YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

This is something that has been going on for a long time, and I know the root of it is in the way I was raised but: I have a hard time identifying emotions.

It's such an odd thing to try and describe. It's like you know you're having an emotion yet somehow disconnected from it at the same time. Particularly intense emotions.

I had a particularly crappy day today. Like on a scale of 1 to 10, this a solid 8 (I wanted to write around it, but I lost a very-much-loved pet suddenly this morning). I pushed back something that that looking back I cognitively know that it's sadness and grief, yet I'm standing so far behind it. I'm crying just because I am. There's this disconnect between the outside events that cause an emotion and connecting with the feeling that happens as a result. I can suck it up and turn it off instantly.

Lately, with the help of therapy, I've been working on identifying my emotions more—why emotional things connect to physical feelings. Allowing myself to feel emotions. While I'm sitting with my MIL later, I had the strangest thoughts. "Is this sadness? What do I feel? Is sadness heaviness in the chest? " I don't know. I really did not know. All that I could touch was—as someone else on the board described it—a deep well of crying that just would not break open. A part of me really just wanted to break down and sob. And I couldn't.

When I was a kid, my mother could not handle sadness, anger, or grief. I was not allowed to feel these things. If I was angry, she would hit me. If I was crying while being hit, she would tell me stop crying (isn't that always the most absurd thing? Oh hey, yeah, lemme flip that switch so you can slap me around in peace.). If I was crying because something sad that happened to me, she would ignore it or try to move on as quickly as possible ("Why are you still upset about that?"). If it was something that happened to the whole family, her emotions took priority. It became a morbid kind of joke between my sister and I. "How do think I feel?" If we didn't suck it up and trying to make her feel better she would rage at us or cut us off.

I got to be such an expert at not feeling things. I just keep stuffing things down into the Big Box of Crap and slamming the lid shut.

I'm so sorry you lost your pet yesterday, Hedgie.

I can understand why you'd be disconnected from your emotions given your mom's reactions to them when you were growing up. It IS absurd and kind of sick to blame a child for crying while you're hitting them. It makes me sad to think of a little Hedgie getting punished just for showing feelings.

I hope you know that however you feel your emotions or don't feel them about your pet right now, it's okay.


rivergirl

These are my suggestions:

Treat any addictions or, compulsive or depriving behaviours you might have.

Be aware of the absences of emotion as much as the unfamiliar presence of it; those gaps have clues too.

Be gentle with yourself; emotional intensity or forcing emotional states is not the key.

Being in touch with all your emotions is not necessarily the relief/release from your current state of suffering that you might expect; it brings its own turmoil and challenges.

This helped me so it might help you: http://lifehacker.com/find-the-perfect- ... 1653013241

Otherwise, I can say that you are absolutely not alone in this. In fact, this part is a strong part of my bio as well: "When I was a kid, my mother could not handle sadness, anger, or grief." In fact, my mother has explicitly stated that she had me because she "needed an easy baby."

Another thing that I'm trying to do is work inside out—notice a sensation in my body and work from there. Nausea or a tightness in my stomach, racing heartbeat, trembling hands. Cues that will tell me there's something happening. It's really hard to do and involves a lot of sitting with excruciating discomfort. I'm told it's the starting point, though.

Thanks everyone.

I finally came out of that dead-zone. It really does help to stop for a moment and really think about what is going on. Working outward, like HowDidIGetHere said. Being able to name it, identify it, or even just sit with the feelings for a little while helped a lot. I had to tell myself that my mom doesn't have any control over me anymore; it's okay for me to be sad for as long and as much as I need to.