Had an argument with my therapist about whether feelings can kill.

[_-yeah_nah-_]

Had a recent bad session with my soon to be ex-therapist.
Our argument was she was saying that you/we couldn't die from our feelings. I disagreed.
I said if you had been where I had been, where basically everything is about feelings and your in absolute survival mode. No you can die from feelings 100%. Feelings are the substance why we do things. I would dare to say that it goes feelings then thoughts.

Opinions/Thoughts?

 

[Ecdysis]

Well, given that mental illness is often a terminal disease, for example through suicide or fallout from addiction (eg self-medicating to deal with unbearable feelings) I would say that feelings can and do kill people.

Also, research seems to say loneliness contributes to ill health and early death just as much as smoking does.

I do get what your T is saying tho. I think both perspectives are true, they're just different ways of looking at the issue.

For example, facing your fears head on in exposure therapy will not kill you even if it "feels" like it could.

 

[Weemie]

Opinions/Thoughts?

When people say you can't die from feelings, what they usually mean is that an emotion is not capable of causing death on its own. It can lead to suicide, which is fatal. But suicide isn't a feeling, it is a decision. In this, though, I'd argue that the distinction is entirely semantic. In the setting of therapy, such minutiae is hardly worth riling the patient up. It's plain that you mean emotions can lead to decisions that result in death, and that this is relevant for you. If your therapist is more concerned about semantic nitpicking, they're in the wrong profession.

 

[Sideways]

It’s been an incredibly helpful reminder for me at important times in the past.

With my panic attacks, for example. They always felt like the earth was imploding. And I would go to extraordinary lengths to avoid them. Dysfunctional levels of avoidance. Unable to get out of my own apartment in my attempt to avoid all the potential triggers.

My then-T insisted that the panic wouldn’t kill me. And in fact went through the worst case scenarios with me.

She was right. I’d survived worse, much worse, than the worst-case-scenario of having a panic attack. They were embarrassing and inconvenient, for sure. But a long long way from being something that would kill me.

Same with my depression. The depression itself wasn’t going to kill me. It came pretty damn close. To the point of that distinction being arguable. But actually, no - the depression wasn’t going to kill me. It was me that was the biggest threat to my life. Something entirely within my control (which my feelings are definitely not!).

There was something of a relief in that. All I had to do to survive was not make that decision. Over and over again. And, eventually, that got me through. I was in control of whether I lived or died. My choice.

Feelings are powerful things. But they don’t need to control your life. One of the amazing benefits of therapy for me was learning how to experience my feelings without needing to be afraid of them. They are absolutely fundamental to our experience of life, and being able to welcome them, notice them, give them space, without being ruled by them? That was an immense and amazing change in my life.

 

[No More]

It’s been an incredibly helpful reminder for me at important times in the past.

For me as well.

When it felt like the feelings were literally going to rip me in two down the middle and explode out of me it was really helpful for my therapist to keep reminding me that the feelings won’t kill me. It might feel like they are going to, but they won’t. It’ll be whatever action I take (or don’t take) that’s capable of doing that.

Feelings alone, however bad, won’t literally kill you. It’s your response to those feelings that has the power to do that. It’s learning to examine them, feel them, rationalise them, without being completely overwhelmed and becoming a fireball of feelings. It’s been a super important distinction for me to learn.

 

[_-yeah_nah-_]

Thanks for everyone's opinions/Thoughts I still respectfully disagree and maintain my original point. You can 100% die from your emotions! I almost did twice!
[Reference to OPs other thread removed]

I almost lost myself and trust me this is dying, you don't wake up.

 

[Ecdysis]

Hmm, okay, but that's a) not really PTSD related, I think and b) sounds more like it has to do with psychosis, and a quite extreme subset of that, or maybe c) something like autism where signals are not being processed by your brain in the "usual" way. And that means you're dealing with the extremes of things, that 99.9 % of normal life's stuff (including the more run of the mill mental health issues) won't be affected by.

I guess by that definition, yes, it's possible for a feeling (however we would define that on a brain chemistry level) to lead to an outcome where the person experiencing that state dies as a result...

But I'm not sure it's very helpful. It's like arguing about "Is it possible to die by having a meteorite land on your head while you are eating strawberry icecream and humming a Beatle's song?" I guess by the extreme definition, yes this is possible, but in terms of real life, it's basically an irrelevant issue that in 99.9% of cases should be discounted as unrealistic and unhelpful.

As for your personal experience of it - I'm sorry you've gone through it. It sounds like an incredibly rare, incredibly distressing experience.

I'm not sure how to work on that in therapy... How to accept and integrate that it's been a part of your life.

But as challenging as it may be to figure out how to come to peace with that experience and finding a way of processing it, I think it's really your best bet.

Finding people - even finding therapists who have any experience in this kind of area is probably difficult. I'd guess a therapist specialised in psychosis would be most likely to "get it".

 

[Weemie]

You can 100% die from your emotions! I almost did twice!

You are still alive, so your experiences are not "100% proof" that an emotion can kill someone. You felt pain, and suffered, and probably wanted to die - but you did not actually drop dead. It's a bit like the Princess Bride. Almost dead isn't dead. ("There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.") We know that you aren't dead, since you are still here, speaking to us.

What is it that you are looking to gain out of these interactions with people? Do you just want someone to agree with you that an emotion is "100% deadly" even though there is absolutely no scientific evidence that this is true? Or are you looking for someone to validate that your experiences were painful, and made you suicidal? Because that can be done, and hopefully that is a message you are hearing from others.

But there's no real purpose to getting into what amounts to a semantic argument about non-scientific phenomena. Mental health shit is rife with people confusing their experiences and their opinions for facts. Which makes it all the harder to suss out what is helpful and what is harmful - especially when we throw impairments of logical deduction into the mix - such as those involved in psychosis.

Insisting on this isn't going to help you, and ultimately, it will cause a breakdown of stability and harm. If you're convinced that having emotions can cause death, you will not interact with emotions in a healthy manner, which will increase your suffering in the long-term even if it provides benefit (by way of acting out internal compulsions to avoid emotional sensations, which will momentarily reduce anxiety) in the short.

 

[Sideways]

If you're convinced that having emotions can cause death, you will not interact with emotions in a healthy manner

So well said!

 

[Sideways]

Mod Note:
@_-yeah_nah-_ - do not refer people to your other thread. It isn’t necessary. Members will read it if they want to.

 

[_-yeah_nah-_]

Thanks for everyone's opinions/Thoughts I still respectfully disagree and maintain my original point. You can 100% die from your emotions! I almost did twice!
[Reference to OPs other thread removed]

I almost lost myself and trust me this is dying, you don't wake up.

Thanks everyone, apparently I am not allowed to share links to my other post?? which makes no sense + I do not understand? kind of defeats the purpose, of sharing efficiently. People should be able to write and share their back story with out needing to write it every time. Otherwise your threads would get way to long and noone would read them properly. But if you are interested in understanding more why I feel this way (ie feelings can kill, 100%) a link to my story is on my home page.

Outside that. I know that I'm right, I went through it. I don't like being told by those that haven't experienced it that this is not the case while I know it's possible. The entire event is terribly Traumatic, one in which I'm really struggling to recover from.

What do I want?
I don't know what I want, I guess I want to be heard. I want people to know. Maybe there can be some silver lining to all this that this helps someone else. And literally going through hell twice really wasn't for nothing.

To date I must say that I am disappointed with "therapy" the only reason I'm here and not dead or in jail, is the drug cocktail and a good set of noise cancelling headphones.
That and the time I have invested internally on my self, to bring myself back. (Not therapy)
I am yet to see any real benefit from therapy.
I'm hoping to be surprised

 

[Ecdysis]

drug cocktail

What combination of meds have helped you? Can you describe how they've helped, for example with symptoms?