Seaglass

Hello again everyone, as previously mentioned, I've started seeing a therapist. While I've always known that the box was there, and have even looked into it quite regularly over the years, reviewing it largely as just the facts of my history, I feel at times as if I'm now playing with contents of Pandora's box, and of course, I don't know how to play. It isn't all bad. To be honest, I do believe that I am feeling better lately, although much more tired than usual. But it's weird territory.

One of the weird things has to do with the idea of emotional numbing/suppression/repression. For example, the therapist asks me a question, which leads me into telling her a "story" about some traumatic event from when I was young. Although I may or may not be crying, etc. when she asks me "what do you feel right now," I either have no idea, or I really don't think I'm feeling anything. I explained to her that I was simply relating the facts of my history. There was one time in which, in hindsight, I would say that I must have been distraught. If I saw someone who looked as I must have looked, I would say that that person was distraught. However, I know that at the time I had absolutely no idea what I was feeling, although I must have felt sad and scared I suppose. Furthermore, thinking back on it, I felt as if I were peering out from someone else's eye sockets, as if I were in a body that was slightly too large for me and not really mine. And no, I wasn't "on" anything. :p

The therapist frequently asks me "what" I am "feeling" in any given moment. She told me to try to really concentrate on what I'm feeling this week. So after some thought, I assume then, that "most" people "feel" something identifiable "most" of the time then? Even when nothing noteworthy has happened or is going on? I really don't feel anything most of the time, but it doesn't seem like a "bad" thing. Honestly, most of the time, I think I recognize when something happens to make me feel annoyed or angry I think. I think I will recognize when something makes me very happy. But in between those times, I don't have any recognizable feelings.

Just wondering what others think of this, or what others may have experienced with this, or if anyone knows any good reading specifically about this. All I've been able to find on the web is that I should address the numbing/suppression/repression and work on learning how to feel things in order to recover. But how do you work on learning to "feel things" that either really aren't there or that are completely invisible/intangible. It seems almost childish, since it seems that "feelings" are so elementary. It also kind of seems like I would be "making feelings up" based upon what I think someone should feel in a given situation, as if I were a character in a novel or a movie or something.

kudzujean

Sea,

I know before I got into recovery, and did a lot of work, I was emotionally numb too. I was taught very well not to feel. I used to self-mutilate, and even today if somebody asked me how I felt at the time, I'd say I don't know, I didn't feel much of anything.

It took experiential group therapy to help me break through the numbness and get in touch with my feelings. Since then, I've had individual therapy too, and am in two 12-step programs.

Sounds like you were taught not to feel too, not at all unusual in an alcoholic family. It took me a while to learn to allow myself to feel my feelings, and not just stuff them down. Glad you are on your recovery journey.