Gay Men & Emotional Numbing
Emotions are natural, but feeling them can be difficult.
Sissy that cry
If you’re not familiar with The Gays’ answer to affordable therapy, Bob The Drag Queen’s tweet shares the not-so-secret way: bleached hair.
Avoiding emotions is common, partly because most of us aren’t taught how to understand or process them in an healthy way. We passively learn how to relate to our emotions by seeing people throughout our life express theirs. Some of us were actively taught to avoid our emotions or to manage them in unhealthy ways with messages like “toughen up”, “fix your face”, “te calmas o te calmo” or “only sissies cry”. These messages inaccurately portray feeling and showing emotions as a sign of weakness.
Our experience in school may not have provided us with the information, tools, or resources to understand our emotions and normalize their expression, either. Personally, it was not until I was a young adult that I first heard the phrase “It’s okay to not be okay”. The truth is that, more often than not, we are not okay.
Feeling emotions is normal, human, and necessary. Ignoring or bottling them up is harmful, unhealthy, and prolongs our pain and discomfort.
So, cry.
Cry because you are sad, angry, disappointed, frustrated, lonely, scared, hurt, grieving, etc. If crying is for sissies, then sissy that cry and be better off for it. You are allowed to cry.
“Crying is our body’s natural way of processing emotions, both positive and negative.” — Gay Men & Loneliness
You got “emotional numbing” money?
Companies and advertising present products and services as the solution to our emotional problems. Feeling bored? Buy our phone! Feeling inadequate? Join our gym! Feeling lonely? Download our app!
Trying to buy our way out of feeling pain and discomfort can be expensive!
The gag is that companies and advertisers perpetuate our negative emotions because it’s easier to get us to buy when we feel insecure and seek temporary emotional relief. On an episode of Red Table Talk, Jada sits down with Gabrielle Union, where Gabrielle says, “It’s easier to control a victim than it is to control a healed, evolved person.”
There’s a slippery slope between “treat yoself” moments and a habit of consuming to numb our emotions. Engaging in activities for the purpose of temporary emotional relief is not healthy, no matter how common, necessary, or normal those activities may be. Anything can be used to emotionally numb — shopping, eating, working out, sex, relationships, binge watching, working, alcohol and drugs, social media, video games, and even social isolation.
The more we numb, the less we feel. However, we don’t just numb the negative emotions. When we create a habit of emotional numbing, we reduce our ability to experience positive emotions. Eventually, the numbing works and we no longer feel the pains of life — or the joys.
When we can’t experience happiness to its fullest extent, it’s hard to know what makes us happy. When we don’t know what makes us happy, we lose our sense of self. When we don’t know who we are, it becomes challenging to create loving, healthy, and supportive relationships with others and ourselves.
🌈 Feel the rainbow of emotions
Our “ability to identify and manage [our] own emotions, as well as the emotions of others” is called emotional intelligence, as defined in Psychology Today. They also state that people with “sensitivity to emotional signals both from within oneself and from one’s social environment could make one a better friend, parent, leader, or romantic partner.”
How do we achieve this level of emotional intelligence?
Brené Brown, tells us that vulnerability is the key to being a more emotionally present person. Having the courage to feel is one of the greatest acts of bravery. Feeling leads to healing, connection, and liberation from habits that are harmful to our mind, body, heart, soul, and those around us.
The following five shifts can help you on your journey toward feeling the rainbow of emotions and away from emotional numbing:
1. Acknowledge the ways in which you emotionally numb. When you identify the activities used to numb, avoid, or self-medicate, you can gain awareness during moments of emotional difficulty. Oftentimes, we may be unaware of how we’re feeling, so these activities can serve as a sign to do an emotional check in.
2. Identify how your emotions manifest in your body. Sweaty palms, a heavy chest, a pulsing headache, restlessness/fidgeting, or tense muscles are just some ways in which our emotions manifest in our body. These physical symptoms can serve as markers to intentionally validate and process our emotions instead of avoiding them.
3. Be kind and care for yourself. Sitting with, understanding, and managing emotions in a healthy way is not easy. It takes continual time and effort to find a process that works. However, when self growth and healing is a priority, every attempt and minute spent doing this work is worthwhile.
4. Replace guilt and shame with self-forgiveness. When we look back at the way we’ve mismanaged or avoided our feelings, it can send us deeper into our dark, emotional hole and keep us stuck in our numbing habits. To break away from this, practice self-forgiveness. Forgive yourself for your past choices, actions, and words, for the bleach in your hair, and for simply not knowing. Bring yourself back into the present moment and stand confident in your ability to learn, grow, and evolve.
5. Keep the people who provide support and accountability close. We don’t have to go on this journey alone. In fact, deep connections with people who care about our well-being are crucial. It’s not uncommon to distance ourselves from people who keep us accountable and then surround ourselves with those who allow us to be emotionally avoidant or reckless. Take stock of who you have chosen to keep in your life and those who you have distanced yourself from.
Every emotional healing journey is different. What works for one person may not work for another. What worked two years, two months, or two days ago may not work today. The goal is not perfection, but rather acceptance of our emotions, our capacity to feel them, and our willingness to sit with the discomfort long enough to heal.
So, come on, put the hair dye box down. There you go. You’ve got this. You’re doing amazing, sweetie.
Reflection questions
- When you think back to what you observed as a child, how were emotions managed and processed at home and adults around you? What did it look and sound like? What forms of emotional expression, or lack thereof, became normalized?
- What activities do you do to escape difficult feelings? Do the difficult feelings tend to come back when you’re no longer engaged in those activities?
- Who are the people in your life who support your growth and healing? Which do not?
- How open and vulnerable are you willing to be with yourself and with others? What makes it challenging to do this?
- How committed are you willing to be to your growth and healing at this time?
Resources
- Article — Psychology Today: Emotional Intelligence
- Video — “The Power of Vulnerability” by Brené Brown
- Podcast — “Permission to Feel” episode of Unlocking Us podcast
- Show — “Girls Trippin’ with Gabrielle Union” episode of Red Table Talk
- Article — “Best Books That Will Help You Understand Your Emotions” by nerdycreator.com
- Find a gay therapist: psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/gay
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