January 11, 2012
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Stuffers vs. Talkers
About three years ago I wrote a series of blog posts on Preparing for Marriage. One of those posts addressed the issue of Stuffers vs. Talkers.
In the past few months I’ve been seeing more and more effects of coming from a family of stuffers. Now before I go on, I come from a family of talkers and there’s issues with us too! Often times we don’t have good timing because we feel like everything has to get talked about right that moment and we also can be in each others business way too much.
But I keep seeing a reoccurring theme with adults who grew up in a family of stuffers and I’ve watched first hand how this can create deep issues later in life.
I have a close friend who was very hurt in their childhood. This person stuffed all of the pain and tried to live life as normal. The way I like to explain it is to use the analogy of a huge, big rubber ball. This ball is all the pain and hurt. We all are given a limited amount of emotional energy for life. Emotional energy is used in life to care for others, to relate to others, and to be an emotional person. When there’s pain, the big ball, and we’re trying to “stuff” this pain, it’s like we’re trying to hold this ball under water so no one can see it. (This is the masks we can wear.)
So we’re using a great deal of emotional energy to keep that ball under water. Then, what I’ve seen, is someone can only do this for so long before they POP! It’s funny because it seem like the magic age is when someone is in their 40′s. Almost like 20 plus years of holding ball under water cannot go on any longer.
Some call this a mid-life crisis. Maybe…not sure and again this is just my theory and my observations. This “mid-life” pop can be devastating to those in this persons life.
My friend who finally let the ball go had some painful memories to face and deal with, but came to a place where they were more emotionally available to their family because they no longer where holding that ball under water. Which brought about freedom and a new found connection to the people closest to this person.
So a family of stuffers can be holding in pain, deep and real hurts, that need to be worked through. Often, I believe, people don’t want to go back because we hear messages like, “The past is the past, leave it there.” And I do agree that we can’t dwell on it, but if that pain hasn’t been worked through (maybe with the help of a professional or a close friend with some great tools to help) the wound is always there and doesn’t heal properly.
This is my plea, and why I write, if you come from a family where you never expressed deep pain or hurt, can I encourage you to work at letting that ball go. Chances are, if you are stuffing pain, you have a short fuse, have little emotional energy for people in your life, keep your walls very high, or have just turned off all emotions in order to protect your heart and emotions. I watched my friend embrace the hurt, work through it, and come to a place of new joy and peace (this person did go through professional counseling).
