I’m only just learning about my emotions and how to regulate them. I’m 33.

I spent a long time with no role models to show me how to do this:

What to do before I get angry and do or say something I regret.

How to know when I need time to process.

When and how to ask for help.

How to tell when I am nearing the verge of emotional meltdown.

I don’t know the steps to these. I resonate with alexithymia* so much but is it trauma-based?

Have I just not understood or listened to my feelings because I wasn’t given the right tools to do it? A safe space to do it in?

Have I lost the ability (or never had it) to explain and communicate my feelings because I wasn’t listened to? Because I was gaslit again and again by older people who “knew better”?

Have I simply stopped listening to my body because I was constantly shown and told that my feelings didn’t matter?

Is alexithymia a trauma response? Or was I just more vulnerable to trauma because of it?

Now I’m a mum I’m trying to teach my son how to regulate and its hard because I don’t really know what that looks like. I certainly don’t know what being taught this looks like.

I want to help him to understand himself, listen to his body, and know that he can tell me anything about his feelings and that I will hold space for them.

It’s not going to be easy. I suppose we can work it out together, one day at a time.