Dear Clara:

Re-reading your yesterday update, we have this in common: I too grew up with a very explosive parent, a mother in my case.

“he would go head to head and gets very confrontational, or explosive…  also very judgmental… he called me useless and loser because I didn’t get married. It was so hurtful for me, I almost ran away from home that time“- it’s amazing how words can hurt. Judgmental words from a parent hurt the most.

“So from young I have learned to hide my emotions“- you learned to suppress your emotions/ push them in. To not express them/ let them out.

“when she came home late, I don’t often text or call he during the time, because I didn’t want to upset her. Once she gets home, she realized I was upset and she was caught by surprise“- you suppressed your anger while she was at work (an under-reaction), and when she got home late, your anger within you exploded (an over-reaction).

That’s what suppressed emotions do. My mother suppressed her emotions a lot in-between explosions. Fast forward, I suppressed my emotions, and my suppressed emotions exploded in all kinds of ways, even without an outward display: they just felt unbearably intense.

“All I have to do, is to stay calm and collected… I guess that probably should be my stance when I meet her. Be open-minded and see what comes up“- I think that your best bet as far as your relationship goes is to indeed stay calm and collected and that will take changing the habit of suppressing your emotions => expressing them, every day. You are welcome to do so here, on your thread: to type them away, from the gut, to the outside (the computer screen).

anita