For the sake of brevity, I won’t break down all the reasons the statement bothered me, but I will sum up by saying that I felt locked into a past version of myself. I felt silenced and diminished by my friend.

you are wrong about this, the most important and short answer is neuroscience, and knowing our triggers for status and integrity. His evaluation both lowered your status and attacked your image of yourself, as you know you are not ALWAYS dramatic — look just how articulated and conceptual you are, beautiful.

now on emotions. i disagree with your theory, (comfortable uncomfortable) but it is a huge step forward.

PS. i loved how u prioritized not caring for why we got how we got.

emotions have intensity and have types — active and passive.
the active ones demand action thus triggering our built in resource (selfesteem) management trigger. (we were designed for efficiency)
1 — conceptual resources (internal conflicts, thinking of a solution, handling risk management)
2 — physical resources (acting upon the strategy above)

internal conflicts = incoherent values + lack of information
so why did i disagree? because there are contexts where the same emotion has everything ticked and is not uncomfortable.

bottom line, lacking insight on our design, we are inefficient. having a manual for something maximizes results.