I am angry, but I cannot yell. I am sad, but I cannot cry.

Two months ago I flooded, almost six months to the day from when I bought my condo. It was a glorious six months of first-time homebuyer bliss. The flood was not minor. My condo filled with about a foot of water throughout the 1100 square feet and I lost a lot – furniture, electronics, pictures. Most things can be replaced, but it isn’t the same. The replacements will be similar, but not the same. The memories will be different. And then there is the money aspect. So much money to so many different people – plumbers, mold remediation experts, general contractors, lawyers. Money I don’t have.

My life has been turned upside down, but, yet, I cannot express the real, raw emotions – the anger and the sadness. I’ve cried for approximately 30 seconds in the last two months. On Tuesday, I finally came close to an outburst. I should not even call it that, but that is what came to mind first. Expressing emotions feels like an “outburst”.  Anyways, my frustration boiled over. I reached some threshold. It had to come out in some way.

The stress over money has been building since the flood happened. All in this will cost between $40-$50 thousand. I don’t have this kind of money laying around. Luckily, I have some insurance coverage, but the hook is it doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the condo association. The condo association made up only of first-time homebuyers. This makes things significantly more complicated and…slow. So despite the fact that the flood happened to me, impacted only my condo, the money is not mine. This makes me angry. I’m trying to have perspective since it is better to have some money than no money but what I really want to say is, “Fuck perspective.”

Of course, I don’t say this.

On the outside I pretend I’m keeping it together and am told things like, “Wow. I’m impressed at how you are handling all of this.”

Tuesday was particularly stress-inducing because I had to write another $6,000 check to my contractor. Apparently they want to get paid for doing work. I wrote the check, but I knew I could not clear that check. Leading up to this I had been messaging the treasurer of the condo association who is in control of the insurance money and she was not responding. I asked for a payout from the insurance money and I got crickets. Let me tell you – shame plus anger is a lovely combination. A lovely combination that set me up for my “outburst”.

The outburst wasn’t really an outburst. I asked my parents for more money (which led to more shame) and, as directly as I could, I told the treasurer I was upset by her lack of responsiveness (downplaying my anger by reassuring her that I understood she was busy).

I got out of the crisis logistically, but how did I handle the emotions? I binged and purged. I had to rid myself of the discomfort, of the heaviness caused by negative emotions.

The truth is I feel ashamed that at age 34 I still need to ask my parents for money. I feel like a failure.

And I’m still angry. I’m angry I’m in this situation and I’m angry at her specifically. I’m glad I was able to express some amount of frustration, but I do not want to spend the rest of my life downplaying my emotions to make the other person feel more comfortable. I do not want to feel forced to put my emotions into a generalized frustration bucket when they are anything but that.

I don’t want to impress anyone by my lack of emotional response.

I want to scream.

And I want to cry.

I want you to see my pain.

Because maybe if you saw it, I would not have to secretly try to purge it away one binge at a time.

Cue ‘Wish You Pain’ by Andy Grammar