Monday, July 25, 2011

I Run From My Emotions

Luke Ford writes: I tend to run away from my emotions. I don’t want to locate them in my body and I don’t want to name them and I don’t want to accept the message they’re sending me. I prefer to distract myself from them and to imagine that I’m great and that one day the world will recognize this.

When I was a little boy, people said I looked like a Holocaust survivor. My eyes were sunk in my skull. I was withdrawn and sullen and reluctant to engage.

When I was about five, my dad came across me flinging manure at other kids and screaming, “I hate you. I hate you.”

I guess I was pretty in touch with my emotions that rare time.

My father had reason to be concerned. This was no behavior for a Christian. Where did such hate come from? The Devil?

I was raised a Seventh-Day Adventist. That’s a form of Protestantism.