The Words I Couldn’t Forget
“Crying is a coping mechanism to escape accountability,” someone I deemed to be intelligent once said to me. I never forgot those words, and because of the respect I had for that person at the time, I refrained from crying or being emotional. Deep down in the depths of my soul, I consider myself to be a sensitive being, but I pushed that deep into my gut. I have been described by friends or family as lacking feelings or empathy, which is what I thought I was supposed to be, but as time went on, I learned that being entirely logical and not allowing my emotional side to exist was actually me pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
Capturing the Moment
I captured a photo of myself in pain. A dear friend and I decided to no longer be friends, which was hurtful — hurtful enough to lead me to want to capture my tears, to prove to myself and to the world that I do have feelings and am an emotional being. Although I try to maintain my composure, I can cry, and I do.
Why I Waited to Share This
This moment was captured in an equivalent manner to how an influencer on TikTok would pretend to cry about an event in their life, publicly capturing that moment to obtain likes and followers. In the moment, I realized the emotion I captured on paper would be perceived this way, and so I decided to keep this piece in the chamber until time had passed. There were many photos of that moment that I took, but to capture pain, I chose to bring my hand up to my eyes — to project sorrow, but also thought or contemplation as to what I would do next.
Six Years of Learning to Trust Myself
Since 2020, I have spent a lot of time working with therapists and good people to accept who I am and allow myself to cry. The work I put into my emotional development led to many discoveries, in which I learned that I was not an alien — that I do have feelings but am highly sensitive and won’t simply allow others to see that side of me. Trust, for me, takes time. Where others may trust freely and lose that trust as time passes, for me, trust must be earned.
Looking Back, Six Years Later
I captured this moment six years ago to prove to myself that I am human and can care, and that later I would look back at this day and see how far I’ve come. Here I am, writing about my development as a person.
The Behind the Piece series will flow like this — where I explain the process behind my work, update the story as time passes, and present a final piece that I’ll hopefully add to my portfolio.