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My brain just doesn’t process emotions

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WillowH

My brain feels like it hasn’t processed anything in years. Every time something is suppose to be emotional, my brain tries to understand it logically. My head feels so heavy.

I am able to describe what I’m feeling right now but I struggle to find the source—where is it coming from? I feel like a giant sponge, influenced by a thousand things but unable to trace back a single one. I constantly ask “Who am I?”

I am marveled how other people seem to grasp each other so easily. Somebody starts talking and everyone immediately knows where they’re going, and I’m here desperately analyzing every word trying to figure them out. My brain just isn’t capable of that.

When I talk, people say that I sound emotionless. I am often surprised when they say I sound happy, they say I sound aggressive, they turn away uncomfortably and think “did they really just say that?” It’s like I need someone else to tell me what I’m feeling, that I don’t know how I’m coming off. I have gotten into serious trouble in school for things I’ve said, but to me my words felt normal. My brain is so oblivious and I wonder if the day will come that I go to far on this thing we all call the internet.

So much avoidance. So much. Why do I avoid everything? Even when I’m safe, I still avoid. I’ve become so clingy. I resist change whenever I can, and my life has always been constant. My brain knows the anxiety relief is temporary. It’s been taught that because the trauma never goes away. So I cling to what I have and avoid taking risks. My brain uses dreams to force me to take risks, but even there it doesn’t know how it should end.

How old am I? Since when did my body look like this? How long have I been telling people about my future plans, and how long until I actually make one? Why didn’t I answer these questions so long ago?

People tell me that it’s just depression. That it’s only temporary. That I’m just in an episode of low mood. But I know now what it is. I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember, and it’s both relieving and stressful to finally know the truth. Now that I know, I will never be able to go back.
 
like I need someone else to tell me what I’m feeling
You might need people to tell you what you’re feeling if your caregivers never taught you to label what you were feeling. When I started with my therapist she would label my feelings for me. “So you feel sad?” “You were feeling joy!” “Is that anger?” It was weird and confusing at first but it helped teach me how to tell others what I was feeling.
Why do I avoid everything?
Why do you think you avoid everything?
the trauma never goes away. So I cling to what I have and avoid taking risks.
You are currently living in trauma? That’s really tough and probably the first step is figuring out how to escape that.
But I know now what it is.
What is it?
 
I don’t ever post these days, but I read this and related to how you feel. When I was at my worst, I felt like this - kind of disassociated from everything and everyone, including my own self.
My emotional responses to events often came much later, weeks later, months later, so when I became upset I no longer knew why I was upset!
What helped me was meeting someone who had similar responses and had also experienced a lot of trauma. At least then I began to stop thinking I was crazy and look for solutions.
What helped with understanding relationships agsin was taking an antidepressant. Suddenly I understood things agsin.
The rest of it has been a pretty long haul - exercise, mindfulness meditation, art therapy - things that helped me stay present.
I think some of us go into Freeze mode and it’s hard to get out of! I’m so much better now, maybe a bit more fragile than I was but not frozen these days.
Thinking of you.
 
I am marveled how other people seem to grasp each other so easily. Somebody starts talking and everyone immediately knows where they’re going, and I’m here desperately analyzing every word trying to figure them out. My brain just isn’t capable of that.

this was the rub for me. i kept my brain so busy with comparing my insides to other people's outsides that i didn't have any processing capacity left over for accurate comparisons. since i can only conjecture and assume what is going on inside other people, the conundrum kept me somewhere between delusional and confounded. my therapy tool for this psycho snot knot is, keep ^it^ personal. don't compare proverbial apples and oranges.

but that is me and every case is unique. . .

steadying support while you sort your own, strictly personal case.
 
That's me. Some emotions are very very difficult to reach. I always thought there was something wrong with me for that - ends up I was right.

About the only emotions I can reach are anger and frustration.....got plenty of that.

Been where you have been. Invest yourself in therapy. Learn how to live with PTSD from others here. There is better..........
 
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