Oluwatoyin why are you so different? The Beginning………. ‘Wet eyes’ was my natural face appearance as a child. It was how I responded to most situations in life. I called it my other natural state when the recoil mode was not in operation. Every negative word, every negative occurrence pierced through me giving me a lot of pain like I had no shield. I was constantly handicapped by words other people shrugged off. I went through life not achieving full potential at different stages because there was pain everywhere I went. I however knew there was more to me. My resolution to painful situations got me into deeper emotional messes and my responses created a cycle of problems. I had dreams that I was excited about but negative emotions meant I ever so often threw everything up in the air and recoiled into my safe place just feeling sad about life and set the dream aside. Crisis…….. My reality check started as I journeyed into adulthood and started to experience difficulties. Wet eyes had to go because adults don’t cry but deep pain replaced it. My emotional imbalance started to lead to broken relationships. I literally said goodbye at the first sign of hurt. I fell out of every possible relationship and detached myself from many others because being a loner was safer. Life became more challenging as I could no longer hide. I knew things had to change but I didn’t know how or perhaps I felt human beings needed to change their hurtful ways. As a mother, correcting my children was an experience for me and I also took it personal when other people corrected them because their expressed emotions were too difficult to handle. In close relationships, I allowed everything that I shouldn’t have because I did not want to go through the test of relationships. It felt safer bottling up everything. How was I to know it was counterproductive? I was simply storing the wounds for a later explosion.