Happy (adjective) -“Feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.”
“Are you okay?”
“I am fine.”
I cringe on the inside everytime someone asks me that question.
Mom: “Are you happy?”
Me: “Yes”
If I think I am happy I must be.
Showing pleasure by grinning these teeth.
I do not feel happy.
A memory floods my mind of an encounter I once had in Kansas City.
An older lady speaks at this conference for teenage girls.
I didn’t want to be there…
She says, “Smile and stand up girls when people enter your home. If you look sad or mad people will think your parents did not rasie you right. You should not disrespect your parents. Watch your manners.”
I thought to myself, “this is a different type of crazy.”
I was so involved in my inner angry at what she said I forgot she had children.
I looked up and saw her four children dressed in white with the biggest smiles on their face.
I wanted to cry.
Those girls did not look happy.
They appeared to be.
But they were raised on the saying, “Momma knows best.”
I felt their loneliness.
Being told negative emotions is disrespectful, is a whole different side of child abuse.
“You represent your parents,” still echoes in my ears.
No-one really ever asks if you are happy.
They ask, “How are you doing?”
A generic question for a generic answer.
“I am well”
“I am fine.”
“I am okay.”
Who really cares emotionally how you are.
We our wrapped up in our own emotional state.
If you admit there is something wrong you are bound to be labbled.
“Dramatic.”
“Crazy.”
“Needy.”
So we sew our mouths shut, with generic answers.
Inside of us we whisper, “Please just carry on.”
But inside our hearts we cry, “Please help us.”
We continue on like this.
We cry at night where we are truly alone and no-one is there to judge us.
Because, for some odd reason we think the pain and the pretending is so much more bearable to handle by ourselves; then to let someone in and possibly be judged by them.
We even turn to things that will kill us faster.
Just so we don’t have to have that confrontation.
We are like a bottle glass, we are okay as we are fermenting. But as we start to put our negative emotions down into us filling the glass bottle. It causes the fermentation to become carbon dioxide; as we add more pressure to the bottle… The cork will not be able to hold everything in. Causing the bottle to explode.
And so shall we.
Beneath the Surface 