- Thread starter
- #13
OMG. Thank you, thank you for saying this:
I was conditioned from infancy, to "suck up" whatever wasn't totally dissociated. Emotional responses. Physical illness or pain. I learned to hide everything and be "normal." This is still my biggest struggle, really, to not hold it all in. Even the acute stuff. Laugh it off. Shake it off. Pretend everything is fine. Because the conditioning is that if you don't, the consequences will annihilate you, either physically or emotionally. Ironically, my health probably wouldn't have gotten so annihilated in the first place if I had been connected enough to my body and emotions, and emotionally courageous enough to talk to somebody about the things that were happening to me.
Have you found ways to not hide it so much?I find those with the most severe pain +/or illness hide it best and complain the least. In doing so, I don't think others understand the degree. Or rather, most assume were it worse the person would act and express it more, because they couldn't help to do so. But those post-trauma, or especially long-standing +/or from childhood, often have learned to 'suck up' and hide much as possible, in every way and especially publically or to other people. Including especially the pain they're in, chronic or acute.
I was conditioned from infancy, to "suck up" whatever wasn't totally dissociated. Emotional responses. Physical illness or pain. I learned to hide everything and be "normal." This is still my biggest struggle, really, to not hold it all in. Even the acute stuff. Laugh it off. Shake it off. Pretend everything is fine. Because the conditioning is that if you don't, the consequences will annihilate you, either physically or emotionally. Ironically, my health probably wouldn't have gotten so annihilated in the first place if I had been connected enough to my body and emotions, and emotionally courageous enough to talk to somebody about the things that were happening to me.
:laugh::cry:I always hear - but you don't look disabled. I'd like to say that I'm bat shit crazy, but I don't.
Yep. I relate. I don't know what I look like, but I'm sure this is it. Although I'm not too quiet when I write. But then again, I don't write much either when things are really bad.People who suck it up are mostly quiet and if you look at them, there is a certain set to their face, a clenching of muscles.