it can be overwhelming. I am at a point of maximum pain, grief, anger, sympathy, sadness and empathy, and I know that an outpouring of emotion is coming soon. If you hug me, I might melt. This is my current mental state.