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I was also privileged in high school. Everything was objectively good, but I was scared of facing or expressing my feelings about anything. If I didn’t acknowledge that I was scared or lonely, everything would be as I knew it looked from the outside, right? I remember when every fear and disappointment and sadness felt like a hot knife and I just wanted to feel it a little less. I got my wish when I spiraled into major depression when I was 19. From then on, it was as if I was experiencing the world through murky water. The edges were blurry and the colors were muted. On paper it sounds like a way to tolerate life without much hardship, but the reality is it strips life of any meaning. Nothing matters. Why live if there’s nothing to live for? 4.0 GPA? What’s the point? Awesome job? What’s the point? The happiness neural pathways quit working in my brain, so the only way for me to feel anything was to feel anguish. I would stay up late, repeating all the worst voices in my head, reveling in my loneliness and isolation and failure, which at that point was no longer just perceived. It made me feel alive, and it made me want to die. In the in-between hours of existing, I didn’t want to die because I didn’t feel alive. I experienced my days like walking through a boring documentary about a day in the life of a privileged adolescent. That went on into my mid-20s, and since then has improved but not gone away (I’d say I live my life at 50%).
All that to say: I understand how hard it is to deal with intense feelings and fears, especially when you feel you can’t let them out. Having feelings for a girl that was just supposed to be a fun time is messy and complicated. Being bothered by the things around you is distracting. Worrying about your sister is devastating. These are all very intense things, so intense they threaten to overwhelm. If you could paint them, what colors would they be?
If these things overwhelm you, they can flip you into depression. At that point, whatever colors you would have painted them will have been hosed off and dusted in baking soda. It’s a coping mechanism for when life gets to be too much, and in an academic sense it’s a useful survival tool, but in this day and age it can be hard to come back from. I know it’s hard to appreciate this without perspective, but intense feelings can be beautiful.
Having feelings is not cowardly. Numbing the pain is. Numbed feelings don’t go away, they just get deferred and accumulate like trash. Ever wonder why drug addicts keep using even though they’re destroying their lives? Drugs numb their pain, and getting clean would mean facing years and years worth of numbed pain all at once with nothing to soften the blow. It’s terrifying.
Having feelings is one of the bravest things you can do, but no one instinctively knows how to have those feelings constructively. Therapists go to school to study decades of research on that topic, which is why they are valuable allies as you go through life. I would advise you to visit a counselor to ask how to manage your emotions. If your parents raise an eyebrow, tell them you’re struggling in ways you can’t put into words and you want to get ahead of it before it consumes you. Also, as an 18 year old, you can make your own healthcare decisions, and you have access to things like BetterHelp virtual counseling, with which HeartSupport offers a 5-session trial.
My non-professional suggestions for venting feelings are: journaling, art, music (whether listening, creating, or experiencing live), exercise. When it feels like you’re ready to burst from your intense feelings, find a way to vent that pressure. Picture stabbing a hole in the side of a volcano. What does that look like to you?
In conclusion, life is beautiful if it’s not numbed. If you couldn’t feel a sunburn, you wouldn’t feel the warmth of the sun. It is easy to lose control of your feelings if you’re not careful, but it’s easier to work back from the cliff of involuntary numbness than to try to climb it once you’ve fallen off. No one person knows how to navigate their own feelings though, so reach out to friends, mentors, and professionals who can give you objective advice. Life is better together than alone.