Cold Storage of Emotion

It’s taken me years to understand why I’ve struggled so much with feeling, regulating, and releasing my emotional energy. But as I reflect, I realize that it wasn’t something I ever truly forgot. It wasn’t some faded memory buried deep in my subconscious; I always knew. I carried the weight of it with me, internalized it as if it were a nightmare that haunted me, but my mind had to protect my heart from truly accepting that it wasn’t a dream. My mother, in her own unregulated state, in her own pain, had done something that no mother should ever do. She threw me, her crying toddler, into a non-working refrigerator.

For over 52 years, I couldn’t fully acknowledge that it happened. My mind softened the edges of that memory, keeping me safe from the reality that the person who was supposed to nurture me, to comfort me in my most vulnerable moments, had instead responded in a way that left me feeling unsafe, unworthy, and confused. I never truly forgot. It has always been there, living in my body, echoing in my thoughts, shaping the way I relate to my emotions and the world. But my heart wasn’t ready to accept that truth, so my mind wrapped it in layers of self-protection, disguising it as something that couldn’t possibly be real.

But it was real. And that reality has quietly shaped my nervous system for all these years. It’s why I’ve spent so much of my life in a constant state of fight or flight, always on edge, always trying to over-function, to manage everything around me. Because if I could control everything, maybe I wouldn’t have to feel the chaos inside. Maybe I could avoid the feelings that were too dangerous to touch.

When that fridge door closed on me, something shifted in my nervous system. I was no longer safe to feel my emotions freely. The crying, the fear, the confusion, it all became too much. My nervous system learned that emotions, especially intense ones, were dangerous (for me). And so, for years, I lived in a state of hypervigilance, disconnected from the natural cycle of emotions. I never allowed myself to truly feel them, let alone process or release them.

Instead, I intellectualized my feelings. When emotions would rise, I would think, “Why am I feeling this way? How can I stop it? What can I do to fix it?” My mind would take over, analyzing and judging every emotion before it had a chance to flow through my body. And in doing so, I stayed stuck in a constant loop of protecting myself from feeling too much. My nervous system was still trying to protect me, still perceiving my emotions as something unsafe, something to avoid at all costs.

But our emotions are meant to move through us. They come in waves, rising to a peak before they’re released, expressed, integrated. That’s how the body works. That’s how we’re designed to process life. But for me, that natural cycle never happened. My body became tense, contracted; locked up, like a river dammed up by fear. The emotional energy stayed trapped inside, unable to flow, unable to release. And that trapped energy has kept me in survival mode, frozen in a state of over-functioning, disconnected from my own emotional experience.

It's ironic, really, how my emotions froze inside a refrigerator that wasn’t even working. Looking back, it feels almost symbolic. The fridge, something designed to preserve and protect, ended up becoming the place where my feelings were locked away. Just like that broken fridge, I stopped functioning the way I was meant to. My emotions, much like food left in a broken appliance, couldn’t flow or be expressed. They stayed stuck, stagnant, unable to move through me the way they were supposed to.

It’s strange to think about how the very thing that should have safeguarded me became the thing that shut me down, leaving me in a cold, frozen state for so many years. There’s a poetry in that, as if my body, my mind, and my heart all conspired to mirror the brokenness of that moment. The fridge didn’t work, but it still held onto what was inside, just like I did.

For so long, I’ve protected myself from truly feeling the pain of that memory, from accepting the full truth of what happened. Now, though, I’m learning to thaw those emotions, to let them finally move and be felt after all this time. It’s a slow process, but it feels like I’m slowly coming back to life, as if the part of me that’s been frozen for so long is finally allowed to melt.

I’m learning.

I’m learning that I can no longer live in this frozen state. I’m learning that to heal, I have to soften my defenses. I have to allow myself to feel, not just intellectually, but somatically, in my body. It’s not enough to think about my emotions, to try to solve them like a problem. I have to meet them where they are, in my body, and let them move through me.

I’m learning to validate my emotions, to be vulnerable with myself, to trust that my nervous system can grow and adapt. It’s a process of unlearning, of re-teaching my body that emotions aren’t the enemy. I can feel. I can allow the energy to flow through me without fear that it will overwhelm me or others. It’s not easy; it hasn't been fun by any means, but it’s necessary.

The body remembers. The nervous system remembers. And now, I’m slowly reclaiming my emotional energy, learning that I don’t have to be in a constant state of survival. I don’t have to over-function.

I don’t have to carry the weight of this memory alone. I can finally place it where it belongs, as something that happened to me, not something that defines me.

The refrigerator may have been broken, but I am not. I am thawing, softening, learning to let my emotions flow as they were always meant to. Each tear I allow, each wave of anger or grief I let rise and pass, is proof that I am no longer frozen. I am alive, present, and reclaiming the parts of myself that were locked away for so long.

This healing is not about erasing the past or pretending it never happened. It’s about honoring that little girl who was silenced, frightened, and shut inside, and letting her know that she is safe now.

Safe to cry, safe to feel, safe to exist without shame.

The body remembers, but so does the soul.

And as I walk this path of healing, I am teaching both that they no longer have to carry this burden in silence. I can hold it with compassion, I can release it with gentleness, and I can live beyond it with love.

I am no longer frozen. I am learning to flow.