To Cry (The Healing Garden)

I'm going to write about something today that affects not just people in same-sex relationships but all people, and that is, sadness.

After giving it some thought, I have decided to add a new element to my blog. It is called "The Healing Garden".  A real healing garden, sometimes found in hospitals  is a place that you can go to relax, destress and of course, heal. Not to mention, pray.

Because I started this blog as a way to help other same-sex couples with things they may struggling with (but not talking about), I feel that the Healing Garden is appropriate. It is for everyone, regardless of your identity or sexual orientation. I hope that if you have found this that it will in some way comfort you on your journey in this life. It is healing for me to write this and I pray that it will be just as healing for you to read it.


I wanted to talk about the ability to be able to cry.  That may seem like a strange thing to say but it's something that "Heart" and I have talked about recently. In this post,  I am going to write some personal things about myself and will let "Heart" join in as she wishes. My hope, as I said, is that it will help someone else-whoever you are that may be reading this. I really feel that it is something worth talking about.

Emotions are funny things--we all have them--and to some degree we are all ruled by them. Not that we WANT or SHOULD be totally ruled by emotion, but we are human after all and sometimes our emotions can run away from us.

Not only can they run away from us but our emotions can be stuffed down inside of us or cause us to do things to ourselves that are not in any way healthy.

Right now, I want to talk about the emotion called sadness because it goes right along with hurt and pain and that is something that all of us have in one way or another.

I was telling "Heart" last night that I was so thankful that I could actually cry these days in my adult life. And I mean it--I am very thankful that I can now cry when I am sad.  Because there was a time that I could NOT and I didn't know what I should do with all the sadness that I had inside.

You see, as a small child, when I cried, I was comforted and loved by the grown-ups around me. But as I grew up a little bit, I learned, through watching the members of my family that crying really wasn't how you dealt with your sadness. No, in my family, you didn't cry--you remained tough and stoic and seem to live pretty much without feeling.
Of course I realize now that although this was very unhealthy that it was a coping mechanism, although not a very good one I'll admit. It allowed my family to move on with some very difficult things that came into our lives. And we did have rough times-right from the start.

Even though I was never told that I could not cry as a child (as I have seen some children told), I was shown by example that you did not handle your sadness that way. And unfortunately I was also shown( by some members of my family) that anger was the emotion to have and express. Consequently, I grew up into a very angry young teenager--full of hurt and pain. Even though I had that pain, I was not able to express it. So it boiled like a volcano deep down inside. me

I was such an angry young person that I'm sure no one knew what to do with me. If you knew me back then, I'm sure that I don't have to tell you. I was angry and I wanted to be angry. It was the only thing that felt right and safe. It was the only thing I knew to do with my feelings at all.

Amazingly, the thing that put a stop to all of my anger at age 21, was having children. Because one of my own parents-my father--had been very rageful, I decided that I did not want my children to grow up like I had. I identified  my bad temper when they were very young and made a concentrated effort to stop doing what my father had done to me. His anger had scared me as a very small child and then made ME angry as a young person. I didn't understand what drove his anger at the time. All knew was that I was the target of his anger (verbally and emotionally--he never hit me..) and that it made me angry and hurt.  I didn't want my children to be grow up this way or be afraid of me. So I stopped losing my temper with them..

Unfortunately though, my pain and hurt inside did not go away. I continued to be a very angry person with the man I was married to at the time. This is a big regret of mine, not because I think our marriage could have been saved (I don't), but because I don't feel that he deserved to be the target of all MY anger. Again though, I did not know another way..

So what happens to anger, pain, hurt and sadness when you push it down inside yourself? What happened to me was that I became depressed (anger turned inward) and depression turned to emotional eating. So although I wasn't outwardly angry and loud anymore, I was still doing something destructive to myself.I was eating my way to some very bad health although it would take several years for me to realize that-or care.. Part of my emotional eating WAS anger. I was angry at people in my family (and outside my family) that made fun of anyone who was not like them, ie, THIN. I had battled my weight since age 11 and had actually become anorexic during my very early teen years. It wasn't diagnosed in me at that time because I was never taken to a doctor. But it WAS anorexia and I starved myself right up until the time I had my first child.

Fast forward to 2002-the year I met "Heart". I was still emotionally eating--comforting myself from whatever problems I had (and I had some big ones at the time) with food. I figured that if everything else in my life was wrong, at least I could enjoy eating. And I felt that I was rebelling against all those people who were so judgmental of anyone with a weight problem.
I just decided that I didn't care what they thought or said and that it was just too bad if they didn't like me. Thankfully I have to say that some self-love came from my destructiveness at that time and I did learn to love myself no matter how much or how little I weighed. Honestly, before that, I had only felt truly good about myself as a thin person. I think now that I was hoping for love and acceptance from the very people who judged me or anyone who was overweight. So I starved myself-- at least at first..

So when I met Heart, I was now doing the opposite thing and eating to comfort myself from whatever was bothering me inside. And keep in mind that I still did not cry. I couldn't. I was a mom with three children. Their dad had abandoned us when our 3rd child was only months old. I was both father and mother to them and had to be "strong". At least that's how I looked at it. I didn't want to burden them or cause them to be afraid. After all, mommies just don't fall apart..
I wonder sometimes if that's how my own mother and grandmother felt during the time I was growing up.

When "Heart" came into my life,  I was eating away--still not happy--but somehow comforted by the food that I ate.  I remember that "Heart" could not at first understand my lack of trust in other  people. And although she could see that I hurting inside, she also knew that I held everything IN . In fact, I pushed any close relationships (other than my children) away. At the time, I figured it was a good way to keep from being hurt and I pushed "Heart" away from me right from the start.

I won't go into all the details but I have to say that during this time, one of the best things she ("Heart") ever did for me was to tell me that it was ok to have emotions. And that it was ok to love and to trust. I didn't believe her of course but I listened, and part of me must have heard.


On July 6, 2004, after my dad suffered his second early heart attack, I made a decision to change my diet and my life and lose weight. I had gone to two doctor's appointments and they said to me, "You are pre-hypertensive and we think you may need to go on some medication for it." Because my blood pressure had always been perfect in the past, what the doctor said really scared me. I knew that I did not want to take any medication ever so I decided to change my life and my diet . And I did. I started that day to eat a very low-fat diet and at the same time, I changed some of my thinking. Whereas I had tried to lose weight before and could not, now the weight was pouring off. Over a year's time, I lost 40 lbs.
I went from a size 16 (had been an 18 before I met "Heart") to an almost size 8) It was quite a victory for me and an emotional one as well.


You see,  in meeting "Heart", I met someone who loved me just as I was. And just as I was was overweight.  Unlike the judgmental folks of my past, she told me that I was beautiful and that she loved me very much. I couldn't believe it! Finally someone who seemed to love me just for me.

I have to admit though that changing my thinking during this weight-loss was hard. So many times, I would have to pick up a candy bar and read the fat grams just to be able to say no. I would tell myself that being healthy was the MOST important thing and of course "Heart" encouraged me in this. She said she wanted me to be healthy and well.  It was for this very reason that I was able to lose any weight at all. Her unconditional love for me at that time is something I have thanked her for over and over.

So how does all this relate to emotions and crying? I'll tell you..
While I was emotionally eating, I did not have to feel anything. I could eat and feel comforted and all would be well. In a sense, it was like the comfort of being so angry as a teenager. It helped me cope and I could go on with life. But the emotional eating, just like the anger, was destroying me. One thing was destroying my emotional/spiritual self and the other was destroying my physical health.

So many times during the time I was losing weight, I would feel "hungry" when I knew that I could not be. I had just eaten and there was no way I was really hungry. But I WAS hungry in another way...
It wasn't a hunger for food but for love. And for a way to deal with all the hurt and pain that I felt all the time..
And I'll be honest with you too..sometimes as I stood in front of the pantry or refrigerator and asked myself, "Ok..what do you REALLY feel/want?" Lots of times, the answer would be: rest. I was tired, but I didn't know how to deal with that. So I ate then too. Believe it or not I had to actually learn to go to bed and let myself rest. My inclination was to pack as much into the day as I could. I guess I just didn't want it to end for some reason.

And during this time, not only did I learn to rest but I learned to cry as well. I slowly began to let myself feel things that I had not felt in a long time.. Many times it was through talking to "Heart" about things that I had never talked to anyone about that made me cry. And she would hold me and try to comfort me.


Many times too, it was also because she and I fought and I allowed myself to feel those feelings. Even though it was hard (and I did still resort to anger sometimes), I slowly became able to feel pain and hurt and realize that it was ok.

When you are hurting so much, you think that if you start to cry that you may never stop. I felt like this and sometimes I cried for a LONG, LONG time. But eventually I did stop and amazingly afterward, I felt better. I felt better, not because the situation was any different, but because I had released my pain and in the process, I was healing.

I cannot say that today I have "arrived" and that I am totally healed from all my hurts and pain. But I will say that because I learned to cry and go through my pain, I am a much calmer, healthier person today. I still battle the weight issue sometimes but I am less likely to emotionally eat these day.
That truly is a blessing...

I want you to know that I am so thankful today that I learned to cry-even as a woman in my early 40s--.to let things out and to be human. We are human, after all and we are not made to keep all our pain inside. Of course there are appropriate times and places for the proper release of emotion. Hopefully it is with someone you love and trust. Someone that will love you and hold you.

For me, that person was "Heart" and I am deeply grateful for the healing help that she has given me.

I long to give that to her too and I hope that we can continue to give it to each other.

If you are reading this today-wherever you are-and you have anger, pain or hurt, know that you are not alone. There is help and there is a healthy way to express what you feel inside.

If you don't have someone you can trust to be with you when you cry, then please go to a therapist and tell them what you need. There are people out there who care and who can help. And I am always here too. You can e-mail me and pour some pain out to me--even anonymously. Nothing you ever say will be shared or told. I just want you to know that I am here at least by e-mail and that it's ok to cry.

I'm sure you are wondering why I chose to post something on this subject today. All I can say that sometimes when you are hurting, you come to realize that there are certain ways you have grown and certain things you can be thankful for. Today I am thankful that I can cry when I need to.
Because there was certainly a time that I couldn't..

 Take care of yourselves in every way and each other too. And if you need to, have yourself a good cry. I promise you that it's therapeutics and that there is no better old fashioned medicine..
.
Except maybe to laugh--and you will do that too.

The sun comes out after the rain..

May your sun come out today.

With love,
True.