No emotion when talking about trauma memories

[Healingtrees]

Hi, new here but just wanting to see if anyone else feels no emotion when talking about their trauma memories? Im feeling like there is something wrong with me, I can feel pain and body memories and i shake and feel fear and anxiety but i don't feel sad or angry or emotional. I know how much hurt i carry inside of me so I don't understand why I cant feel it when i talk about my trauma and why I don't cry. I feel desperate to grieve and cry but i dont know if it will ever be possible.

 

[Movingforward10]

Totally relate. I used to call this emotional constipation! As it felt like it needed to come out but just was blocked and unable to. Particularly with the crying.

But, it will come out. It's a looonnnngggg difficult process to get in touch with the feelings, and attribute them to where they need to go (rather than it coming out in other ways like addictive behaviours, or self harm, or whatever method it is).

Have you got a therapist to work this through with?

 

[Healingtrees]

Totally relate. I used to call this emotional constipation! As it felt like it needed to come out but just was blocked and unable to. Particularly with the crying.

But, it will come out. It's a looonnnngggg difficult process to get in touch with the feelings, and attribute them to where they need to go (rather than it coming out in other ways like addictive behaviours, or self harm, or whatever method it is).

Have you got a therapist to work this through with?

Thank you so much, I really appreciate your reply. I have got a therapist and she has helped me a lot, I’ve been in therapy for years and I still find it hard to speak about memories at all and when I do I don’t feel the emotions I know are inside. I just feel like there is something wrong with me because I show emotions and feel emotions for other things (although I didn’t used to be able to)

 

[arfie]

i'll second @Movingforward10 's description of "emotional constipation," though my shrinks seem to prefer the term, "dissociation." i still suffer the phenom while talking about ^it^, but the aftermath can be a hell ride. i believe that processing the emotions privately is enough. i have healed tremendously from learning how to talk about ^it^ and processing the emotions attached, but my trauma tales never will be my favorite happy hour tales. i save the vocal inflections for more casual tales.

 

[Healingtrees]

i'll second @Movingforward10 's description of "emotional constipation," though my shrinks seem to prefer the term, "dissociation." i still suffer the phenom while talking about ^it^, but the aftermath can be a hell ride. i believe that processing the emotions privately is enough. i have healed tremendously from learning how to talk about ^it^ and processing the emotions attached, but my trauma tales never will be my favorite happy hour tales. i save the vocal inflections for more casual tales.

Thank you, I’m grateful for your reply and feel less alone knowing it’s not just me. I don’t know when the emotions will come but I’m dreading it.

 

[arfie]

I don’t know when the emotions will come but I’m dreading it.

in my own case, that dread seems to have been the biggest thing making it so hard to process my emotions. with the help of radical acceptance and mindfulness training, my emotions have begun to feel more like currents in an ever-moving stream. even the most unpleasant of emotions pass quickly when i let them.

'tis nothing in life either good nor bad. 'tis the thinking which make them so. ~shakespeare

you are far from alone. welcome to the honest side.

 

[Charbella]

I can relate. I’d still say if I were to talk in general terms about my abuse I’d have zero connection to it. However in EMDR I have lots of connection to all the emotions. Through that I also realize why I shut them off. They’re a lot.

How are you with identifying/having emotions about things in your day to day life?

I didn’t have much so my therapist and I started there. I’m still not good at them but they’re there at least.

When you say they aren’t there when you talk about the abuse do you mean in detail?

For me I can’t talk about it in detail. I can remember it, write about it, visualize it and I share it with my therapist through writing.

 

[Healingtrees]

I can relate. I’d still say if I were to talk in general terms about my abuse I’d have zero connection to it. However in EMDR I have lots of connection to all the emotions. Through that I also realize why I shut them off. They’re a lot.

How are you with identifying/having emotions about things in your day to day life?

I didn’t have much so my therapist and I started there. I’m still not good at them but they’re there at least.

When you say they aren’t there when you talk about the abuse do you mean in detail?

For me I can’t talk about it in detail. I can remember it, write about it, visualize it and I share it with my therapist through writing.

Thank you for your reply, some parts of me are able to feel and express emotions in day to day life and other parts of me aren’t.

It is quite new for me to be able to talk about memories but saying it out loud is hard and I find it almost impossible to say the worst parts, they also feel confusing and blurry in places and it’s like a 5 second memory that plays over and over rather than a clear memory of the abuse. In a lot of my memory it’s just a snippet and I don’t know what else happened I have barely any memory of my childhood and my teenage years are hard to remember, I have blocked a lot out and I dissociated a lot as a child. I also worry that my memories aren’t right because some of them feel too horrible to be real but I feel it in my body when I can’t feel the emotions.

 

[Healingtrees]

in my own case, that dread seems to have been the biggest thing making it so hard to process my emotions. with the help of radical acceptance and mindfulness training, my emotions have begun to feel more like currents in an ever-moving stream. even the most unpleasant of emotions pass quickly when i let them.

'tis nothing in life either good nor bad. 'tis the thinking which make them so. ~shakespeare

you are far from alone. welcome to the honest side.

Mindfulness has scared me at times, I’m scared to feel my emotions but I know It’s a pathway to healing, I am going to try and do some more.

 

[arfie]

I’m scared to feel my emotions but I know It’s a pathway to healing

in this context, i grow ever more convinced that fear and dread are one and the same. over the course of letting my feelings flow, i have discovered that the periods of feeling unpleasant emotion are brief and easy compared to the years of time wasted on fear and dread.

repeat shakespeare quote.

itsy bitsy baby steps, my friend. you are doing better than it feels.

 

[Freida]

Ya, my t has told me for years that it's weird listening to me describe absolutely horrific things and sounding like I'm ordering a double latte.

Totally normal in the ptsd world.

Not getting the words out on the bad stuff? Yep - that's normal too.
The words were come when you are ready - there is no need to rush it.

Not feeling emotions?
Yep, I'm a broken record but that's normal too!

And the whole "is it real thing?"
Yep. Normal.

Maybe you and your t could have a chat about what to expect in ptsd treatment because it's different than "regular" therapy. Another resource is The Body Keeps the Score - it does a great job explaining how this whole ptsd thing works.

 

[Healingtrees]

Ya, my t has told me for years that it's weird listening to me describe absolutely horrific things and sounding like I'm ordering a double latte.

Totally normal in the ptsd world.

Not getting the words out on the bad stuff? Yep - that's normal too.
The words were come when you are ready - there is no need to rush it.

Not feeling emotions?
Yep, I'm a broken record but that's normal too!

And the whole "is it real thing?"
Yep. Normal.

Maybe you and your t could have a chat about what to expect in ptsd treatment because it's different than "regular" therapy. Another resource is The Body Keeps the Score - it does a great job explaining how this whole ptsd thing works.

Thank you for taking the time to rely it means a lot. The body keeps the score is a great book, I listened to the audio version but it was a while ago and I have a terrible memory, I might try and listen again.