#wgitachi

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My father slapped me every time I cried. From age 5 until I was 17. "Crying is for girls" he'd say, then hit me harder until I stopped. I learned to swallow my tears so well that I couldn't cry even when I wanted to.

It started when I scraped my knee falling off my bike. I was five and naturally started crying. That's when I felt his hand across my face for the first time. "Men don't cry," he said calmly. "Try again." When I kept crying from the shock and pain, he slapped me twice more until I went silent. The message was clear-tears equal pain

From then on, any display of emotion meant immediate punishment. Sad movie? Slap. Pet dies? Slap. Kids at school making fun of me? Double slap for "being weak enough to let it bother me." He had this twisted way of making it sound like he was helping me become a man, and everyone in my family bought into it completely.

My mom would actually praise him for it at dinner while I sat there with a stinging red cheek. "You're raising him right," she'd tell him proudly. "Too many boys these days are soft. My uncles would nod approvingly when they witnessed the slaps during family gatherings. "That's good parenting," they'd say. "You're toughening him up for the real world."

I became an expert at emotional shutdown. Happy, angry, scared, sad-I learned to feel absolutely nothing on the surface. Teachers would ask if I was okay when other kids were clearly upset about something, and I'd just shrug with dead eyes. I couldn't access those feelings anymore even when I was completely alone in my room

The breaking point came when my grandfather died. I was 17, and he was the only person who'd ever been truly gentle with me. He used to sneak me candy and tell me stories without any judgment. At the funeral. seeing him in that casket, I felt real tears starting to come for the first time in years. Deep, uncontrollable grief that I couldn't suppress.

My father saw my eyes getting wet during the eulogy. In the middle of the service, with the entire extended family watching in complete silence, he reached over and slapped me hard across the face. The sharp sound echoed through the quiet church like a gunshot. "Not here," he whispered harshly. "Not ever. What's wrong with you?"

Fifty people turned to stare at us. My own aunts and uncles just looked away quickly, embarrassed for me but unwilling to intervene. My cousin, who was exactly my age, gave me this look of pure pity mixed with relief that it wasn't him. That look burned worse than the slap itself.

That night, I quietly packed my things while my parents watched TV downstairs. When my father noticed my duffle bag and asked where I thought I was going, I looked him dead in the eye and said. "I'm going somewhere I can cry for grandpa without getting hit for it."

His face changed completely not angry like i expected, but genuinely confused. Like it had never once occurred to him that I might actually need to grieve my grandfather's death. Like the idea of me having real emotions was foreign to him.

I moved in with my girtfriend's family for my senior year. The fiest time I cried in front of them-over a failed chemistry test-I instinctively flinched hard, waiting for the inevitable hit. When her mom just handed me a box of tissues and said gently, "It's okay to be upset about things that matter to you," I broke down even harder.

It took me three full years of weekly therapy sessiors to be able to cay normally again without fear.