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Threatened By Feeling Alive

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I really don't feel 'happy' very often. I am reasonably content sometimes. But 'happy' feels like being too vulnerable to me.. like I am not on guard, have exposed too much of myself. Wish some of the other crap was as short lived and as elusive as 'happy' is. Wouldn't that be awesome !?... oh wait, then I would be 'happy' and confused.:happy:/:tdown:
 
Many reason to be very shy of relationships for some years now,

I've noticed that my survival or suffering mode also better allows me to avoid relationships altogether. At the level of basic survival they don't matter to me, and this feels "normal" and safe.

@Muse ...is it fleeting happiness? For me these small moments of good feelings are hard to recognize. Even when feeling alive doesn't feel threatening, there is an element of feeling unreal...like I can't recognize or make use of the good or alive feeling, so it can actually toss me into another shade of derealization.

@ladee ...yes, having our guard down. That's sort of part of how my therapist explained it too...that our defenses feel confused. It makes sense. I'm scared of energy because it can come out as destructive. But the "good" energy also probably relates to that feeling of having my guard down. Good point!
 
I like the way @Chava you said a controlled suffering is that being alive and happy at the moment I feel like I am just existing or going through the motions. Is that what being alive and not continually in survival mode feels like ? I can relate totally to have different modes and states though. I have never felt the way I do at the moment though. I am not good at naming and identifying emotions.
 
@Cashew that makes a lot of sense, and I'm sure could be the feeling for a lot of us. Mine is more the uncontained energy. It's like fight energy, perhaps, that never had safe expressions early on...and it is scary because it has resulted in some destruction (of property or self). "Happy" is almost no different, oddly. It's the feeling of being alive. I don't know what the f*ck to do if I'm not suffering. I know how to do "survival mode." That's about all. Probably I was wired into that. I can do numbness or hypervigilance from my survival mode. Feeling alive seems to require action or doing something, or so it feels, and that scares me. It really is the feeling of spinning and wanting to shoot myself down.

Small sidenote: I drew less attention to myself as a kid through being semi-invisible, more quiet, more still. So that's part of it to. I don't know what will happen if I'm really "alive." I used to feel I didn't deserve to feel alive (obvious trauma connection)...I feel like that belief has changed and I realize the feeling is still scary. So the feeling came first, I assume (belief later).
 
Is it the feeling alive that's threatening or the fact it could be taken away so easily and you know by experience that is?

Yes. Have to chew on this. Both is gut response. They are linked. 4-5 years old with younger babies sibs, I was free to run around the house, the yard, oh the beach I ran and played. Not unwatched or cared for. Something did happen around then. Prior I used to ride my tricycle around fast fast, on the swing climbing higher and higher.


Small sidenote: I drew less attention to myself as a kid through being semi-invisible, more quiet, more still. So that's part of it to.

Changed.
 

Not sure how that's referring to my quote. ?? That I'm not invisible? On the internet? No. But I'm a super f*cking hermit. I do fine at work and then I just want to crawl into my hole again. Cozy. Anyway, maybe I just don't get it (a little dense sometimes).
 
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@Changeling that makes sense. I was not my mom's helper or caretaker really, but I did feel very responsible for her emotions. So I was more aware of her feelings and needs than my own, all the time. Quiet observing, making up home just to have a quiet, busy, acceptable thing to do (yes, I assigned myself extra homework...birth of a nerd!). I think my dissociative and hyper-numbing stuff relates a lot to the eggshells feeling around her when she was angry (also sex, but I can avoid that...harder to maintain feeling "real" around other people...I still pull into myself and partly disappear, but that's kind of a different post for another day). Terrible when we have to bend to our parents' needs. Kids are so good at it.
 
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