Feel, Don’t Conceal
“Daydreamer”
“Head in the clouds”
“That’s just so… you”
If I’d’ve been born without a substantial chunk of Anglo-Saxon coiled into my DNA, those words may’ve been cheerfully embraced as compliments. Expressions of praise, even. But I knew a little better.
The subtleties of the English language as wielded by Brits are fascinating; the overt meanings of words and sentences often play second-fiddle to the subliminal messages they’re meant to convey. Visitors to the UK remark that we rarely mean what we say, or say what we mean. Your mental gymnastics game has to be on-point to navigate even the simplest of conversations!
In an Iraqi environment requiring a growing child to excel and look like you were enjoying it, I seemed to be well-suited. I was always top of the class, well-behaved and impeccably-mannered. The eldest son, I repped the family name ably. But there was a darker side; a major character flaw.
I was:
Sensitive
**gasp**
Sentiment often trumped logic. A non-conformer, for pity’s sake!
The evidence was damning, after all:
I was the child who “coincidentally” had to babble over anything sad when it appeared on TV (and in Iraq, save for government-sanctioned obsequiousness, there were three main entertainment genres: saccharine, sad, and anguish).
I cried, every year, when our Christmas trees were lobbed out in January.
I cried (sigh) in terror when ushered onto a theme park caterpillar ride, overwhelmed by the sub-glacial speed and imploring my parents to get me off (as they cheerily overtook me on foot).
I put myself in the position of any insect as it was being trampled underfoot or swatted against a window pane. How would its family feel? How would they find out? How would they dig him a tiny grave without tiny spades?
My skin crawled every April Fools’ Day, mortified at being coerced into having to trick someone for “fun”. The deceit!!
You see, those words were probably diffident expressions of praise, but in context, laced with a hidden warning: keep this up, and you’ll struggle in life. You have to prepare for the “REAL WORLD”: it’ll eat you up.
~~~~~~~~~~
We’re all shaped by the messages we’re exposed to. Growing up is a blend of our unique experiences, family influence, inherent dispositions and the environment they swirl around in. You might be lucky; all ingredients combining harmoniously, ushering forth a serene passage towards adulthood.
I was fortunate enough to know I was truly loved, but being part of a family where emotions weren’t front and centre of daily life, I never acquired a satisfactory language with which to articulate them. My impression was that feelings and vulnerability weren’t to be expressed or realised openly, rather that they seeped out accidentally. Spectral filaments of fear, anger, discontent and unrequited passion tangled tantalisingly in the air, and I soon learned that I had an innate ability to sense them all and gain a fuller picture, whether I wanted to or not!
By my teenage years in the UK, my suspicions that I didn’t fit in grew exponentially. I’d failed to surrender to pragmatism and, still engulfed by the strength of feeling I harboured, this was all a bit too much.
“Sh*t”, I remember thinking, sitting on my own in the park opposite our flat. “I’m sensitive. Naive. I’ve GOT to hide it. I must keep it under wraps”.
“It got in the way in Iraq, it’s uncool here, and it isn’t valued within my family. I’ve no choice.. BURY IT”
You think these things at that age. Well, at least I did! Dramatic, flouncy proclamations to rail against an unfair world. But that drastic action felt imperative, and I followed through. For over 20 years.. I’m no commitment-phobe!
As an avowed self-reflector, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I only recently realised how much this had a part to play in my struggles. It betrayed itself in the brevity of my conversations, the subtle ways I’d avoid people and adopt peripheral roles, the confusion in my head and indecision... how should I be? What should I do? HELP!!!! None of it felt right.
Worse still, ill-fitting new labels emerged during high school that my silence appeared to corroborate and approve of; a public rummage for a redeeming feature:
“he’s shyyyyyy”
“he’s a homebody”
“he’s niiice”!
Fortunately, I speak fluent “damning with faint praise”... I’ll translate:
“he’s a walking personality vacuum”
“what the f**k can we say about him?”
Utter apocalyptic humiliation was achieved when, in front of a bunch of family friends, one of my parents foretold cheerfully that “Maz’s brother will become rich and keep us in our old age, and Maz will (long, long awkward pause) do something worthy”.
Arghhhhh.. ground, swallow me up whole!!
The pigeonholing now had a momentum of its own, and I had no agency over it whatsoever. I’d internalised an idea that I was damaged, that my strife was eternal. I MUST be broken.
And trust me, if you feel broken, you’ll certainly show it. At an age where hormones were flying all over the place, this wasn’t terribly convenient.
Mum and Dad had a valiant and commendable stab at guessing why I was increasingly distant, putting all their chips on timidity. Fearing this might fast-track me to a life of solitude without timely intervention, they…… they did their best. And I love them for doing so.
Mum’s first curveball was to buy me an Usborne Sex Ed book, mentioning it incongruously on one of our walks through the Chilterns. Assiduously averting eye contact and dodging cow pats was no mean feat, as she muttered something about being available if I had any questions. Biology and relevant mechanics, check.
This being a two-pronged attack, Dad had the chatting-up and charm offensive locked and loaded. All I had to do, apparently, was ask one of the girls at school out for a date to the cinema. It seemingly didn’t matter which one. I was blessed with the ol’ paternal genes, so it couldn’t fail. It’d be good practice.... after all, he told me: he was once shy like me, though you’d NEVER BELIEVE IT NOW! All my problems were left in the dust.
What nobody was able to do was to simply listen.. to understand what had happened. Assumptions were made, and acted upon, but the reality was never dredged up.
Many years later, and it finally dawned on me: what if, loose screws aside, I wasn’t quite so damaged? Perhaps my perspective had been wrong all along. I’d committed so much of my mental energy to suppressing my sensitive, emotional side because I was trying to adapt wholesale. What if unleashing it was the key to feeling whole again?
After all, despite my determination to hide it, it still crept out in all sorts of ways.
Step by step, I recognised a pattern: I’d intercept and dismiss my initial feelings on almost everything, delegitimising them.
That latent energy then channelled into fear, shorn of context, with my fertile imagination and mental restlessness taking care of the rest. Voilà ... emotional behaviours alchemised into anxiety.
Without allowing this natural processing to run its course, I was creating a bottleneck. Circumstances shaped it but society was complicit in fortifying it. In the Middle East as here, men are raised to value strength and indomitability. Above all, be an equable model of masculinity. Neither culture fully accounts for male emotional well-being.
It’s slowly changing over time, but looking at the horrifying suicide rate for young men in this country, patently not quickly enough. For our sons, fathers, brothers, relations and friends.. we all need to do better.
Finally however, I’m learning to understand. I have self-compassion.
Yes, I am sensitive. I’m vulnerable and emotional. I “hear” people’s feelings as soon as I walk into a room; a mess of cross talk, often wildly contradicting what they’re actually saying. Indeed publicly, it can be overwhelming, and it renders the simplest of conversations a minefield!
At home however, the benefits are clearer to see. I’m unencumbered, not thinking twice about crying, or dancing around on my own, or singing at the top of my voice. You should(n’t) hear some of the random conversations I have with myself when I’m washing up or having a shower! Entirely illogical and silly.. me being me.
It’s not forced either: I value these “un-grown-up” moments as ways to reclaim parts of me I’d been conditioned to reject. Being utterly stupid whenever I possibly can be is now a top priority.. the kids certainly enjoy it!
Truthfully though, it’s not for them. Proficiently navigating responsibilities, whilst retaining and fostering the spirit and innocence of early life seems entirely sensible to me. It’s a wonderful mitigant against the ravages of an adult world that’s often packaged as a grim endurance race. It’s at the core of empathy, creativity and acceptance... and we certainly haven’t a surfeit of any of those.
I remember turning 6, a little older than my children are now, when I decided I had to view myself as an apprentice adult. I grew up far too quickly, and set aside my natural emotionality to achieve a goal I erroneously perceived was the meaning of life: to keep going.
I won’t make that mistake again. If you ever meet me, I hope you encounter the open, sensitive soul I was meant to be. Bear with me and others like me: there’s a lot more than meets the eye.