If you're like me, you've heard a certain phrase a million times and you can't quite seem to understand the issue. Yet every time you hear it, you feel your heart sink into your stomach and your blood boil.

"You're just too emotional."

You hear that phrase and you feel the waves of negativity pouring off it like thick syrupy honey dripping onto your skin. You can't help but feel a jab at you as a person, and quite frankly feel slightly taken aback.

Since when is it wrong for humans to feel emotions?People are strange to me. They hide behind their devices, lashing out on the internet about politics or expressing how much they love a video of a cute animal with all caps, a million exclamation points, and emojis. Yet they can't seem to simply tell a barista when they messed up their order or tell a friend the truth about a simple misunderstanding. People get so worked up about rudeness or hatred in the world, yet their form of fixing it is complaining about it to their friends instead of facing the actual person in the wrong. People live their lives hiding and suppressing their feelings, too scared to get close to others or be thought of in a bad light.

I've never been the kind of person who hides what she thinks or feels. I don't mean that I say things filterlessly without realizing that I'm hurting people; I mean that I, as a human being and not an animal or a machine, feel things and express them. And I'm not ashamed of that. In fact, I'm sick of being put down because of it.

When I'm happy, the whole world lights up and I can't help but smile and crack jokes and just be ecstatic about the simplest things around me. When I'm sad, I hide out in my room, miserable and wallowing in grief. When I'm angry, I see red and feel like the devil riding through hell aback a flaming steed, destroying everything in my path. When something is genuinely funny, I laugh the loudest, most obnoxious laugh that lasts for hours, face red and tears dripping down my cheeks, my friends begging me to shut up.

If you don't live life like that, I honestly feel bad for you. If you hear or see something beautiful and can't well up with tears, if you don't see a homeless person and automatically want to build a home around them, if you can't feel the sun on your face on the first warm day of spring and feel so content with your life no matter what shit is going on in it, life must be really dull for you.

And this is in reference to other people as well. When someone is rude to me, you bet I say something to them. If a stranger is crying alone, you know I'll be over there comforting them. If one of my friends is having a bad day, you know I'll skip the rest of my own commitments for the day (or however long it takes) to make them feel better. If someone I care about is sick, you know I'll be over there with chicken noodle soup, orange juice and their favorite candy. Feeling emotions for yourself is one thing, but when you feel emotions for others, it's at a whole different level. You can't help but put them before you and do anything to make them happy. It doesn't even feel like a sacrifice, you feel like it's something you need to do as a person.

Yes, I understand why people hide their emotions -- the risk of getting hurt, the risk of abandonment, the risk of looking a fool, the risk of being put down by others. I understand why it can be difficult for people to confront others with problems, or tell someone how they feel. I know why people cling to their security blankets of impassivity. Because for some reason, to feel is too much for us. Expression isn't OK. It's looked at as a weakness, as a "personal issue" and there is something wrong with you. Talking about your problems to people is "annoying," a burden to them, and makes you appear ungrateful and immature. I understand why people hide their emotions. It's just so sad how wrong all those perceptions are.

I'm here to say it, for everyone in the world who has ever been told they're "too emotional" or feel too much, or has ever been put down for expressing themselves: there is nothing wrong with it. In fact, it's your birthright as a human being to be an emotionally healthy functioning person, understanding how to be happy, sad, angry, and every emotion in between, and feeling what you need to feel natural in that moment. I know there needs to be a certain level of emotional intelligence and responsibility; you can't just lash out at someone who cuts you in a line or let your work completely suffer over an emotion. But to find a balance in life, you need to give into these emotions and discover the best way to express them for you. Internalizing emotions and letting them build a wall of falseness around you is not the way to be emotionally healthy.

So for all those cry-babies, all those too-perky people, everyone out there who knows how to comfort strangers or tells someone how you feel about them, I applaud you. I want you to know you are not alone in this world, and perhaps someday the rest of the world will catch up to your emotional understanding. Until then, keep on laughing, crying, yelling, and feeling. At least you'll know that I stand by you.