Are we supposed to feel emotions in the body?

[Marinna]

I can cry. I can smile. I can recognise that I am 'probably' feeling sad or happy when I do this, but I don't feel anything in my body (other than occasionall tightness). This is so chronic that when I was in my first T session and asked to describe emotions in my body I didn't get it. I thought emotions were a rational proccess occurring in the mind. Is this a mind body split? Or emotional numbing? Need to really work past this. Feel like I am missing out on life. :/ I want to be human.

 

[Mee]

Often as part of Exploring something with my yoga teacher in a conversation or meditation my teacher will say ’where do you feel it on your body?’ Sometimes it does resonate with a place in me, Other times it doesn’t.

If you think of common phrases we use and know ’weight of the world on your shoulders’ ’butterflies in your tummy’ ’heart ache’ ’spinetingling’ ’ hackles rising’ these are common things we identify with because those emotions often raise that pysical response in us. But I often ( pre trauma too) just don’t always ’dwell’ in the physical response. It can take me a while to identify ’oh, that's THAT FEELING’

Maybe the language bits are useful?

 

[MrMoonlight]

You aren't alone. I was so confused in my first emdr session when she asked where I felt it my body. I often feel things in my chest and shoulders/neck. If you dissociate I believe it can be more difficult to feel these things. Someone correct me if I'm mistaken.

 

[Sideways]

Need to really work past this. Feel like I am missing out on life. :/ I want to be human.

I relate to this a lot.

People seem to spend a whole lot of time trying to find ‘happiness’, but me personally? I want the whole lot: happy, sad, angry, guilt, jealousy, love - the whole lot of them.

I tried for a long time with trying to get in touch my emotions. Trying to describe them, locate them in my body. Most of the time, I’m somewhere between depressed and numb.

All I can say is that occasionally when I do notice an emotion these days? I stop, and notice the crap out of it? I have a lil ol celebration. Like, “WooHoo! Sideways just did Angry! Party hands!!”

 

[gealach]

I have the same issue.... I don't "feel" emotions in my body, except my left shoulder, which was injured when my trauma started. When things related to the trauma come up, I have shoulder pain. Beyond that, I have difficulty with emotion in general, and I certainly don't "feel" it anywhere. :banghead::confused:

 

[gealach]

edit: I should add, while it's not really an emotion, I find some things hysterically funny, dark humor and sarcasm especially. It's the closest I get to happy, so I'll take it.

 

[Sideways]

When things related to the trauma come up, I have shoulder pain.

Hehe, yup. I don’t “feel” emotions. I just get a migraine instead!

 

[Freida]

right there with ya @Sideways! Emotions? what are those? I get fibro flares!

 

[ladee]

I'm just now learning to identify 'feelings' in my body, sometimes. And I've been on this journey a thousand years, it feels like. Sometimes I just get weary from always having to work on something or do maintenance.. and just say to hell with it, I'm pissed, or happy, or blah blah blah.

And yes @Freida, Fibro flairs... that's usually when I REALLY know something is going on...pbftttt !

 

[Marinna]

I relate to this a lot.

People seem to spend a whole lot of time trying to find ‘happiness’, bu...

Yeah. Definitley want the lot. I'll order a full spectrum of human experience please.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Guess it is pretty common.

 

[Teamwork]

I know when I first did the meditation for the body scan I had no idea how to find my foot let alone isolate a toe and travel to the ankle and all that this scan directs you to do. The idea to locate it without looking at and to feel sensation was and still is pretty foreign to me. While I can name emotions and sense them in others I’m not really connected to body vs mind sensations. I think if I did more body scan first, to totally get the sensation of being fully present in the body then the next step would be where do you feel it in the body. If I have a headache I can determine where that is but not so much other body pain. But I’m also aware from work I’m doing with t that much was taught towards suppressing, turning off and not feeling or expressing and this type of training as a child was only useful to the adults being able to manage a controlled child.

 

[Marinna]

I know when I first did the meditation for the body scan I had no idea how to find my foot let alone i...

Thank you for this. I did body scanning with my T and had no idea what it was for!!! Thought it was just a grounding technique or something similar. Will try doing it at home. Maybe that 'tightness' I managed to notice is suppression and i should pay more attention to it.

I think with PTSD we have enough going on with our minds and nervous system so it is probably not a bad thing to switch off. It just sucks that it can become our default setting.

It is interesting and helpful to read all of your replies. I am going to ask some of my friends without PTSD how they experience emotion physically. Try and figure it out logically before embarking on trying to figure it out emotionally.
I have always had this 'problem' (or survival strategy) and C-ptsd has been suggested but not diagnosed. Maybe I need to explore c-ptsd and its impact rather than focusing on the single episode of adult trauma that led to my actual diagnosis.
I can pinpoint a time in my life without flashbacks and adrenaline surges but I certainly cannot pinpoint a time when I felt emotion properly. I think I need some different perspectives etc.

Someone suggested earlier it may be a language problem. My T actually suggested this. Said that parents are meant to label and reflect their kids emotions and this is how we identify them within ourselves.