The feelings I have stuffed for so long.......

[healme]

I hope I can explain what I am feeling....here goes.........

I sat in T yesterday, frustrated. We talked about the fact that I had played the "role" of the codependent daughter for so long that it has become my "reality". She gave lots of questions about my "feelings" and yet I was not in touch with any of the feelings........I tried but my denial just would not let me go there.

I barely remember anything from my childhood. I just remember a general sense that it was "happy". But that is what "she" always told me...I had it better than others, better than her childhood ...I should thank my lucky stars....

But how do I get in touch with MY feelings and not the feelings SHE said I should have or she implanted in my mind?

How do I make myself feel the feelings that I have been dening since toddlerhood?

[Portia]

Hi HealMe

I’ve been reading your back posts and I can identify with quite a lot of what you’ve said about being parentified, about feeling numb, and about your mother, oh yep. Even getting what passes as therapy from mom (tell me your problems dear) and feeling like they’re interested and we feel just a tad wanted and needed and secretly we think that is their loving us… and it’s hollow, we feel used somehow, we know that they don’t understand and that they don’t want to understand. And why should they? We don’t understand ourselves for goodness sake.

I’m just beginning to get a grip on what real emotions feel like. Age 44.

It’s not easy. It’s okay to be frustrated. It’s okay to feel anything.

You can’t make yourself feel anything and I doubt you should even try (as in try real hard and then feel like shit because you haven’t ‘succeeded’). It’s not about reaching some goal, or doing some intellectual exercise. Everyone does it differently but what they do do is realise the big difference between a ‘normal’ loving family and one like ours.

When we realise just how badly we felt when we were kids, when we realise with enormous force what was denied us, then we can feel. Usually sick and angry and shocked.

How to do it. I read books. I read “Healing the child within” Charles L Whitfield. He does a nice list of what a child needs to grow up mentally healthy. Compare your life to his list and you might get angry (angry is what we're looking for by the way!). “Homecoming” by John Bradshaw is good. All of Dorothy Rowe’s books, but the most well-known ‘Depression the way out of your prison”  is probably most appropriate.

I was probably depressed all my life, living a half-life. I think you sound depressed too. Depression is a way of not taking part in life, it’s a way of finding safety in retreating inside our own heads.

Question: what could I ask you to do – an action – that would scare you? Like ask someone for something, tell someone what you really think about something. Think of something that you might fear doing. Fear is a basic feeling to tap into. See if you can? (It's not about doing the action, it's about accessing any feelings....)

[write]

But how do I get in touch with MY feelings and not the feelings SHE said I should have or she implanted in my mind?

How do I make myself feel the feelings that I have been dening since toddlerhood?

well you are already, as you're starting to realise there's another reality and that you may not have 'had it so good'.

Not everyone gets a vision on the road to Damascus- most of us are simply counting the cracks in the pavement but gradually getting there all the same!

I've been working through Sarah Breathnach's Daybook 'Simple Abundance' ( I won't recommend the website because it comes across as simply abundant with cr*p for some reason, it's a bit too 'booksignings and air-brushed photos' )
But one of the things I LOVE about this book is it gradually introduces ( reintroduces ) concepts and tools we may have brushed aside in order to make more time or out of lack of self-love or self-care...and it really is life-changing to on a daily basis examine your day, keep a thankfulness journey, plan for the fututre, learn to accept yourself more, make each day special in tiny ways.

What are you doing to take care of you right now? What are you enjoying? What motivates you to get up in the mornings?

Getting back in touch with feelings can take time, the numbness was effective protection against being hurt, but left you clenched tight shut to all emotions maybe? Except recently you've been hurting, a lot; who wouldn't want to avoid that.

The memories will surface a little at a time as you start to unfold emotionally I think.

[MarisaML]

This is very interesting.  What you're describing sounds somewhat like grieving.  Or I should say what I went through when I was grieving the loss of my Mom.  I remember I was 'not feeling' for like a year or so.  And it came back very very gradually.  It's been 11 years and I'm almost where I was in feeling before she died.  It's a terrible way to live.  Not feeling whole.  But it can't be forced as much as it is just allowed.  Try finding time to be completely alone and go for a nature walk or to the park.  Really take some time to smell the roses.  Enjoy the basics.  Find yourself.  Let the wind blow thru your hair.  Stick your bare feet in a creek and just enjoy being.  I kind of liken this to a very young child exploring the world for the first time.  They're learning who they are, what the world is like and how to feel.  And I bet it just might work for you to start from scratch.  Wipe the slate clean and discover the world.  I think nature might be the simplest way to start. Sit in the park to watch the world go by.  Watch children run and play and laugh.   Just like a wise woman told me once.. "you find happiness in the little things."

[healme]

MarisaML, you are right in that I do have a lot of grief right now. A failed adoption, loss of my very best friend in the world and we walked away from our church family (of 14 years).....A lot of loss and no support system in the past two years..........not a good idea. I feel totally lost and realized I was stuck. That is when I began counseling.....  which opened a whole different box...

But I have spent my life feeling everyone else's "feelings" (specifically my mom's). I have no clue what my own are and how to get in touch with them. 

I appreciate the books suggested....I think I am ready to start reading.........I am going to check them out.....

Portia...you definately hit the nail on the head....what would scare me? Telling my mom what I really think about all her counseling and words of advice! She basically just talked me to death until I agreed with her views and decisions for me...Why did I never stand up? Why did I never rebel........... Why did I have to be so "perfect"..... I almost wish my kids do rebel so that it is a 'sign" to me that they are healthy...sick, right???

[Portia]

Hey HealMe…serious question….what would you tell your mom if you could absolutely let it all out? Complete with your own favourite forbidden words? (okay …a few asterisks might be a good idea if they’re very earthy).

How about using words like…..cruel/suffocating/witch/selfish/self-obsessed/cold/controlling/insidious/creepy….just trying to get a head of steam up here!

A ‘Letter to mother’ is a good idea. Not a real letter, but one where you just let it out and don’t worry about it. I’ve done it, quite a few have done it here. It might feel a bit stilted and silly but once you’ve done it and pressed submit, it feels great, promise! (and it’s scary to press submit too, that is one scary thing we can do, like ride a roller-coaster: it’s frightening but safe to do it here, rather than for real).

How about it? Have a think. It’s a serious exercise and could well bring up emotions....which is okay. It's all allowed.

[Hopalong]

Write, I love this:

Not everyone gets a vision on the road to Damascus- most of us are simply counting the cracks in the pavement but gradually getting there all the same!

Marisa, and this:

Enjoy the basics.

  strikes me as profound...

Portia, thanks for your urging of HealMe which has helped me too. What it's helping me think about is my own daughter's anger. She's very troubled and unhappy and angry and takes that anger out on me, and what you wrote reminds me not to tell her to stuff the anger, but just to target it safely.

Hops

[gratitude28]

Healme,
I also think that since we all didn't have a normal childhood, we literally were unable to develop the normal range of emotions that we should know by now. Some of it takes time. I think just by starting to pick out and recognize and emotion ("hey, that person waved, and they didn't have to. That was nice. I feel...  What an amazing flower, but the day is so gloomy. I feel... ). It's kind of kindergartenish... but we have never put a name to the feelings or claimed them.
I caught myself being pissed off at somebody one day and I was running through my head how I could subtly make the person regret what he had done. I realized all of a sudden what I was doing. I stopped, called myself out for being manipulative, and asked myself how I really wanted to handle the situation as a kind adult.
I think Portia's ideas of getting all the ugly feelings out onto paper is great. I do that in my dreams a lot... it's kind of scary sometimes, but I scream and scream at my mother in my dreams at times.
Some people call it "peeling an onion"... peeling off the layers until you get deeper and deeper. Start with the easy stuff. As you go along, you will know yourself more. And when you have a bad thought towards yourself in your head, immediately override it with a good thought. (This supper tastes awful. I suck at cooking... Wow, this is pretty terrible. I guess I won't try this recipe again. Maybe I could enter a worst food contest.)
Take care.
Love, Beth

[gratitude28]

That's a good idea, bean. It also keeps you from anticipating something which will increase your disappointment/depression.
Accept the results... don't expect the results. I guess we more that any others need to do this.
Love, Beth

[write]

How about using words like…..cruel/suffocating/witch/selfish/self-obsessed/cold/controlling/insidious/creepy….just trying to get a head of steam up here!

words like

inadequate/ judgemental/ neglected/ abused/ uneducated/ unrealistic/ concerned with appearances/ 'stuck'/ unfulfilled/ disappointed -

that's what comes to mind about my mother.

She would probably have been a lot different if her mental illness was recognised or acceptable in working class industrial cities in the UK in the 70s and 80 s.

She did teach me to read, very young, about 3 or 4, and to appreciate literature; I remember her being furious when some of us kids made jokes taunting a local Jewish family.