Underneath my yellow skin

Still Waters Run Deep: Emotions Boiling Under the Surface

Steve Rogers: Doctor Banner, now might be a really good time for you to get angry.

Bruce Banner: That’s my secret, Captain; I’m always angry. Hulks out and punches Leviathan  in the face.

One day in taiji class, one of my classmates who is originally from India (so we share some broad cultural touchstones) was talking about needing to be more like her mother when it comes to emotions. She said, “My mother was like Minna, you know, stoic.” She added, “I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I need to work on that.” I was half-paying attention, but I had to smile when I heard that. I know I’m perceived as being buttoned down with my emotions(until I explode in anger), but it’s facade. I’m the product of two cultures that place heavy emphasis on not showing emotions, plus my family is dysfunctional about it as well. I was born and raised in Minnesota, and we are well-known for being ‘Minnesota Nice’ in that we’ll smile to your face and cut you to the core behind your back. In another taiji class, a few non-native Minnesotans were talking about how hard it is to adjust to living in Minnesota. One of them said that she had talked to several of her neighbors about a party she was having, inviting them to attend. Many of them said it sounded interesting or that they would get back to her, but either none or one actually showed up. She was bewildered by what she perceived as the rudeness of the response, and I had to be the Minnesota whisperer for her. I said, “Anything other than a yes is a no.” Minnesotans don’t like to say no to someone’s face and will come up with creative ways to avoid saying it. It’s not considered polite because heaven forbid you might hurt someone’s feelings. Those of us born here know that, “We’ll see,” “That sounds interesting,” “Let me check on that,” and any other answer in that vein is a definite no. We let our emotions out on the freeway, which is why road rage is very real here.

As to my Asian heritage, there’s a germ of truth to the stereotype of Oriental inscrutableness. Taiwanese people are very big on saving face and not doing anything to bring shame on the family, and it was a thousand-fold in my family. In addition, negative emotions such as anger and sadness were not allowed to be expressed. Scratch that. I was not allowed to show them. My father was allowed to show anger, and my mother was deeply depressed for most of my teenage years, but me? Any time I raised my voice even the littlest or expressed sadness, I was immediately chastised. However, if I didn’t say anything, then I was asked why I was making that face. I have been told by my mother more times than I can remember that I’m too sensitive and that I overreact to everything. In addition, I was made to feel as if I was responsible for my parents’ emotions. As a result, I have an iron control over my emotions–until I’m pushed beyond my limits, but I’ll get to that in a minute.


In addition, I have the same kind of control over my pain level, also thanks to my childhood. In taiji, we are learning these joint manipulation techniques called chin na. I love them because they inflict immense pain, but not necessarily permanent damage. The basic premise is, if you feel a bump, pull it. If you feel a hole, poke it. If you do them properly, they are effortless to execute. The problem is, because I’ve trained myself not to feel pain, I don’t react to them. Some of them actually feel good*. So, when we practice these techniques on each other, I have to be careful and tap out when I think it should hurt and not when it actually does. Over the last year or so, I’ve reached the point where I can feel when it should hurt. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but the best I can say is that as someone is, say, pressing the knife edge of her hand against my wrist, I can feel when it should pop.

One time when my teacher’s teacher was teaching us, I asked him to do a chin na technique on me to see if I could feel it when someone who really knows what he’s doing does it to me. I couldn’t, so then he told me to stand on my toes. Once I did that, I flinched the minute he applied the technique. He explained that once my body was doing something else, I couldn’t consciously (or unconsciously) block out the pain. I had my teacher do a chin na technique while I was on my toes about a month ago, and it worked like a charm. I have been disassociated from my body for most of my life, so it’s been interesting to slowly come back to it. I used to think that I was separate from my body, that it was just a vessels to carry the real me in. It’s not easy to stop thinking about my body this way, but I’m slowly making progress.

Back to my emotional blockage and the comment of my classmate that I quoted in the first paragraph. For the first thirty-five years of my life, I had the same dissociation from my emotions that I did from my physical body. I had emotions, but they were locked away somewhere. I learned how to mimic displaying authentic emotions, but it was something I had to think about for a split second before displaying said emotion. For example, if a friend told me that she had just gotten a new job, my thought process would go like this. “OK. She got a new job. That’s a good thing. I should show excitement.” Then I would exclaim in pleasure how great that was. Conversely, if someone told me that he had broken a leg, I would think, “Hm. He broke his leg. That is a bad thing. I should show concern.” Which I would proceed to do. If the news was at all ambiguous, it would cause a problem in my brain. Such as, if someone said her mother had died, my brain would think, “Her mother died. That’s a sad thing, but some people don’t love their mothers or have strained relationships with them. How should I react?” In any case, I felt like a fraud any time I had to show emotions, even though no one ever seemed to notice. This is why I actually like communicating by typing rather than vocally. It’s much easier to convey emotions through the written word than by voice for me. Either way, I felt bad because I was expressing the right thing, but I wasn’t feeling it. It reminds me of the song, “Nothing” from A Chorus Line. I’ve included a version by Lea Salonga (because she is a goddess) below.

It wasn’t that I didn’t feel the emotions, mind you. It’s that because I had denied them for so long, I didn’t know what the fuck I was feeling. They were all there, swirling under the surface–I just wouldn’t allow them to emerge. The thing is, though, you can only repress them for so long before they come out one way or the other. That’s the well from which my eating disorders stem. That’s why I  used to cut and burn myself. That’s why I engaged in risky sexual behavior.It’s also why I got my ears pierced nine times (five in my left ear and four in my right) while I was in college.  It’s also why I started getting tattoos, though I don’t think the last two are negative behaviors in and of themselves. I had all this pain and rage inside of me, and I thought I would die if I couldn’t express them in one way or another. In addition, sometimes, pain was the only way I could feel anything, and it took a lot to make me feel pain, so I had to engage in risky behavior–or so I thought. I also hated my body, as I’ve written about before, so this was the perfect union of two negatives in my life–my repression and that hatred.

Stoic. Me, stoic. I may seem that way, but like the Hulk, I’m always angry. Under the stoicism is a rage so hot, I’m afraid it’ll incinerate me. These days, I’m more able to feel some emotions. Happiness, sadness, and irritation, to name a few. I’m still not comfortable expressing them, but I do at least feel them. However, the one that is still off-limits to me is anger. Any time I taste it in my mouth, I immediately swallow it. Here’s the thing. I was a psych major in college, and I’ve had a lifelong interest in and affinity for psychology. Specifically, I’m really good at knowing people’s weak points because I can clearly see their shadow side, even if they can’t see it themselves. I try really hard to be empathetic with people, and I can be supportive for a long time, but once someone crosses an invisible line, I’m done. It’s not a good thing, and I’m not proud of it, but I know it’s how I work. I give a lot without asking much in return, but these days, if I don’t get something back, then I’m done. Usually, that just means me walking away, but there’s always the impulse to burn bridges inside of me.  I want to tell that person everything that’s wrong with him or her, including a few they don’t even know. I want to see the light go out in their eyes until they are dead inside.

The rage is white-hot. One time, my mom and I got in a terrible fight. I could feel the blood pounding in my temples and a wind roaring in my ears. I got up from the table as she was still talking at me and started walking towards the garage door. My mom followed me into the hallway and asked where I was going. I said, “Out. Away from you,” and stomped out to the car. If my mom had tried to stop me, I might have punched her. There are other times I’ve been so enraged, I’ve had to restrain myself from physically striking out at the other person. Sometimes, the anger seems to be a separate entity outside of me and my control. I know the intensity of it is because I’ve repressed it for so long. My last therapist once asked me what I thought would happen if I let it out. I said, “I’ll burn the earth to the ground,” and I was deadly serious. I know this isn’t reasonable or realistic, but it’s hard to shake when I’ve been told, implicitly, all my life that my anger is deadly. It doesn’t help that when I do try to express my anger, it’s usually past the point when it’s productive, and it just comes out in incoherent spurts. That only reinforces my belief that I shouldn’t show my anger, and the cycle continues.

It’s gotten slightly better with the help of taiji. I can expel a lot of the negative energy I carry when I practice the weapons forms. When I thrust the sword into someone’s (imaginary) throat or slice under their armpit, it’s a release. When I giggle with Julie (my teacher) about a particularly nasty application, it’s a safe way to let out the aggression. Beyond that, taiji has given me the equanimity to take a few seconds before my anger gets the best of me while I’m in an argument, and as a result, I’m usually able to respond more reasonably. I may still be angry inside, but it’s more muted than it normally would be. I’m not going to lie. There are still times I snap before I can do my breathing trick, but I’m much better than I was even a year ago. I’ll take that over the alternative of staying the same.

 

*Same thing with getting tattooed. I found it soothing and sometimes erotic. I actually fell asleep while being tattooed.

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