Why No Emotion?

[lostforgottensoul]

I compartmentalize and numb most of the boxes away at work and 24/7 for some. At work Im a numbed down shell of whom i really am.

What people around me see, if not the numbed down shell, is a "crazy rageful person" cause rage covers everything like the chocolate on a piece of chocolate covered candy.

Thats just the reality of trauma, not PTSD, but trauma...its what trauma has done to us and how we continue to exist in a world that is still going moving around us. Its either die or function a bit and functioning a bit requires some numbing until we can process and heal the trauma we are numbing.

 

[Chimera]

@lostforgottensoul
So well said.

 

[ShanaK]

I compartmentalize and numb most of the boxes away at work and 24/7 for some. At work Im a n...

@lostforgottensoul that is what is so hard for us supporters to watch. But that is exactly the same thing my husband has said. It is just go through the motions to get through the day and everything in the day as best as you can. Then when he gets home, he shuts off.

 

[Chimera]

Maybe he would consider this site...helpful. This place has saved my life, all of the people here have helped me save my life..

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@ShanaK i know thats hard to watch but thats the reality of trauma. Until healed from the trauma, he's doing what he can to 'make it'.

You have said in another thread, if im not mistaken, that he has a therapist and that's what he needs to heal from it. EMDR is a good therapy, when ready, to intergrate memories so that they dont have such power over us.

And as he's healing, those numbed boxes wont be as numb and it will feel like you just jumped into the lion's den...it will be emotions that he may not know how to deal with at first but each day it gets better, each step it gets better.

Think of ripping open a very old wound all the way to your bone and then pouring rubbing alcohol on it.

To me, thats how therapy feels. I still had the wound before therapy...i was just ignoring it and numbing it away and it never got healed; it just festered and got infected. Therapy is ripping it open, taking out the infection, and healing it correctly. But it sure feels a lot like rubbing alcohol on opened raw wounds.

 

[ShanaK]

@ShanaK i know thats hard to watch but thats the reality of trauma. Until...

I appreciate the heads up @lostforgottensoul. If I am not mistaken EMDR uses light therapy??? I have looked at some therapists a couple of hours away that use that therapy. But my husband was like "I don't know about that". But it has been good for you?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@ShanaK

EMDR is a certian type of therapy but def not light.

You should have an EMDR trained therapist, someone he feels comfortable with and somwhat (or fully) trusts and remember that EMDR takes time.

If you search EMDR on here there will be a shitload of threads. And here's this:

http://www.emdr.com/

And then a ton more of stuff if you google EMDR

 

[ShanaK]

@ShanaK

EMDR is a certian type of therapy but def not light.

You should...

Ok, I'll check it out! Thanks! I must have gotten it confused because I was reading about a therapy that uses light therapy. It is similar to the light therapy they use on kids with learning disabilities to retrain their brains.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@ShanaK theres several therapies out there.

If you can, the book my therapist had me buy a few yrs ago is:

Link Removed

It helps the sufferer and the supporter and its wonderful help, for me anyway.

 

[ShanaK]

@lostforgottensoul may I ask how long you have been doing EMDR?

 

[EveHarrington]

I wouldn't survive without compartmentalization. I've been doing it my whole life!

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@ShanaK i only did EMDR once, had a flashback and jumped completey over the chair backward and ended up hundled in the corner behind the chair...but I wasnt ready and so my experience isnt the usual.

That was about a year, things were tightly packed then, its 'loosened up' so he plans to go back to it soon. We have been having more important things to talk about and today, my first day out since going on seriquel XR, im feeling rather 'drugged' so i doubt we will today.

But memory intergration isnt easy work either.

@EveHarrington oh good god, id be a mess if i wasnt so damn good at compartmentalizing.