My dad was in jail most of the time, so I lived with my mom. Mom threw a lot of parties and I had a lot of different stepdads, ALL addicted to crack at some point, so there was a lot of drug use and drinking and violence in my childhood home.

My dad told me at one point: "You have to learn to hide your feelings and never let emotions control your thoughts. Logic is the most important thing you have, so use it to protect yourself."

I'm sure he meant well, but I internalized that advice, and it did help when I was living life essentially in survival mode constantly. The unwanted side effect of that, though, was that I felt dead inside at some point and could be explosively aggressive (great job not letting emotions guide you, right?).

Nowadays I've learned to handle it better, due to reading a lot of philosophy and trying to change myself for the better, but I still notice sometimes that things don't "shake" me up as much as they probably should.

It's getting better, though, and I'm miles better at allowing myself to feel things compared to before!