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Are There Any Emotions That You Cannot Handle, Or Struggle With?

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I can't handle deceit. I know I have been deceived and didn't know it. But I have been deceived and do know it, and I dont handle it well. My husband is very deceptive with money. I cant say I cant handle it because I do. Yet I dont do well with it.
When I try to talk to him about anything financial, he always says "Im so stressed at work and worried about taxes right now, you just need to let it go for now". Thats his most recent. This is 35 yrs of marriage with a 10 yr separation. Im ready to separate again quite frankly.

In our younger days, we could only have sex on Saturdays because his work stressed him out too much.....part of reason for separation.
Yet it wasn't about sex either, he could never comfort me about anything. Its the same now, but when younger I had other outlets, now I have none. So its not about deceit I guess. Its about avoidance and unavailability.

Tonight I tried to talk to him and he yelled at me, saying, he just bought me a new car.

We dont have sex....clearly....got tired of excuses.
Im really sick of him again...have money saved for divorce attorney.
I guess I cant tolerate assholes.
No he doesn't beat me....but has knocked me down steps but would never admit.
I have to be smarter than his manipulations, but he is the most stubborn person I ever met.
 
Forgot to add mine!

I don’t do sadness. Cant. Full stop.

Grief is an old friend.
Sorrow sits beside me silent.
Despair I spar with. Anger triumphs over despair. Every damn time.
Vengence & Revenge I can parley, ally, or walk away from.
But I absolutely, cannot, do sadness.
If I’m sad? I’m broken. Beyond all repair.
 
Don't ask me what I am supposed to do for homework.
I won't ask, but I'm curious. LOL I was once assigned to watch the movie "Inside Out", for reasons related to this topic. I liked it so much, I bought the DVD. Fascinating movie! My T assured me that it actually IS a pretty good, if simplified, version of how things work, for most people.

Do you have some kind of feel for where the line is between "anger" and "rage"? I've come to think of "anger" as being ok, because it's "the emotion that lets us stop people who are trying to run over the top of us". Would "rage" be that, out of control? At another level?

Similar question for you @Friday . What's the difference between "grief" and "sadness"? (And what's wrong with "sadness"?)
 
Similar question for you @Friday . What's the difference between "grief" and "sadness"? (And what's wrong with "sadness"?)
Grief is the pain of losing someone -or something- that I love. It’s everything they ever were, or would be, reft away. The keening, aching void left, when they take a part of my soul with them. It’s loss. Not just in the present but in all the days to come. As all that made them exactly as they were -the parts I knew, the parts I didn’t; the parts I would have come to know, or that they would come to be- taken from the world. It’s darkness. And the impossible weight left when something is removed. And reconciling all of that... and much more. That “more” that doesn’t come to words, but speaks in sounds I can’t hear, and silence that’s deafening, and threatens to rip my spine out through my chest, even as it chases my bones from holding me. It’s a motherf*cker, grief. So complex it would elegant if it weren’t so raw. Subtle, powerful, pervasive.

Sadness is without beginning or end. It has no shape. Nothing to come to know it by, nothing to hold, nothing to master. It just IS. And it kills me.

- Despair is a much more violent emotion -which might be why I get on with it better, I understand violence- but even it has shape/focus. Despair calls for an end. It sees no future. And that’s it’s handle to grab, it’s shape to know. The way to treat with it, to reshape it / repurpose it / negotiate with it / understand it / respect it.

- Sorrow is soft. Like a spring misting rain one jogs through. It’s many, many things. A made to order cocktail. Always different, always unique, always the same. A memory, rather than a reality. It seeps in, and whispers in, and calls to many different things. It would be charisma if it were tinged with joy instead of tinged with pain. It calls, rather than assaults. It beckons rather than forces. It feels, rather than takes. It’s subtly & complex. It’s a caress, rather than a strike or cut. It allows for the awareness of other things, and the jointing of other things; like when something is bittersweet, or when someone is hurting but also kind.

Sadness? Is.
 
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Hope. The dichotomy of hope is something I absolutely can't handle. It keeps you going and yet has this immense potential to destroy you. Again and again. And I detest that it shows up no matter what as an uninvited guest, no matter how hard you try to not. Other emotions for most parts I can try to curb in the onset or regulate (*cough* which might mean just plain avoidance/distraction) while they are happening. I have not found a solution for hope.

Abandonment and rejection. Real and perceived. Hits like a truck and immediately sends me spiraling. Without fail.

Helplessness.
 
Do you have some kind of feel for where the line is between "anger" and "rage"? I've come to think of "anger" as being ok, because it's "the emotion that lets us stop people who are trying to run over the top of us". Would "rage" be that, out of control? At another level?
For me Rage is when the only thing that matters is DO THIS NOW. no thoughts of pride, consequences,anything except do it now. now.
There are lots of experiences for anyone that works around large animals, rides a street bike, works as a first responder or firefighter like I did or as a cop or a soldier, things that put you in compromised positions with large unforgiving forces in the mix. Times when it is do this or someone might die and it might be you.
I have no problem believing the stories of superhuman strength exhibited by the most unlikely people, the classic mom lifts car off of baby story. When you think about it, what limits our strength is our fear of pain or permanent damage, as in: I tried but I couldn't lift it. Well, how hard did you try? Guaranteed that if you had been trying to save your own life you would have broken your own fingers and torn tendons trying, collapsed a hollow bone or exploded a joint. Thats rage, where the aftermath doesn't matter, I am going to lift this boulder, I am going to sever this limb, I am going to get this danger to a safe place or get myself out of this dangerous place, it is going to happen (if it kills me! isn't even a thought).
I have a problem with it because I always feel like I could have gotten it done in a more controlled, elegant fashion, or seen the 3 things that had to happen first before the situation fully developed into a rage crucible. I can USE anger, it is a motivator, like being on the ground under a car working on it in the rain because I had to made me angry enough to build a pole barn out back. I can use fear to help me find safer options or avoid dangers earlier next time I come around this place, at this time, in this weather etc..
Rage is there for the instant fight or flight and PTSD has made that jump easier to make and harder to look back on afterwards. Rage sucks, except that I would be dead ten times over by now without it but it might turn out to be the literal death of me someday.
 
Yup, rage is a weird one. When it’s said "Thingie’s seen red!", it’s literal. There is a moment reality shrinks and you simply go amok towards whatever is needed. I got a very terrible crisis of rage the day of my final exam and was yelling at every single person I crossed that they were c*nts. It stopped when the registrar came to me and asked me if I wanted coffee and cakes. I was back to the normal world.

Many other crisis of rages during DV. Fought back, many times. Couldn’t stand just remain defeated. I ended up biting my own mouth really badly trying to get his finger out my mouth because he first tried to place his hand on my mouth while I was screaming… Rage cuts the pain too. I don’t remember feeling any pain at that moment.

Another day when I had to take D from the other side of a balcony. The baby and the car thing? Done it. I pulled someone twice my weight from the other side of a balcony. My shoulders and arms hurt madly for two weeks afterwards. I almost demolished all my muscles.

And another day when I ended up climbing and jumping over two 3-meters fences just to show how enraged I was. Normally I’m quite clumsy and prudent. In rage the aggression can also redirect towards oneself. That night I ended up being so out of control I was ripping my face off and hammering myself against anything. 2 cops were needed to placate me and I still was trying to fight. Whatever has triggered that… long boring sad story.

But in general, I’m familiar with rage. I don’t like when it happens because it requires, at least for me, extraordinary circumstances. Type, it’s now or never. So you’re completely energised in aggression in a very narrow space and time. It just collapses. It’s very distinct from anger, even if it’s the same family of feelings. I also did use anger, anger can be instrumentised. But not rage. That’s why it’s dangerous. When it pops who knows what the f*ck it’s gonna do. Save someone’s life, shout at your teammates or throw yourself off a bridge. Complete Russian Roulette.

@Friday , would what you call sadness be what I call the Great Void? Loss and regret, for me are closer to sadness. The sadness you describe seems to be more similar to the great void than to what I call sadness. I find it’s quite different in quality in the sense of what you’ve mentioned, that it comes from nowhere and goes to nowhere, like something very alien and truly unbearable.
 
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