I definitely found it difficult to talk about mental health as a kid. It wasn’t so much that I felt that’s it was taboo—I just didn’t have enough practice doing it growing up. I wasn’t taught to fully feel my emotions because they were often invalidated, and gradually learned to push them away/felt pressure to try to resolve them myself. I started to believe that everyone in the world would deal with my emotions the same way—by invalidating them—so I just wouldn’t bring up my internal struggles to others.
Thanks for sharing that Andrea. I can actually resonate with you on this too. I don't I ever had anyone to model for me what it looked like to process emotions in a healthy way. That would've been really helpful for me, especially as a kid. I think I would've learned faster that coping isn't the same as growing.
I definitely found it difficult to talk about mental health as a kid. It wasn’t so much that I felt that’s it was taboo—I just didn’t have enough practice doing it growing up. I wasn’t taught to fully feel my emotions because they were often invalidated, and gradually learned to push them away/felt pressure to try to resolve them myself. I started to believe that everyone in the world would deal with my emotions the same way—by invalidating them—so I just wouldn’t bring up my internal struggles to others.
Thanks for sharing that Andrea. I can actually resonate with you on this too. I don't I ever had anyone to model for me what it looked like to process emotions in a healthy way. That would've been really helpful for me, especially as a kid. I think I would've learned faster that coping isn't the same as growing.