A Letter from Your Emotions: Why They Can't Stand being Bottled Up

Hi Human,

I'm Emotions. Yea, Emotions. Those feelings you feel? Happiness, anger, jealousy, frustration, sadness, joy, disgust? That's me. I don't know exactly where in your body I reside, but I cause you to feel things. So I guess I'm everywhere. 

Like today that girl in class who always copies and pastes the best lines of her essays from the internet? She got 30 out of 30. You cringed at the unfairness of it all. Because she got away, and you spent all night thinking of awesome quotes from the depths of your brain, and only got 25 out of 30. So I came swooping in as Anger. You couldn't help but feel angry at that, now could you?

And then last night, you were texting this guy you met at lessons about the homework. But it wasn't just about the homework. Truth is, you'd already done the homework, but you just wanted an excuse to talk to him. You'd gotten his number, and it was time to execute stage 2 of the plan. He spoke with a lot of emojis and smileys and what not, so you figured he had to be interested, right? But then he never deigned to ask about you or about your day, although you asked him a ton of questions about himself. Such mixed signals. You didn't know if he liked you or not, and that sent me in a tizzy. You like to call me "Mixed Emotions" at a time like this, and I do feel mixed up and confused when these situations arise.

I change forms every day, hour to hour, minute to minute even. Because you could be feeling any given form of me at any given moment. You can't control what happens to you, but you can harness me. Because too much of me is never a good thing. I can cause you to act irrationally and do things that may not exactly be the best for you. I think they call it "clouding your judgement". Letting me getting in the way of sensibility. But luckily for us, you usually journal! So you harness me with your pen and release me onto the pages, word after word, line after line, until the day's events are related and you feel lighter inside because you let go of that load - a.k.a. me. I don't mean to hamper you, but it's hard to focus when I get in the way, because you won't be able to stop thinking of the situation that triggered my upsurge in the first place.

There I am - comfortably nestled between precious
words and lines

You've been journalling for years. Since secondary school, I've noticed, it's become an important thing for you to release me onto those pages. This is great for me, because I don't like to be bottled up inside of you. No offence, but you should know that it's not very roomy inside a human body - in fact, it's pretty darned cramped and if you leave me inside, I won't hesitate to fester and rot into something ugly that demands to be released. Trust me, I've seen it happen with other humans. They leave me inside of their bodies and souls, and I keep building up as occurrences occur and life dishes out lemons, until eventually the human can't take it. I've become such a burden that they do crazy things, like lash out at their loved ones or break things or harm themselves. And it's all because they didn't let me go like they should've.

So you, smart human, have found various ways of releasing me. You spend time alone journalling and scrap-booking, creating art pieces and stories. You enjoyed doing these things, and they became hobbies. Maybe you were oblivious to the importance of keeping up these activities. They kept me in balance. Every time you drew in your art journal, or wrote some pages in your diary, you gave me breathing room so that I didn't clog up your insides. You gave yourself the breathing room to be a level-headed, stress-free, sensible human.

And then catastrophe struck. You got this device...this thing. I believe they call it a smart phone. I could be wrong, but those "smart" phones seem like the dumbest things alive. Because they stole your attention away from your hobbies. They squandered your time. They showed off so much, and offered you so many other  stupid hobbies that you lost sight of your old ones. I saw you through your Whatsapp Days, the Instagram and Twitter Days, the Candy Crush Days, the Facebook Days, and the Four Pics One Word Days...you milked that phone for all it was worth. And suddenly, you didn't have time to journal or be creative anymore. I think you still read books, but that didn't satiate me.

You didn't notice until it was too late. But as you spent more time on that phone and less time journalling etc, I spent more time building up and up and up inside of you. I had no way of leaving, because that phone offered only temporary relief. Ok, so you ranted about how unfair life was on Twitter, but it only made you feel better on a surface level. I was still there inside of you, festering like a wound. And then you started paying closer attention to your Facebook newsfeed, and it seemed like everyone had all these great experiences and great friends and a super duper social life which made you feel lame and boring and caused me to show myself a little more in the form of jealousy, denial and sadness. I hate being in those forms, because, let's be real, who likes negativity?

Trying to escape

But you didn't pay heed. The more I stayed bottled up inside of you, the greater the effect I had on you. I was trapped, and needed my own form of release. So since you didn't give it to me, I created my own. I made you cry as an outlet for me. I made you feel stressed, to the point of frustration and self-doubting. I went crazy and out of wack, and you brushed it off as you simply being 'moody'. It was the saddest thing I could've witnessed because I watched you lose yourself and your identity, and saw you throw yourself way off balance.

What happened to the girl who spent her time researching writing tips and creating a handy list in her writing scrapbook? What happened to the girl who searched for art pieces in magazines to snip out and paste into her art journal? What happened to the girl who poured her heart out in her journal? What happened to her? It seemed like your vision was clouded by this shiny new phone, and you didn't seem to notice that something had gone drastically wrong.

It must've been a good 2 years after this disastrous turn of events that it finally dawned on you. You picked up your journal and realised that you hadn't journaled in months. You hadn't scrap-booked or added to your art journal in ages, and it brought on a bought of sadness courtesy moi. You realised that you enjoyed these things, and found peace doing them. You were starving yourself of the avenue via which you let me go and find peace. Do you remember that book you read, about a girl called Anne Frank? That book really stirred me. Journalling kept her sane during those cramped months in The Annex during the Holocaust for goodness' sake. She certainly didn't keep me bottled up. She might've gone crazy. So she journaled, and created a peaceful inner space for herself.

Thankfully, you believe in the 'better late that never' philosophy. Because here I am again, being poured out into words, as opposed to being channelled onto some social media site. That phone did not hold the key to maintaining peace and happiness...I did. You realised this and you made some changes. Instagram and Twitter don't seem to take up space on your phone or schedule anymore, as don't Candy Crush and Four Pics One Word; you got rid of them. Now you spend more time reading, writing and creating, and I find myself being able to breathe a bit better now that the tables have turned.

I want you to know that I never want to go back to that cramped space ever again. I never want to feel bottled up and trapped inside of you. Like I said, it's not nice. With your guts, organs, flesh and blood taking up all that space inside your body, let alone with your soul that holds your entire conscience, there's barely space for me to stay and start spreading like a cancer. So keep me in check, always, please. As far as I know, technology is a ploy for distraction, and nothing good will ever come out of spending excessive time on it.

You love yourself? Stop staring at your screen, put down your phone, and go do something exhilarating! Because those are the things that keep me in check. And that's exactly what I need, and what you need even more.

Much love (and happiness, anger, jealousy, frustration, sadness, joy and disgust),
Your Emotions 

(Bottled emotions picture taken from http://www.blogseitb.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2012/02/Bottled_Up_Emotions_by_photog_road.jpg. Journalling picture taken from https://www.planplusonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Keeping-a-Journal-More-Precious-than-Gold.jpg)