Dear Mia:

You shared the following about emotions and your family (minor grammatical corrections are included): “Emotions are a bad thing in our family… We never talk about emotions… me and my siblings would just hold everything in until we erupt in anger and call each other names”, “Emotions were usually punished. When I would cry when I was young, my dad would yell at me and my siblings and possibly even hit us with a belt. ‘Why are you crying?! There’s nothing to cry about! It’s embarrassing.'”.

You can learn to express your emotions soon after they first show up, way before they build up and erupt: hat way, they will not build up and erupt.

You can learn to cry without feeling scared to cry, or ashamed to cry. You can express your anger in self-disciplined, non- abusive ways.

You can learn that all emotions are okay to experience, and that you can express all of them in ways that help you and others, instead of in ways that hurt you and others.

I hope you continue to have therapy sessions with a competent therapist (in person is better than online, if safe and possible), and that you will share your own words (my quoted above) with your therapist.

anita