SHUTTING DOWN/BECOMING CLOSED OFF FROM THE PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE

 Hey Disney Plus Chillers, 

Silence fills you like a void. You build up your walls as high as the sky. These walls protect you from getting hurt again. Shutting people out can cause you to lose your voice. You close yourself off from the people who are closest to you. You have this guarded look in your eyes, because you're not ready to face the world after you're grieving the loss of a person you shared a room with in hospital. The yellowed pages of your open book slam shut. That once bubbly/out-going personality fades into the background. You crawl back into your shell; just like a caterpillar crawls into a cocoon. You don't feel like fighting for a few seconds. You lock yourself behind a mask, and you throw away the key. You forget what it feels like to let your voice out of it's cage, and soar over the rooftops like a lioness's roar. I'll stop rambling now and give you some space to process this. 

Then the reality checks come. People want you to snap out of it. They want to have the old you back. It's hard when people can't accept the darkness that's eating you up on the inside. It's like you've turned your back on the world. You keep your emotions buried underneath a layer of toughened steel armour. Sadness, anger, fear, and pain crash over you like a tsunami. You have to push 100 times harder to move on to be OK. Yeah, you're surrounded by love, but you just want to flip the bird at the world for dealing you a crappy hand of cards. Always being sad, can trigger other people to have a mountain of worry on their shoulders for you, to ease off that burden you just have to lock all the painful memories in a box, shove them at the back of your mind, come back to them so you can address them later. 

Shutting people out/being closed off shouldn't freak people out. In an Asian household you're allowed to be outspoken, but you shouldn't question the elders or say 'no' to them/ignore them. They like to be clued in to every part of your life. It's not a bad thing. Talking someone's ear off isn't something you wanna do when you're trying to walk through a fire-pit of pain, then rise up from the ashes like a phoenix to be whole again. The scars are still fresh, both physical and emotional ones. Don't feel like you have an obligation to open up A.S.A.P to the people who care about you. Ease into it day by day. 

Sometimes anxieties can hold you back. You have mental scars, if someone you know exploded like a grenade during your treatments, because they couldn't handle seeing you in pain. You know the ticking-time bomb kind of aggression that has your heart slamming against your ribcage. You have to shut the world out to get back to being who you are. Remember there's always a bright light in the darkness. You have to grab on to it, and keep hanging on to it, then you'll find that dying ember of flickering flames that made you fight against all those people who shut you down/told you to be quiet. 

Getting attached to a person can really make you feel down in the dumps after they've lost the battle of fighting cancer. So, you automatically freeze people out. It's a coping mechanism, designed to help you to heal. You have to slowly break through the dark haze of sadness, and let people in, so your walls crumble. Moving on can be difficult. You have to have faith that the person is in a better place. Suffering and making it out alive isn't on the table for everyone. Zipping your lips, and throwing away the key is hard for people who are always shouting at the top of their lungs. There's always situations where you can't see a win-win scenario, so you have to take the high road and stay silent.

Some addictive advice I'll give you is: 

'Start going to counselling sessions. They help you to move on without getting stressed out. Confiding in someone else can make you feel heard.'

Another little bit of advice would be:

'Write things down. Whatever's bothering you will disappear when you write about it.'

I'll leave you to stay glued to your screens in peace. 

Enjoy.

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