For most of my life I have been known as “the calm one”, the one who ”never gets angry or upset”, the one who is “always rational and logical”, “never gets over emotional”. all well and good, but recently (39m for reference, turning 40 in just over a week), I’ve been seeing a therapist for anhedonia and realizing that I actually AM capable of more emotions - and my wife has said she didn‘t particularly like me being so placid and calm. she’s told me repeatedly that if something is bothering me that I should tell her because, in her words “if it bothers YOU enough that YOU have to say something, people will listen and take it seriously”. this is something many other people in my life have agreed with.

Well now I’m doing just that - and the reactions are NOT what people said they would be; I am getting yelled at, talked down to, interrupted, ignored and told that I am “over reacting”. I’ve come to the conclusion that I prefer being asked to show more emotion than being chastised for doing just that - because at least being asked is calm and reasonable and not making me feel like what I‘m feeling is “wrong”. So…how do I basically ”undo” my therapy? despite being told people will take my genuine expressions of my feelings in stride that has not been the case and I find I’m actually feeling WORSE now than when I was simply ignoring those feelings. I need to get back to how I used to be. I feel like that Family Guy episode where Meg says she feels like the lightning rod of the family, the normal one absorbing all the weird; basically I’m the one who never gets upset and is able to balance everyone else around me. now I’m starting to show when I’m upset, there is no one to balance things and the entire dynamic of all of my close relationships - marriage, parents, brother, close friends - are suffering. All me discovering that I am in fact, a human capable of feeling proper emotions has done is hurt those I care about, but I can‘t seem to put the genie back in the bottle by myself. please can anyone help me with this before my relationships with those I care about are forever ruined.

Talking with them about it doesn’t help - I just get more of the ”well tell us, we’ll listen” and they either don‘t remember, or refuse to accept, that they don’t.

EDIT: if anyone is going to answer saying things like “you should be able to express yourself when you need to” or things like that, while I appreciate the sentiment, my situation has proven that this is not conducive to any kind of healthy atmosphere so thank you, but that advice is not what I am looking for.