Can't cry or feel anything about my past... can anyone relate?

[1life68]

   I'm Adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse, as well as physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse for a prolonged period of time who has been working on healing through counceling, and recovery groups for the last four years but I have yet to be able to get angry, or cry about what happened to me.  When I think about it my body reacts in certain ways so even in therepy I get embarrassed and try to avoid it.  I'm just curios to know if anyone can relate to this, it's like I just don't have any emotions about it.  My therepist says it's becouse my feelings are stuffed down so far that they wont come up but I don't know. 

[Dutch Uncle]

Hi 1life68 

Welcome to Out of the Storm.
Yes, I can relate to what you write about not being able to get angry or cry. It's hard to 'open up' after having not been able to do any of these emotional things for so long. Embarrassment is something I relate to as well. The 'good' news is: embarrassment or shame is an emotion as well, a feeling. Perhaps that's something to further explore with your therapist and/or recovery group?

You've gone through a lot with all these forms of abuse. 
At OOTS, we welcome people who are dealing with cPTSD through a variety of life's events that befell us.
The section Causes of cPTSD of this board tells some stories of our members on how they have experienced these forms of abuse and the resulting cPTSD-symptoms.

In the cPTSD Glossary you may find a lot that may resonate with your experiences. A few highlights to start your journey with:
On cPTSD
On Boundaries

At the moment I'm looking into to a subject that has been quite revealing to me: "Shame based personality". It sounds scary (well at least to me) but it is a field of inquiry for me. I've ordered a book on it by Brene Brown. There a thread on some of her work here:
Shame researcher Dr. Brene Brown (Daring Greatly) with links to two YouTube video's.
Here's another TED-talk by her: http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?#t-547430


Welcome again, I hope and wish this place and community will give you comfort and be of aid on your journey through cPTSD,
our Guidelines for All Members and Guests may help you in keeping this a safe environment for you and to get an idea of the community we create with each other.


Dutch Uncle.

[woodsgnome]

1Life68 wrote: "I just don't have any emotions about it [the past]".

That's reminiscent of what happened with me. For years I walked around feeling 'close to tears' but whenever the past stuff came up, I'd get mad, anxious, ashamed; extremely sad but never to the point of releasing tears.

Not until, in therapy first, and later in a group setting,  something happened not directly tied to the past. Let's just say it felt like I was releasing from the present, not the past. It was like the burdens of the present moment triggered this flood of tears. Not any memories as much as the accumulation that hit me at that moment. Maybe it came about more from a twinge of hope than grief that it happened. The grief was just sort of 'dead' whereas the tiniest spark of hope was allowing some peace at last. Sound easy. Isn't.

But it did, and also since then, only in the present sense--thinking about the past it never happens, as all the numbness still overrides.

I guess not trying, giving up expectations of what should/shouldn't be is part of it. Instead of feeling for my pain back then, when I felt the accumulated emotions of NOW is when the tears flowed, perhaps from sheer exhaustion--inherited from that past but coming from the present.

I hope this makes a little sense--it was harder to describe than I thought it would be. For me, it was only when I gave up on ever crying about a past I can't change, and my grief settled into just the current effects of that past that any release via tears happened.

[V]

   I was able to release during emdr therapy and that was a good thing - apparently I've forgotten or stuffed so far down so many things I simply can't bring them up all the time so the emdr therapy helped them resurace as though they were happening and I was able to deal with them and file them away as processed memories instead of being right up front affecting my daily being ...

[1life68]

Thank you all for the feedback, glad I'm not alone. 

[Ronin]

1It was like the burdens of the present moment triggered this flood of tears. Not any memories as much as the accumulation that hit me at that moment. Maybe it came about more from a twinge of hope than grief that it happened. The grief was just sort of 'dead' whereas the tiniest spark of hope was allowing some peace at last. /quote]

This struck a chord with me. I spend a great deal of time feeling like I'm on the verge of tears, but almost never cry. What I've discovered is that in times where I think that I should feel hope or experience "feel good feelings" is when it all comes to a head. I'm not sure if that's what woodsgnome was describing, but that's how I experience it.

The first time that I noticed this was while watching the Bruce Willis movie Die Hard. How silly is that! A grown man starting to cry as the movie climaxes. Then I began to notice that I begin to cry during movies (and action movies no less!) when the tides turn for the hero. Most recently was at the new Star Wars movie.

Losing hope makes me wish that I could cry, experiencing hope actually causes tears.

OK, I admit, that was off topic. To bring it back, I'm completely numb when it comes to past scars. I have no feelings regarding what I've experienced. At best, in the moment when something triggers me, I feel a bit of hopelessness and the tinge of anger. I immediately stuff the anger and remind myself that I cannot expect others to act as I would have them act.

[breakingfree]

I have that intermittently too. When it happens to me I feel "emptied out of all emotions" and I feel like this happens most when experiencing fight or flight negative feelings/being shocked by some new perceived abuse or triggered. I don't know. It seems for me to be a protection thing. When I experience say, a truly rude thing: cruel even, or a sudden serious event, in the current day. I turn off inside. It feels like my emotions turn completely off and I am drifting through the current abuse experience numb trying to kill off any chance it will affect me. Feels dissociative? Then, after the current day abuse/event I walk off and process it very slowly after the fact. Which then my emotions seem to want to return and process the current event....but I fight it off, or feel scared or too tired to deal with the transgression: it is almost like I am re experiencing past serious trauma/abuse and I am reliving an assault. So, I turn off. Inside. My emotions. I am working on identifying those moments better. When any new abuse happens to me: I try not to "turn off inside" and be in the moment and speak up or challenge the abusive behavior. I don't always succeed. It's a weird feeling to be here in the now but be thrown back into past abuse/flashbacks when current day things happen to remind me. I work hard not to dissociate but I know I am not perfect. I do my best.

[Ilhawk]

It's only been recently after decades of nearly a decade of abuse that I can cry or feel anything about it.  It came out in other ways....flight, fright, or freeze, but I didn't understand what was going on.

[Pieces]

This is something I struggle with as well, I can something feel this chunk of feelings stuck in my head but it won't release yet. I had some moments when authentic crying (after working on/with myself for a long time)  so no reason to believe the rest won't come out as well, in due time