Posted by Eddie Sylvano on September 24, 2002, at 9:28:29
In reply to Separating emotions from their source, posted by Dinah on September 24, 2002, at 9:08:44
> Does this sound at all familiar to anyone? And does anyone have any ways they have found to help unlearn this defense mechanism?
-------------------------------Yes! I know exactly what you're talking about. The specifics may differ, but I typically experience emotion in a very seperate, and dis-intigrated manner. I remember, at the height of a depression, crying on the floor for hours, obviously upset, but also thinking about it quite blithely as it happened ("What's this all about? How strange."). It's like my emotions and my thoughts aren't integrated. I can also be in a horrible situation and experience no emotion. 9/11 was hard for me last year, because even though I was conciously mortified by the events, I didn't experience any accompanying emotions of horror or saddness, which made me look like an unfeeling robot.
When I do get emotional, I also tend to get very emotional (somewhat like your explosion after work). My girlfriend will grow concerned over my lack of emotion for several months, and then suddenly I'm sobbing and trembling uncontrollably over something of only moderate importance.
It may be unrelated, but I also expereince what I can only assume are dissociative states, where my senses are as disconnected from my "mind" as my feelings. It's like I'm only halfway in my head, not experiencing things firsthand (much like being divorced from my emotions).
Because I tend to experience emotion in a fire hose, instead of a teacup, I think that I tend to conciously try to avoid allowing myself to continue a line of thought that would trigger emotion, so that I don't spend 20 minutes crying over something (and still not really connecting with it anyway).
> P.S. Reading over this post, it seems like a good example of what I'm talking about. It seems overly intellectualized and devoid of feeling.
--------------------I think the same thing about every post I make. I've just come to accept it as who I am.
poster:Eddie Sylvano
thread:1126
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20020829/msgs/1127.html