LiveInPeace

I can't seem to understand how to do this, or how to allow myself to do this. I keep trying to numb out or stuff my feelings down.

The core is that I experienced extreme emotional abuse growing up (and still from these people as an adult), which caused me to feel guilty because it was turned around to be my fault, which caused me to not be able to express any feelings, especially anger toward the abuser....even if the abuser was not in the room. Most alcoholics acted/act out, whereas I acted/act in.

The more I am struggling with allowing my feelings to surface, to give myself permission to, to figure how to, the more I see my program slipping. It just doesn't feel safe allowing myself to not stuff down my feelings. Numb is the only place that feels safe.

teatreeoil007

Hi live in peace... Yes we all want peace...you've given me lots to think about.... Learning how not stuff my feelings without making things worse... Gonna think about this some more... Thx

teatreeoil007

That temporary numbness provides a deceitful safety net... But only delays or suspends reality and living life on life's terms.....( there's a start ) .... Which includes feeling things instead of being numb. We were created with an ability to feel .

Soberwolf

Have you considered a talking therapy to help with this Liveinpeace I'm currently doing this

oldsoul1122

My story is similar. Although my main abuser passed away the effects of the abuse are still there. I'm early in sobriety and what helps me is to first get in touch with the anger and frustration. I did this along with beating pillows, yelling. I was taught never to get angry, show emotion. That was shortly followed by pain and crying. Instead of getting into your head and numbing "feel" the feeling as painful as it may be. You are willing and that's a great start!

Anna

Hi,

I understand your desire to allow the feelings you've been repressing to come to the light. It's something that is crucial if we are to find peace and be healed. I also suffered long-term abuse as a child and I know how painful it is. One thing I would ask you is why are these people still hurting you and, why are they still in your life? In my case, it was my parents and as an adult I realized I had to step away from them because they were toxic to me. I had minimal contact by phone (we lived thousands of miles apart), but for me it was necessary.

As SW said, therapy could be very helpful. I have also found meditating to be helpful.

DG0409

This is a tough one. I don't think that there is any clean, easy way to do this. I think wanting to feel your feelings is a good start though.

I can relate to "acting in". I've always done that too. Even when I know what I am feeling, I really struggle to talk to other people about it. I feel like don't know how to share my emotions at all.

Sobriety has forced me to start feeling more of them though. I spent so many years drinking and doing drugs to try to avoid or change my feelings. All the s*** I tried to bury just resurfaces and I can keep trying to bury it, but it doesn't do much good.

And starting to feel all the feelings is tough as he11 too. Lately, I've kept having these feeling of anger that are surfacing, and I feel like I can barely breath or function at times. I try to remember that they are just feelings and they won't kill me. Sometimes, feelings just need to be felt before they will go away. But some feelings are SO HARD to feel.

I want to feel like going through these things will bring me closer to healing. But sometimes, I don't feel like that at all- I just feel miserable and angry and under that, I feel a lot of pain and worthlessness.

But through all of it, I try to just keep telling myself that even though I don't know how to heal or how to get to a place where I feel better, I am going to keep trying. Finding a balance of feeling my feelings, but then not getting stuck in them and obsessing is another challenge for me. If I am angry or upset, I let myself cry if I need to. But I also try to focus on doing positive things for myself and my life.

teatreeoil007

Sometimes it can seem like anything but peaceful when you "allow" yourself to just feel the various emotions....especially those emotions that are kind of negative or 'darker' in scope. But as others have said and agree--the various emotions, once they reside within a person need to be dealt with somehow, someway and there are various ways to deal with them. There is music, physical exertion, arts and crafts, talk therapy, writing, reading self-help books. talking to a trusted friend or family member or .... just talking to a complete stranger on an airplane! The main thing is those emotions need to be dealt with instead of ignored.

And, I absolutely get it when you say you were taught it wasn't "ok" to have certain emotions the way you were raised. But, here we all are in the Oprah and Dr. Phil generation!! It's OKAY to feel angry, for example. It's what a person DOES with that anger that makes the difference. I use anger as an example emotion because it is a very common one to be suppressed.

It's my belief that suppressed emotions, especially one's like anger and frustration can lead to depression and use of substances to numb that feeling that we were told was FORBIDDEN or to help us feel better when we are depressed....No they may not have used the word "forbidden" when they taught you anger was not okay, but in a way that is the msg we may have got. So....what happens? We start stuffing and stuffing and stuffing....then other things happen and they resurface, resurface, resurface....often taking on unhealthy forms.

Perhaps one helpful thing a person can do to allow emotions be expressed is just give yourself permission to do so and give yourself the opportunity and space/place to do so. Part of stuffing emotions isn't just that we've been conditioned it's not okay...part of it is that people are just plain old too busy with life to allow their selves to just stop and get in touch with their feelings.

LiveInPeace

Thanks for the reply, teatreeoil. I'd love to hear more about what you think about regarding it.

Sometimes I wonder if addiction at the core is because we are not bringing our feelings up to the surface?

LiveInPeace

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. :-) You bring up a really good point, that when we stuff our feelings down, they're bound to come out eventually (and that usually they end up coming out sideways).

Living life on life's terms....still struggling with that. Part of the emotional sobriety, I guess, which we have to figure out after the steps are completed?

If we were created with an ability to feel, (I love that....I'm going to try to remind myself that God gave us feelings for a reason) then why does feeling feelings feel so scary? :-(

LiveInPeace

Hi soberwolf,

Funny you should mention talk therapy. I've been it on and off for the past 20 years, but have only had 3 good therapists (including the one I have now). I get angry at myself for wasting all this time in therapy, but my husband says that I had bad therapists before.

I will say I used to spend a lot of time "venting" in therapy and I don't think I was actually able to "hear" a lot of what therapists were trying to say to me, or process anything. Plus it was always extremely hard for me to verbalize things, especially the abuse from home. It was always hard to verbalize anything in therapy, because growing up I was never really allowed to have any feelings or stuff like that. Tough to explain.

Currently I am back in talk therapy with an awesome, direct, therapist who is one of us. He's fantastic. He's trying to get me to express my feelings but it has been one of the most difficult things I've ever done.

I thought working my 12 step program and allowing myself to become authentic was difficult.... allowing myself permission to have feelings, and to express them, makes that look like a cake walk.

Do you feel comfortable sharing how you're finding talk therapy in addition to working your AA program, helpful? Sometimes I find the two conflict, but I'm making it work and for the most part I find it's synergistic.

I see under your name you have the word "Boundaries". Is that part of what you work on in talk therapy?

LiveInPeace

Hi Oldsoul,

I'm sorry your story is similar. Sometimes I think I'll be free when my abuser passes away, but I know that isn't always the case. Therapists have told me that people still hear the old tapes in their heads.

I used to vent a lot, and get all upset and resentful. I thought that was being in touch with feelings?? I'm so confused how that wasn't.

How do you get in touch with the anger and frustration?

Do you find that punching pillows, yelling, and crying is a release?

Thanks for pointing out that I am willing to feel the feelings. That hadn't even occurred to me. That's better than where I was.

Best of luck on your sobriety. (You sound a lot healthier than I was in my early days.) It's quite a fascinating journey of growth and healing!

LiveInPeace

Hi Anna,

Thank you for your reply. I wish it wasn't so scary to let those feelings come to the light. Maybe I need to think of God being there with me to give me courage, hmm.

I am sorry you also suffered abuse as a child. They're actually not really in my life, as I have very limited contact with them per my therapist. I would never have been able to get this far in both my sobriety and my therapy if I was still in their tornado of dysfunction, toxicity, and sickness. We do have minimal phone/email contact.

However, I am also on Step 9 which is confusing the crap out of me. I owe an amends to a sibling (nothing major but just an overall pattern of behavior), and although I am willing to make it, I am just confused. She can be a toxic, abusive, bully, too, because she modeled my mother's behavior, and is in absolute denial about how she acts. She actually brags about it and gets her self-esteem from treating people this way.

It's been difficult explaining to my sponsor the level of toxicity of certain family members. But I know my therapist gets it, and he's got my back. I don't know how people make amends to abusive people in person. I don't think these particular people are healthy enough to see how they behaved in the least.

So although these folks aren't really in my life, making amends brings them right back in, and I know they're going to try to treat me in the same role I used to be in. I don't want to fall back into that out of fear, you know? Although the healthy part of me knows I am not a child anymore, and they don't have any power out of me, it still is confusing.

Did you make amends to the abusers in your life?

Thanks. Therapy has been very helpful since I've allowed myself permission to get honest. Meditating I do try to do and love it when I can, but I am still fearful of the stillness and silence. It's hard to explain. My sponsor doesn't understand why I don't follow her directions to meditate. It's like this: when you're verbally/emotionally abused, there's that fear that sitting in the stillness will bring back "that voice" all over again.

chardis

Hello there.

"Part of the emotional sobriety, I guess, which we have to figure out after the steps are completed? "

I was drawn to this statement.

I feel that emotional sobriety and the steps go hand in hand.

Best wishes.

LiveInPeace

Thanks for pointing that out. :-) That really makes me feel better about where I'm at in my healing.

I'm so glad I'm not alone in this. I frustrated my sponsor terribly, because she was one who acted out a lot as a child, and couldn't understand why I wasn't telling her how I acted out. I acted out somewhat, but I mostly acted in because acting out just was not safe.

Oh my gosh you hit it perfectly with what you said about struggling to talk about people about what you're feeling or how to share your emotions!! Sometimes I have no freaking clue what I am feeling. But even if I do know what I'm feeling, then I have no freaking clue how to even verbalize it!!!

Yes me too, but only to a point. I was extremely angry while writing my Step 4, but I was told I shouldn't have been writing if I was that angry. And I transferred addictions during my step work and I think sometimes I still have a bit of a transferred addiction going on because I'm still stuffing my feelings down. I thought Step 5 was going to help clear this all. It did at first, but then I realized some anger was still there.

So what do you do about the feelings that resurface, now that you know not to bury it? I'm still working on the awareness that I'm numbing the feelings out.

Yes I agree, it's making me cranky! lol. Yes I hear you about those anger feelings. Those are my most difficult. I could see my abusers as spiritually sick, I had compassion for them, but the anger is still there strong.

Wow I loved what you said about feelings just being feelings and they won't kill you. I am so out of touch with my feelings, due to never being allowed to have any from childhood on, that I am scared of them now and confused by them. They feel uncomfortable because I'm not used to them or know what to do with them or about them.

Yes I agree. Some feelings are so hard to feel. Especially ones from childhood.

Yes same here!! Miserable, angry, pain, and worthlessness--exactly!! But maybe it's supposed to get worse before it gets better?? I'm just not sure. Maybe it's easier for some of us and harder for others. Or maybe we're supposed to say it's okay to feel miserable, angry, pain, and worthless because we're not drinking to make it go away?? I wish I knew.

Same here sometimes I obsess about the feeling too. It's like it gets stuck. Do you ever have that?? I wish I could find that "balance". I know exactly what you're talking about. Sort of like getting to a place of just feeling a feeling and letting it go.

I try to do positive things but when I'm in this place, I can't. Hopefully we'll figure out how to get out of it.

LiveInPeace

Hi Chardis,
I would love it if you would expand on this so I can understand better.
Thank you.

biminiblue

LiveInPeace, have you read this sticky thread from the Anxiety forum here on SR? It's excellent.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...anagement.html

I just want to say, your feelings are valid - and they still will pop up from time to time no matter how healed you are. THAT'S OK. It's learning to put them in a safe place that is key. I think you'll really relate to that thread I linked.

LiveInPeace

Good point. I have to remind myself that feeling negative feelings is still a good thing, even if negative. My therapist reminds me I need to also feel positive feelings (I just don't feel worthy of that, I guess). It's challenging because I was raised in an abusive house with very narcissistic self-absorbed emotionally unstable parents. It was always all about their feelings.

LOL thank you for saying this. These are all good ideas. I wasn't allowed hobbies as a kid/teen so I appreciate this reminder. I love losing myself in a hobby now, because I can feel my thoughts coming in and floating right out. I don't get stuck on them. Same with my feelings I think.

Thank you for saying that. Sometimes I wonder if my posts make sense. I think that's why they are always so freaking long. I get anxious. :-(

I LOVE what you wrote about being okay to feel angry, but it's what we do with it that's important!! Both my parents raged when angry. I guess I always felt then that anger was a very scary, unsafe emotion. Once my therapist said to go exercise if I felt angry. I looked at him puzzled. I loved the idea, but it was so foreign to me. But then I realized in the past, I have actually done this. Nothing like a spin class with an energetic motivating instructor to get some anger out! I hadn't realized that was a healthy way to deal with anger instead of suppressing.

Yes I absolutely agree!!!! I've been depressed and anxious since childhood. I was told I have treatment resistant depression (which just made me angry, which I stuffed down, lol). Absolutely--the message I got was that those feelings were FORBIDDEN. I even was given the harsh message that being depressed was forbidden. If you're angry, you're a bad, disrespectful, ungrateful, child/teen, and you're making mom look like a bad mother so how dare you. That's the message I got.

Why am I still stuffing, that's my question. Or maybe I'm just where I'm supposed to be, because I actually have awareness that all this time with my addictions I was stuffing my feelings down or trying to change them and not being authentic with them? Hmm. More things to ponder.

It's the permission I need to first work on... Again this is so helpful and you're all helping me to figure out how to talk about this in therapy. I need to give myself permission, and I need to feel safe in doing it. I was never given permission to, and whenever I tried, it was not safe. Rages from my parents got worse anytime I tried to express my feelings. I was shut down harshly, abusively, and immediately.

I apologize if my posts have been long-winded. I wish I knew how to not be so freaking wordy. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, you would be helping me, not hurting my feelings. It's like, I type as I think and I talk as I think. That's gotta be annoying. :-(

LiveInPeace

I just wanted to give a shout out and say THANK YOU to everyone who has been so kind to take the time to post on my thread here. You've all given me so much to think about and work with. It has helped greatly and means so much.

LiveInPeace

No I haven't seen that. Thank you so much for posting it, I will definitely check it out. :-)

Wow. "Your feelings are valid." Do you know how powerful that statement is? It stopped me in my tracks. I feel like crying but I can't let myself. Validation was always something I craved. Self-validation is ridiculously difficult because of the "brainwashing" from childhood that it's all my fault how I was treated.

I love that you point out that feelings themselves are not bad. I love the thought of putting them in a safe place. I am so extremely eager to learn about that. Putting them in a safe place vs letting them come out sideways where they harm others, or stuffing them down where they harm myself, sounds so freaking awesome. Where do I sign up? lol