Do You Feel Feelings.

[SnowJo]

Feelings are very confusing. I can cry on a rare occasion and I "think" it is associated with fear, but I...

I used to feel so worthless that I didn't have a right even to feel angry or sad. After one series of the wrong kind of "help" I though if I "forgave" my father in a letter and apologised to him this would mean I could get well and all would be "forgiven". This man who is a pedophile, who terrorized us every day for 12 years of my life, literally trying to kill me almost daily for the last year left alone with him at one stage and the rest of the time left with my little brother to try and defend ourselves against and insane psychopath that though he "owned us" was once a man we had loved as our father and pinned our dreams onto for eventual happiness. Luckily for me my mother decided to "swan" home and "save" us, but seriously she then got with one of the kindest most decent men in the entire world (how... can't answer.. but he was my hero and altogether he died recently, will always be the father of my heart). My honorary father a man whom I could only ever imagine I could hope to fill his hopes and dreams for my happiness and my future.

In grewing up through this craziness, one of my survival strategies was to develop a coping mechanism of a globalized anger that I used as "rocket fuel" to try and propel me the heck out of there and keep myself in a constantly controlled pma (positive mental attitude) Anthony Robins style state if mind. I didn't cry, I hated the word victim and refused to be one. No one was going to get the better of me again. Until one day I collapsed couldn't even use my body, saw words, stop functioning completely. (And had a child at school to take care of). Interestingly I only collapsed when alone. I had decided to quit my job as it was unhealthy as the bosses were drinking at work. I had earnt some money and thought the best plan was to leave and become a better mother and be there instead of a nanny which I had become to rely on few years earlier. Quitting my job and being alone at home took all of my automatic functioning away and all I could be was a lump on the floor. When it was time for my daughter to return I would become high functioning again but without work I was in trouble. It's been a very long journey and to tell you the truth in some ways it's still only just beginning. I never got to develop a "me". I was a misfit puzzle of reactionary responses with a very confused view of the world. But in my favor I wanted a) to be a good mother. b) to be good not bad as a person c) wanted to be " successful". And basically that's still the same today.

 

[shell]

I feel and process things physically, I am not a visual person at all. Emotions are just another way I experience things physically, I feel sad in the pit of my stomach, anger in my neck and chest and fear is expressed by me leaving my body, disgust is nausea. For a long time I was numb and disconnected from my body, over time I returned to connect with my body and my emotions, although when things are really intense I find it easier to dissociate.

I am female.

 

[fellowsufferer]

I am female. I also have difficulty feeling and being aware of them. If i feel stressed out (most of the times), i feel numbed. If once in a while, i can get relaxed, it is possible to feel and get in touch with them. For me at the moment, the issue is, how to get relaxed without getting intoxicated, but handeling it in a healthy way! I struggle with this at this time, in my life!

 

[Chava]

I resist all feeling, especially if tipping towards sadness (realizing I can't do sadness well without feeling like I'm dying). But, I'll use that example because I'm feeling okay at the moment. I read somewhere that it's hard to be smiling and laughing and "feel" sadness. But if you experiment with slumping over and curling in and looking down, you will sense it. Maybe just an idea to run by your husband in your conversation about this. I really understand not being able to identify the body connections, but have also realized they are there.

For me, sadness really is this caving in. I sometimes even wonder if my lungs collapsing as a young kid was some response to my environment or failure-to-thrive sort of experience. I was kept alive medically. In a different age I would have died. Now I still cave in, have chronic back pain, can't focus on my breathing, and can't feel sad without simultaneously feeling like I'm dying. When tipping into body memory land, I can't tell the difference between "sick" and "sad", especially if I'm having respiratory issues. Yesterday my inhaler helped my sadness. ???? :O_o:

I'm not way into things like Chinese medicine, but the lungs connect to the emotion of sadness (also grief, non-attachment, and shame). I think th connection is interesting because long before I knew anything about meridians, I felt sadness in my chest (also heart and lungs very interconnected, obviously). I also feel very heavy (and so did my lung before they collapsed and the air seeped into my back).

Little children are good examples. They do not have mental formations to attach to their emotions...they are purely embodied. If they feel joy, you see it all over their face and body. Scared, same thing...and children all have very similar protective postures associated with fear (freezing, pulling in, scanning, etc). A baby without a good attachment, neglected or abused, is at real risk for dying. Their bodies just stop growing and instead shut down (I feel like I carry a ghost of this all the time...not helped by an environment that encouraged non-existence or "disappearing").

Our emotions, at a very basic level, protect us...that's why they are all tied to changes in the autonomic nervous system and physical responses in the body. Fear with a smile does no good. Fear connected to fleeing or freezing or withdrawing or curling in to protect vital parts...that makes natural, biological sense.

 

[KwanYingirl]

I've had a mind/body split since I was 4 if not younger. As a child I would get beat and learned not to feel it. Not the same as rape. I relive that pain, but I wouldn't describe the feeling as an emotion just as excruciating pain and terror.ive been working on reconnecting my mind and body, but I have to admit that I don't have any mastery in this. I have emotions but it's all in my mind. My body doesn't express itself. I'm a woman.

 

[InvisibleSun]

For many, many years, I was very numb young woman..I felt nothing. I used to cut myself to feel and I was completely dead and void inside. Now, that I'm getting a little older I feel emotions very intensely, both physically and psychologically. I've slowly been working towards steering these feelings in a more positive direction, but it's going to take a lot of work. It's all very confusing and overwhelming..

 

[KwanYingirl]

@InvisibleSun i agree. It's pretty overwhelming learning to tolerate feelings, even good ones. I can't hardly stand the sunshine on my skin! Hang in there, we've cut long enough, time for healing now.

 

[InvisibleSun]

@KwanYingirl..absolutely! One day this all won't seem so strange anymore..

 

[katz]

I'm glad to know that other people have the same problem of feeling as I do. I know that this may sound odd...but I want to feel--even if it is emotional pain. I also used to hit myself physically when I was a child. Now, as an adult, I know not too. But, I am still searching for the "feelings". I want to feel the emotional pain, so that I can mourn, and then go forward. I have been stuck at this point for quite a few years. I've tried writing, but it still can not bring out the emotional pain. Especially when I'm with my family, I "shut down". I show and feel nothing. I'm so afraid that it will never happen. I want to cry and be comforted, but, I can't get myself to let go. I even drive back to one of places that "it" happened. I'm hoping that I will at least start to cry. Even when my partner passed away, I still have not grieved for him. I just locked it away.

 

[Kailani]

I was like looking at a rock; very little would affect me. Then I started getting comments from people like I was cold and never cried and I was sick of the comments so I started to read trauma books and yawned a lot and had some tears but they still feel disconnected from my body. Like my body is shedding a few tears and I don't know why. At least the books helped keep away the comments. After reading these posts it makes me think there is still more to do in the emotion category. I was always told " no blood, no tears". And was not aloud to express emotions.

 

[Weemie]

the only feeling i feel physically is anger, my berserk button is pretty intense. hooray adrenaline.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

based on things I have mentioned in chat

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