When it hurts too much to talk about….what does one do?

Being on my own for so many years, with no family besides my girls, and no one to talk to about the things that hurt or worried me, I developed a defense mechanism. Somewhere along the line, I just stopped talking about the things that hurt me the most; instead I just absorbed then, and filed them someplace in the back of my brain. No time to sit and cry, no ones shoulder to lean on, just me & my girls, so I would just dust myself on and keep moving. The question is, is this healthy? I literally have to be bursting at the seams before verbalizing it, and still, its only maybe.

Maybe I learned this behavior from my grandmother, the strongest woman I have ever met and my role model. I mean really, she went though hell, from an abusive childhood, to marrying into one of the richest families in her city, to losing all their money and being reduced to selling all her furniture, to working in a factory when she used to have maids, to having a mentally ill daughter, to caring for her husband that died of cancer, and still, only shed one single tear at his burial, because she had to be strong…..strong for everyone.

Maybe it’s the mother in me that has to be strong for everyone, protect them? Or maybe it’s the stories my mother would tell me about my father being such a proud man, how he would always say “It doesn’t matter if you are starving, put on your best suit and never let the world see that you are suffering”.

Whatever it is, sometimes I feel as though it has aged me, not externally, but internally, does that make any sense?

Did I really learn this behavior, or am I genetically predisposed?

Whatever is it, it sucks, sucks bad.