Avoidance And Numbness: Retraining Yourself To Feel

[doglover]

This is related to dissociation but is a little different so I put it here. Please move it if it fits better elsewhere.

I've been so numb to my feelings for so long... that I am (a) terrified of them, and (b) having trouble cooperating with myself in my quest to feel again.

I'm not numb to everything but I'm numb to the hard stuff and numb to anything but pretty darn strong emotions. I'm not numb when I feel rejected or guilted. I'm not numb when there's some trivial thing that I know is safe to get excited about. But probably 80% of the day, unless I'm dealing with extra stress, my baseline inside is to feel nothing at all really. No real mental chatter or emotional landscape.

And if I have braced myself for the possibility of someone trying to guilt me, then they can say something that should trigger me and I feel nothing. Or one time recently my dog got into a fight and was pretty badly injured so I was racing to deal with it and I was very businesslike... until I was held up in the checkout to get supplies. At that moment I cried and expressed guilt and shame over my role in his injury. As soon as I was no longer delayed I shut the emotions off. And never did bring them back up to finish processing, though I probably needed to explore that more.

I started to work on it earlier today and I feel like I'm making progress but it's soooo sloooow. And this is something I've tried to do more than once, usually end up giving up, because it feels like I'm at war with myself. One part trying to protect me with walls around anything that stung before and the conscious me trying to make the protector take down those walls.

Anyone relate to this, or care to share little tips or exercises that I could try, to retrain myself to feel again?

Edit: Another example of my feeling weirdness. When I recall my primary trauma, I recall it only on an intellectual level even when I'm trying to recall the emotion. I don't feel the emotions associated with it. I know they are buried in there because I know how much certain things affect me when they catch me by surprise, and how they are related to my primary trauma, but when I try to do the work directly it's all numb no pain comes up. Makes it hard to do the work if I'm not letting myself feel those things.

 

[Phantom74]

I feel like being locked in my mind most of the time not knowing heads or tails of the whole picture of things. The war I fight is that which I fight to keep locked up inside me. I am married and my wife is a strong woman and has been by me the whole way. Then I've added to my war by going to war. Dealing with so many stupid rules to be PC in a combat zone you kidding me? There are so many things that go inside my head all at once. It's hard to deal with it most of the time. If you have someone you love that's been there for you let them know you appreciate them. Even your dog let him or her that you love them a enjoy their company. Note some of the early signs of your emotions coming on. Then ask yourself why are getting upset for. That's what I do anyway it helps from time to time.

 

[jo may]

Numbness is my biggest safety net.

 

[Phantom74]

It's really not the way to live though. I should knew I've been numb all my life and now it's it's hard to control the moods trying to share my love with those whom I love.

 

[wcdean]

It's like living life in Monochrome. You won't notice all the wonderful colors until you change the settings on the TV. You have to do this if you want to see a different picture, you can't expect it to change on it's own.

I've found that the toughest choices for me in my recovery are the ones I need to take; it actually makes it pretty easy for me... to decide anyway. Sticking with the decision I understand is also a challenge; fortunately for me I am so bull-headed that the biggest mistake a person can make with me is to challenge me, to tell me "it's not possible". So I look at my "mountains" as individual challenges, not necessarily to tackle all of them in a day, or a week for that matter. But I will triumph over any challenge laid before me, in my own time.

 

[doglover]

Thank you all... I think I'm discovering one big problem with facing things. It increases my overall stress and my overall functioning goes down a lot. And then I take the regular blips of life as huge, deep affronts to my character. And I want to cut off any activity that could trigger me because I feel so frayed.

I'm used to making it relatively okay in the world, but every time I commit to facing my past, things get really REALLY stormy and that repels me from my intention to face things. :/

And then I start to feel self-blame about it, like I feel like I create chaos when I'm stressed. I bet that's not true, I bet things just feel more chaotic so I react to things I wouldn't if I were still in splitting land.

I'm trying to hunker down and face things anyway but how it impacts my interpersonal life makes it hard to continue. It's like I want to just take one day, deal with the worst of it, and then have everything feel comfortable again, like I only feel like I can tolerate one day of this... and I don't think that is realistic but that's what my emotional side wants.

 

[ice5]

I almost feel glad when I express anger...At least I have some emotion. Right now I have no feeling of love, guilt, remorse, happy, sad...just in the middle. The occasional angry is a good feeling. I don't want to be around others...I just want to be alone. I wish I could feel something.