Do You Feel Feelings.

[Fadeaway]

Another thread spurred a discussion between my husband and I. A little while later he asked me, "Do you really feel emotions as physical sensations?" He says he doesn't He says emotions are all mental responses. He described to me how he perceives emotions, and that sounded like dissociative numbness, but he says he can't remember a time when it was different, even as a child.

I tried explaining to him about things like "pulling on your heart strings," or "broken heart," and how they are actual sensations I feel. The word heart is used because that is the closest to where the sensation is felt. He said he thought those were just poetic devices.

I went on to explain that Passion and anger are identified with the color red because it is a high energy color and it is an attempt for people describe something that is difficult to describe. People associate sadness with blue because it is a low energy color.


So what do you guys say? Also if willing, could you mention if you are male of female?

 

[SnowJo]

I do now. not in the early days, as I shut them down but after 20 years on and off dealing with trauma therapy in some way or another I now feel them too much and too often and its bloomin distracting at times. but at least I feel more connected. trouble is because
I feel so much I don't like being around people anymore and want to be alone or with nature and animals instead.
,,

re your man, many people rationalise things and don't recognise how their emotions influence them.

 

[Mammo]

hi @Fadeaway ( sorry, for some reason i wrote someone else?!)

This is something I really struggle with, with my T - as he is (I think) trying to do the somatic experiencing stuff on me. It's a real struggle as as soon as he asks the question "what are you feeling and where"; my mind goes blank; and I feel nothing. I can and do "feel" things, which are emotion related in my body e.g. fear. But other things, like "anger" I struggle with. Being able to identify and describe is kind of lost on me.

If I do feel things, most of the time I don't know "what" it is. This thing still remains a very real issue for me, as I live in my head so much, and have never been a physical sort of person. Main response is, "I think I feel".

I'm a woman.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Is he on the spectrum? I have a friend I suspect is, and he intellectualises all of his feelings.

 

[watundah]

Similar here, @Mammo. Doing somatic work and my therapist often asks where in my body I feel something and hmmmm...it's just not there. When sharing especially difficult memories I can feel tightness in my chest and even heartache. I understand the importance of recognizing these types of feelings but the bulk of them are in my head. We do need to retrain ourselves to allow the body to respond and/or acknowledge when it does. So tough when you spent years shutting down but it is still possible with the right training. Sometimes I wonder, why bother but also wonder if I'm running through life only experiencing part of it? And I am a woman.

 

[SnowJo]

Similar here, @Mammo. Doing somatic work and my therapist often asks where in my bod...

Be kind to yourself. I spent years literally rocking back and forth to nurture and soothe the traumatized parts / experiences that caused the shut downs. I have been through years where all I would feel was rage, or complete devastation and sob for hours every day. I had to pull myself out of that and just distract myself with life again, everything was extreme which was very difficult to experience emotions like other people do. Now I get way too many emotions sometimes and sometimes I wish I could just switch them off like I once did, but now I have to learn more soothe distract and self care and I know that on the plus side, I experience a lot of love joy and happiness as well as heart ache anger and deep sadness. It's a journey that's for sure. Getting to the stage where I just need to jump back into living more fully and get back into normal stuff like work etc. .. not sure how I will operate with so much more emotion than I had previously to this bout of counseling, but hoping it's all been for the better and will experience lots more joy in my life and be successful with it.

 

[SnowJo]

Is he on the spectrum? I have a friend I suspect is, and he intellectualises all of his feelings.

It's very irritating when people do that... depending on if they are kind with it or critical. Emotion is a language that translates into many styles of communication. The body tells a whole different story than the words sometimes. 90% of communication is through body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, are they vertical, leaning back, leaning forward? What intent does their body say? What intent does their language say?

sometimes I just listen to the key words in isolation to get the gist of someones intention.
Intention is very very important for me. I can work with someone who's well intended. I can't bare badly intended people.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Many many years ago I had to fake emotions because I was so numb. Now I feel so much emotions and recognize them. I am feeling so many good feelings now and I just love it. I am female.

 

[falling_wave]

I feel emotions very physically and have for as long as I can remember. I am female. A lot of times I will get sick or get headaches, stomach aches etc if I ignore emotions. Other times I just feel it while I experience the emotion. The ones I can think of off hand are these:

Shame or vulnerability (the biggest emotional physical connections often interchangeable) a pang in my chest almost like an electric shock

Anger a tightness in my stomach and clenched jaw.

Anxiety actual sharp chest pains and sudden head pain near my temples. Sometimes blurry vision.

Fear metallic taste in my mouth.

Empathy rising feeling in my chest.

Sadness exhaustion.

 

[Fadeaway]

@SnowJo, @itsKismet had a legitimate reason for asking based on things I have mentioned in chat and not here. Having not seen those things I can understand why you would react that way to that comment, but I do have reason to suspect that he falls on high functioning side of the spectrum.

I have more to add to this thread soon.

 

[joeylittle]

A little while later he asked me, "Do you really feel emotions as physical sensations?" He says he doesn't He says emotions are all mental responses. He described to me how he perceives emotions, and that sounded like dissociative numbness, but he says he can't remember a time when it was different, even as a child.

This sounds exactly like me for most of my life. I only started really feeling emotions oh, maybe 3 years ago? A little ways into trauma therapy. Before then, I understood them - it felt like understanding, comprehension - and I could cry, laugh, moan, sob, whatever - but the only physical sensation I could tie to any of it was maybe tightness in my throat.

As I started actually regularly expressing (verbally) what my feelings were, gradually my body caught up. I don't think I'd actually describe it as dissociative numbness, the way I was before - more just like a conscious separation of my emotions from my body. I think it may have been rooted in fear that once I started feeling things I wouldn't be able to stop - or that I'd feel them too deeply. And in some ways, that came true - except it's also a much easier transition into diminishing the intensity of some of those extreme emotions, now that I can feel them more in my body.

 

[Rumors]

Feelings are very confusing. I can cry on a rare occasion and I "think" it is associated with fear, but I am not sure honestly. It is crazy how confusing emotions can be. However, for the most part in regards to myself, I don't feel much except confused. I second guess if I should feel mad about something because perhaps the whole thing is my fault. Am I sad? Do I have the right to be sad? Or, am I just having a pity party and need to put my big girl panties on and chug ahead? It is all so confusing. I have never been in touch with what I feel only what I perceive I should feel based on what I am told to feel.
Tough thread...makes me think.