Day 18 Most common emotion(s)

I haven't gone through all of my past journal entries, but I know that anger and insecurity must be the most common emotions that I have been writing about. In terms of anger, there are past experiences that I still feel angry about, but had blocked out. Being bullied as a child, I know I was angry, but I felt outnumbered and unable to do anything physically. My first real relationship, my girlfriend was suffering from depression, and had a history of cutting. I was scared of expressing any anger or frustration towards her because I didn't want her to hurt herself or worse. There are other situations more recently with business partners that because of convoluted work relationships, I have to keep quiet to prevent financial repercussions. As I am learning, keeping quiet has its own repercussions! I think learning how to embrace/experience/handle/control the anger will likely take some time, but I do see how repressing it is hurting me immensely.
Insecurity has been another emotion that I think has shaped much of my life. For so much of my life I have felt like I wasn't good enough, cool enough, good looking enough, successful enough, athletic enough, etc. Last night I journaled about this. I don't want to sound like a jerk, but I think objectively, I am crushing it! I have an amazing family, I am a good person, I'm more successful than I ever thought I would be, I live somewhere awesome, I get to ride my bike and fly fish, and so many other things that I would be so proud of as a young, insecure teenager. While I am sad that I was so insecure for many years, I understand why I felt that way, and I appreciate what I was going through. I am not mad at myself, I am mad at what I experienced. I want to keep remembering to give myself love and appreciate what I have accomplished, and how lucky I am. Thanks.

 

You're doing really great work. I just want to say not to minimize the harm of bullying. It has been shown to have profound effects and can result in PTSD. As social animals, anytime we are excluded from the social group can be perceived by our primitive brain as an existential danger, because we know we can't survive on our own. So it causes a profound existential threat that can make us feel unsafe well into adulthood.