When feeling has consequences

There are women who say they do not know how they feel, and people hear confusion. I hear a history. I hear the old sequence firing again before the sentence has even formed: hurt became oversensitivity, anger became disrespect, fear became drama, and a small clean feeling came back wearing somebody else’s accusation.

After enough of that, the mind stops walking straight toward pain. It starts scanning the perimeter. How bad will this get if I say it plainly. How calm do I need to sound. How much explaining will this require. How fast will the subject leave my body and turn into a courtroom about my tone, my timing, my face, my character.

Meanwhile the body files its report all day. Tight chest in a normal afternoon. A headache after one text. Bad sleep for no obvious reason. The strange urge to clean, answer, organize, fix, reply, do anything except sit still long enough to meet the feeling without the old protective machinery switching on.

This is not lack of depth. It is self-protection with a long memory. The woman is not empty. She is crowded. The feeling is there. So is the history of the feeling. So is the anticipated backlash. So is the body preparing to defend the feeling before it has even been spoken.

So when I hear a woman say, I do not know what I feel, I sometimes hear something else underneath it. I can feel all of it. I just cannot get near it without also getting near what it used to cost me.