Emotionally Unhealthy and Healthy 4/5/09

Emotionally unhealthy: There is a woman named Jenny. She works part-time at a restaurant. Everyone Jenny works with always says that she looks unstable and uncomfortable where she is, she always looks like she has all these emotions bottled up inside her. Sometimes she looks like she is in pain. She seems distant and is irritated by other people getting too close to her or touching her. Jenny does not talk much and most of the time she stands by herself, instead of serving customers. She did not used to be like this and it does not seem to be where way of expressing herself, she looks like she is hurting herself.
A while back Jenny had a nervous breakdown in the restaurant, no one was sure why it happened but it just did. Then she went away for a while about a month and a half, now she is back and does not speak or do much work at all. She is very different and not in a good way. Sometimes she will start crying or run really quickly though the restaurant to the bathroom and breathing deeply. For a while I thought she was having panic attacks but that doesn't seem to be the case, it may be much more than that. Although she always had this feeling about her, like she was "mental" or not well.
I do not believe Jenny is emotionally healthy. She is showing signs of a mentally ill person, I know I am just comparing her to people who I consider to be normal and also those who are ill to see who she resembles more, which does not seem fair. But she does not seem healthy and it worries me. Sometimes I don't feel comfortable working with her because I would not know what to do if something went wrong and she needed help. I feel like people just blow her off like she doesn't mean anything to them, which may be part of the reason she acts the way she does, maybe she is mistreated.

Emotionally healthy: A man named Kenji, who is a close friend, has always seemed emotionally healthy. He is very creative and plays the guitar professionally. Kenji has displayed many emotions, joy, sadness, anger, annoyance, fear, and surprise, anticipation and disgust. Kenji has felt it all. So when he experiences something, he reacts in a way that is normal to his body. For example is Kenji has gotten into a fight with a friend and his friend apologizes, Kenji may not feel like forgiving his friend right away, the apology has been accpeted but Kenji is still experiencing this feeling of anger. It would be abnormal if Kenji felt fine immediately after his friend apologized. It would be like his emotions were controlled by flipping a switch on and off. Like a robot, obeying every command.
People don't work like that, we need to feel an emotions for some time before we go on to feeling another emotion. Its like a cycle of emotions. You need to complete one full cycle of anger before you can feel joy or comfort. I believe one needs to feel more than one emotion to be considered emotionally healthy. Otherwise its like speaking in a monotone voice, never changing tone would make it very difficult to express emotion. I also think its okay to experience a certain emotion for a little while but not over an excessive amount of time. The body should feel other emotions, other than just anger or joy.

If one shows they are joyful for a while, other people tend to wonder if there is something wrong with that person because they are expressing happiness for too long. Sometimes people may interpret the long period of happiness or joy as a way to mask or cover up a problem one person is having. They probably think if they pretend and say they are happy other people will not notice that is not how they really feel? Why do people mask their true feeling and emotions? Are people embarrassed to show how they really feel?

I think a reason I believe Jenny is emotionally unhealthy is because I have never seen her go through different emotions before. She is always the same, scared and unsure. I don't think she ever experiences any joy or happiness. I believe you need to show emotion in order to be emotionally healthy.

I believe the more you experience in life, the more emotionally developed you become. How does your body know how to react to a certain situation if you have never experienced that emotion before.


-Happy Birthday Shimon 4/5/09