What would happen if you ignored your feelings?

Every time I try to start a new post, it goes sideways and I never publish it.

Will this be any different?

I wrote the two sentences above in August 2020. 

This is the first time I've looked at my drafts since 2020.

I guess I'll start here: I am currently trying to work on myself.

It's about time, really. 

A few weeks ago, a fellow "Eannegram Type 4" posted the following on Facebook, which I assume came from some kind of email list she's a part of:

I know this may not be revolutionary for some, but for me, reading this was like a thunderclap inside my brain. I am a creature who is ruled by their emotions. So often I think of myself, and in particular the interior, as a sea during a tempest. As Stevie Nicks said, "But never have I been a blue calm sea, I have always been a storm." Sometimes this inner storm threatens to overwhelm me. Honestly, since the pandemic began and life was thrown into uncertainty and chaos, I have had a lot of trouble controlling my emotions in a way I'm unaccustomed to. I'm on psychiatric medication to regulate my moods, but mood stabilizing medication is apparently no match for a global pandemic! 

It has been exhausting. Sometimes I lay in bed in the morning wondering if I can possibly make it through another day where my overwhelming emotions threaten to capsize me. 

Before I read the above, it had never occurred to me that I could choose to ignore my feelings. That even if I'm feeling them, I can choose not to discuss them. I am a category 5 hurricane of feelings. I always felt that the best way to deal with them was to feel them all, all the time, and to share them with as many people as I felt comfortable. I still think that there's value in sharing emotions; we live in a society that does not value vulnerability and empathy, and modeling behavior like that in public (on social media, etc) often encourages others to open up and express their emotions as well. I really enjoy encouraging others to be authentic and vulnerable. But--there has to be a limit, for those of us who exhaust ourselves dealing with "storm surge" of our everyday existence. I promise I will stop making hurricane analogies now, but hopefully I got my point across. 

Anyway, I'm doing my best here. Every day I wake up hoping I can make progress. Maybe I can feel a little bit less? Maybe I can work on it not controlling me? Maybe I can actually do this.