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Topics - Alias

#1
AD - Emotional Dysregulation / How to feel feelings?
August 03, 2018, 08:52:44 AM
This might sound dumb, but does anybody else have the issue of not feeling emotions? 

Evidently, I have emotions, but don't feel most of them.  My (otherwise excellent) therapist set me up in a DBT group, but it kind of feels like I'm in the wrong class.  The group is supposed to help with emotional regulation, but it seems really focused on helping people who have really strong emotions reel them in.  I have the opposite problem.  I occasionally have physiological responses out of nowhere but they seem completely random.  I don't feel whatever emotion it is, so I have to sort of reverse engineer it (consult a chart) to determine which emotion corresponds to the response.

For years, I've found it easy to discuss traumatic memories with horrified acquaintances (and sometimes strangers) because I have no emotional connection to those memories.  This also makes it really hard to determine where the line is between "interesting story that adds to the conversation", and "story that will horrify and/or traumatize listeners".  Apparently, I cannot begin EMDR or other trauma therapy until I can "feel" these things, but I need to work through this stuff in order to stop randomly losing gaps of time throughout my day.   :fallingbricks: :disappear:

Anyone else have this issue?  If so, do you have any suggestions?  Has anyone been successful in figuring out where the feelings went?   :Idunno:
#2
Hello all,

Sorry for the long post.  Looking forward to meeting some people here and sharing some mutual support, but I am not sure where I belong on this forum (adult or childhood).  Maybe someone can help...

I was recently diagnosed with c-ptsd and dpdr (depersonalization/derealization disorder).  While, in retrospect, my relationship with my parents growing up may have been emotionally abusive (not really sure how to qualify that) and set the stage for later problems, my most significant period of trauma occurred within an abusive relationship from the ages of 14-20.  Here are some brief summaries of the situations:

Upbringing:
My parents divorced when I was a toddler.  I lived with my mom, whose pattern was to get angry over something and not tell me about it.  Generally, she would refuse to talk to me/avoid looking at me/do things "angrily" for a week or so until I built up the courage to "detonate the bomb".  When I finally got her to tell me what I did wrong, she would yell (sometimes for hours) about how I left a glass on the table last week/never listen/am selfish and don't care how much I inconvenience people.  I would apologize until she begrudgingly accepted, and the cycle would start over in a couple days.  When she remarried, my stepdad was friendly, but had an explosive temper with no buildup.  He would be calm and friendly, showing no signs of irritation, then explode out of nowhere (usually from me talking too much).  Afterwards, he would immediately return to "calm and friendly", and pretend nothing happened.  Both of my parents were extremely adamant about suppressing any "negative" thoughts/emotions.  I got a lot of "don't ever give me that look/tone/attitude".  If I was in pain (sick, scraped a knee, etc), I "the look" warning me not to cry.   

Relationship (14-20):
When I was 14, I got into an abusive relationship with a boy at my new high school.  In the beginning, he told me all the time about how "special" I was...how (unlike other girls) I was "selfless" and "aware".  It quickly devolved into a nightmare of abuse and control.  He claimed to be "possessed by a demon" when he forced me into sexual acts and praised my "selflessness" for "taking care of him".  Even when not "possessed", he did things like calling one of my friends who lived out of town, convincing her that he literally killed me "because I made him mad", then convincing her to try and comfort him for being sad about it.  He did this in front of me just to prove he could.  Every night for 6 years, I had to tell him "stories" about him having sex with other girls, sometimes kids.  If I took too long or fell asleep, he would threaten to kill himself, or just hit me until I woke up.  Once, he dragged me out of bed by my hair and locked me out of the apartment naked at 3am.  He cheated on me with several women, occasionally promising their SOs they could have sex with me "to make it even".  They occasionally took him up on it.

Now (20-28):
I have been out of that situation for 8 years now, am happily married, and going back to school.  Evidently the pressure of school set off some issues I didn't realize that I had.  I didn't realize that I somehow stored the parts of my memories cataloging sequences of events separate from the components for physical and emotional feelings.  Now I am really struggling with dissociative issues, like losing large gaps of time with no memory of them.  Also discovered that I have not actually felt many emotions for so long, that I can't even tell when I have them (ie: not realizing tears are coming out of my eyes until they fall onto my paper, then being confused because I don't "feel" sad).  Everything is spiraling out of control and I'm trying to make some sense of my life.

Again, sorry for the novel.  I'm hoping someone can point me in the direction of the most appropriate section for my issues.  Let me know if any of you can relate as well.  Despite my emotional shortcomings, I've worked hard over the years to process this logically.  Maybe we can help each other.  :hug: