I heard this term and I am crazy about it.
My fascination with the notion of ‘emotional junk’ started a few days ago but I had no idea how to write about it.
In my perception, emotional junk is a big pile of emotions that we decided to close in the attic. I have a very big attic and I used to put everything in there. As I wrote this a few times before, one night, I was dancing, I was tipsy, having a great time when my attic fall on me. I wanted to slash my wrists because…this is the issue, I had no reason.
I am actually in a good place in my life, I believed that everything is ok because I would never go to the special place, where all my pain was stored.
I find it amazing that our feelings get trapped in a special place, where is no time, where the pain remains fresh until we decide to help her find the light. This was a small joke, our emotional junk is similar to thousands of small ghosts that wait for us to notice them and help them go away, into the light.
The feelings are hidden in the attic for a lot of reasons. One of the most common things is that we believe it is ok to leave them there. In the society I grew up in, no one went to therapy and everyone was trying to fit in, especially because the city was small and everyone was judging everyone. A few people still believe that, if you suggest therapy, you are calling them crazy.
I saw that our generation is more open to this idea, I saw a lot of people my age that are starting to see the walls of their house crumbling because of all the junk stored inappropriately.
Another reason is that things hurt a lot and some of us are so emotionally numb, that crying is not an option. I used to not be able to cry, I would have a cigarette and push the feelings down. My husband made our home a safe place and I managed to cry. Now, I cry anytime I feel like it and I think it helps me a lot to get rid of the things I stored for free in my head.
The last reason I would like to mention is that we do not believe we deserve better. Sometimes we see ourselves as bad people for making bad choices over time, even though we are different now, and maybe we are just judging ourselves too harshly.
I think realizing this about me, that I am not the same, made me realize that no one I used to know is the same. I know past versions of them, just like they know past versions of me. This puts things into a new perspective, basically, we know nothing. There were things that I was so sure of but not I questioned them all day.
I wanted to change this blog’s name to emotional junk. Maybe the next one.
Life is really funny sometimes. Today I was looking for an analogy to explain emotional junk and in the afternoon, the analogy found me. I am currently on the bus because out of nowhere a ww2 bomb exploded near one of the train stations I use to go home. This is what emotional junk is: a bomb that was buried a lot of time ago that will go off on a normal day.
Please find below a really good article on emotional junk.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/deal-mental-emotional-relationship-junk-clarity-steven-cesari/
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