I take comfort in knowing (or wishfully believing) that all of us have our oddities. You're not really normal unless you are slightly crazy. My crazies are inherited from my family. From my grandmother, I inherited psychosomatic symptoms, although to a much lesser degree than she has (every time she reads an article in a Korean newspaper warning that X symptom is an indicator of Y disease, she is absolutely convinced that she must have Y disease). I went to the doctor last week for my first physical exam in a couple years. Just to be thorough, he ordered several blood tests for me and I went to the lab today. As I watched the phlebotomist draw 7 vials of blood from my arm, I started feeling faint. I could feel my life being sucked away with each vial. I stood up and felt woozy. My right arm felt so much limper than my left arm. In the rational part of my brain (the tiniest part), I knew that it was all in my head and that I was fine. But where's the fun in being rational?
From my mom I inherited an immunity to sadness/grief. Or rather, an emotional block from dealing with sadness. My mom is one of those people who hates goodbyes, because she doesn't like how it feels. So she never says goodbye. She will not stand at the airport and watch until you board the plane. She'll drop you off at the curb, say "see you later," put you out of her mind and go along her merry way. Distance doesn't make the heart grow fonder - it's outta sight, outta mind. Similarly, I am spectacularly bad at goodbyes. Similarly, I am spectacularly terrible at dealing with anything that makes me sad (the one exception being tragic books, which I love - I love the depth of emotion I feel when reading sad fiction, but I can't handle it on the screen or in real life). Which is not to say that I shut down when I'm sad - it's the opposite - my body/mind literally refuses to recognize sad feelings and instead seeks distraction - anything intense yet fleeting will do. For example, a deal at work that monopolizes 20 hours a day, or partying/drinking excessively or suddenly needing to clean the house from top to bottom. Anything that helps me block out what I'm really feeling. And it's not like I do this consciously or purposefully - I wish I could deal with sadness at the "appropriate" time, but for as long as I can remember, I physically and mentally have not been able to feel anything when a tragedy or a sad life-altering event occurs. Such as my stepmother and grandfather's deaths, both to cancer. Watching my grandfather on a life support system, I seriously couldn't feel anything. First of all, it didn't even look like him. But the whole experience seemed so surreal - as if I was watching myself in the hospital room with my family members, but not actually there. Korean culture calls for the family to make a big show of wailing and crying at someone's passing away. My family was appalled that I didn't (couldn't) even shed one tear. The reality of his passing away, of his absence, didn't hit me until about a year later, at the most unexpected time. I was just carrying about my day when suddenly the thought that: Harabuji is dead popped into my head and grief (finally) overtook my mind and body and I clearly looked psychotic bawling by myself in the middle of an otherwise perfectly normal day. When you grieve when people expect it, they can empathize with you and they even commend you for being a sensitive person (commending someone for crying seems odd to me, in any situation. It's not like crying is a talent that should be encouraged). But when you don't grieve when you are supposed to, people think you are insensitive and cold. I say: my grief is no one's business but mine. I almost never shed personal tears in public (meaning, I'll cry at sad movies or if I hear a complete stranger's relative passed away, but never at anything that is actually personal to my life). My total inability to deal with grief when it occurs - another symptom of my psychiatric imbalances.
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