Letting Go

It is always hard to figure out what you need.

I need to let go.

To cry, to sob, to have someone give me permission, and to hold me as I really cry.

Over the last 9 years, I have learned to keep my emotions inside, to keep them in check. Some people think I’m emotional, but these same people have never once seen me cry. I’ve taught myself than when I start getting angry/sad/upset, to leave the situation, to change the subject, to shut down. Very few people have actually seen me cry…Granted I will tear up occasionally, and that is a sign for me to get out of that place.

I used to be able to really cry on my own. Not just tears streaming down my cheeks, but heart wrenching sobs, heaving, etc.

The last time I cried like that was when J and I broke up. Since then, nada. I’ll tear up, and cry, but not *really* cry. My grandmother died, and while I shed some tears, I couldn’t CRY. I was more angry and upset in class the other day than I have been ever in school, and I had tears running down my face in class, but couldn’t cry. This weekend, a kitten that K had been fostering, that I adored and who liked to hang out in my cleavage, who I rushed to the vet on Friday to keep him alive, well, he died. I sat in my car and cried…I had the tears, and the screaming in my car, but I couldn’t let go.

I have this feeling in my chest, almost all the time, and that gets worse when I get upset about something. It feels like a corset squeezing me. I want to cry, to get rid of it, to get back to normal. I’m like a glass of water with the tension on top, and each little drop falls in, but it doesn’t overflow. I NEED to overflow in order to let go.

K makes me want to cry. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. And I don’t mean it in a “K says mean things to me that hurt and make me want to cry.” It’s not like that at all. He makes me think about things, and brings things to the surface that I’ve buried and hidden, and has opened all these doors. When we talk, it is almost inevitable that something will make me tear up.

I am on edge. I need something to make me cry, really cry, to cry until I feel empty.

I visualize things a lot. When I have a migraine, I visuals drilling into my temples, or cutting my skull open, taking out my brain, and stomping on it. Weird, yes, but it’s what I do.

In this situation, I visualize someone reaching into my chest, grabbing my heart, pulling it out, and squeezing it, until all my emotion starts pouring out, and just holding it until it’s empty, and then placing it back it (granted, this might have come from watching Durch Die Nacht a few times to many).

But I need to cry. Think about how good you feel after a “good cry.” I can’t get it out. The whole ride home, I would starting tearing up, and would pull over as my chest tightened, and I couldn’t breathe, but I couldn’t cry, so then I’d just keep driving. I was almost in a car accident again…by about 2 inches. I NEED to get this out before it fucks me up.

It seems I have two choices:

a) I can do something in a scene that makes me cry. Negotiate some things before hand, and then just let it go. Have them get me to cry, to let go, and then have the scene be over, and be ok again.

b) Wait until someone hurts me (in a real life, non-kink way). Until someone breaks my trust, breaks my heart, does something that pushes me over the edge. I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait, and I would really prefer not to be hurt like this, but I see this being a way for me to get over that edge. I’m afraid it may happen with my sister on our upcoming cross-country trip, and am worried about that.

I don’t know what to do. Does it makes sense for me (in a kink way) to want someone to hurt me until I can let go safely? I don’t know if I even can anymore, and I really am scared that if I let go completely, I won’t be able to come back…I don’t know if that’s a real concern, but imagine shutting yourself into compartments for years so that you’re always in control, and that you don’t break down in front of people, and just being so internalized…can you be like that, and really let go, and then come back to the real world, without being broken?

How do you let go? How do you decide whether or not you need to let go? And what the fuck is wrong with me?

See, I’m teary eyed typing this. Everything is setting me off. Fuck, I want a good, hard cry, and I can’t seem to get there…

-Essin’ Em