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[Ellie]

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[Ishana]

Dear Ellie,

Isn't it interesting how much our society frowns on displays of emotion when emotions are completely natural?  I think it's because people feel they are somehow supposed to "fix" it when someone is upset.  If they don't know how to respond to emotions then they try to force others not to have them.

People used to do the same thing with me.  I went through several years where I felt a lot of emotions and tried to suppress them but they still came out anyway.  I've had a few situations where I expressed anger or grief that didn't come out so well.  

So a couple of years ago I made a commitment to myself to not suppress my emotions anymore.  I recognized that I had residual emotional baggage from losing my mother at a young age, from many years of severe child abuse and from a failed marriage due to my ex's alcoholism.  I had exactly the feelings you expressed...mourning the loss of a childhood or fantasy of a family

So I started figuring out how to honor my emotions.   It might sound strange to you but it was such a relief to stop pushing them down all the time.  Now I am very familiar with my emotional self - it is almost a separate person to me...but very connected.  I feel that by accepting that I was going to have feelings and honoring my feelings by paying attention to them and using whatever information they were giving me to make my life better.  

I've stopped being afraid of my emotions.  I married a man who understands my emotional self and can deal with it.  I'm not angry anymore that I have them.  Funny thing, they've lessened.  I don't try to hide them anymore, I just listen to them.  I've become intimately familiar with my emotions...and somehow, they are healing.  I can actually tell how much stronger and confident I feel...not how I felt when I was overwhelmed by my feelings.  

Now I feel that if I have emotions I can deal with them in a wonderful way...I can take care of whatever needs to be handled so my emotions can be released and I can put whatever is hurting me into the past.  

I hope this will help you too.  If you can figure out what you are feeling and what you need to address the problem...or if you can address the problem...then you can heal your emotions.  Just take them one at a time!  

Keep us posted on how you are doing, Ellie!

Ishana

[flower]

Hi Ellie,

(note to Ishana: What a beautiful reply, Ishana. I found it helpful.)

------------------------------------------------------

Thanks so much for your insight and support.
 It aided my healing. Too much of my heart
was in this post to let it remain here for posterity on the web.
The post served its purpose and now it is time to
edit it or gently take it down.
 
To every thing there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven:  Ecclesiates 3:1

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[Anonymous]

Ellie,

It's sadly common to be shamed by others for any expression of feeling. Your family did it to you, now your husband is doing it. And you then internalize that and believe what you're told - that you are making a fool of yourself.

Here was something I learned - the difference between expressing emotion and venting emotion. Venting usually ends up with me feeling stupid, embarrassed, guilty, and needing to do damage control. Expressing feels more mature and I don't even care if someone doesn't like it. I try to describe my emotional state in a relatively calm fashion, even if it's not a calm state. But if I cry or get a little angry, too bad. I don't expect coworkers to tolerate volatile emotional states but I hope my husband will (he doesn't very well but he tries). And I do vent to my therapist.

We can manage our emotional states. Expressing emotions isn't the same as looking foolish. It's a learning process to manage it, and there are things you can practice, like calming yourself down, giving yourself time to think, phoning your therapist when you're upset.

bunny

[mighty mouse]

Ellie,

I have learned the art of self-soothing. If you experience an emotion, it is possible to just sit with it for a minute and then process it without getting volitile. You can actually talk yourself through a situation.

Since you know yourself better than anyone, you can be the one to talk to you. You know what triggers anger and other emotions. If you think about your emotions when you are in a calm state, you will have a plan for when they (the emotions) come up.

Emotions in and of themselves aren't bad or good. They are just information. If you allow yourself some time to think about what you are feeling, you can actually make a decision as to what your response will be. And if you think about situations that come up that trigger negative emotions, you can think about when you were in the calm state to inform you as to what you might do.

Perhaps for example that something or someone offends you. Think about why this particular thing or person offends and why. It's the same with any emotion.....deconstruct it. Many times when we are in a more reasonable state we can see more clearly and decide that maybe the tapes we had that triggered that emotion are false. It might be a matter of changing the way you think.

For many of us who grew up around Ns, it's hard sometimes to know what we're feeling and why we feel it. Our emotions were bad or not convenient to the N parent or other N. So it's very difficult. Giving validation is immpossible for an N since they don't understand empathy.

I hope that helps in some measure.

MM

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,
Wow, I feel like I look so primitive with my above response- smashing things and all. I'm a hands on type of person and feel I had to do something to remedy the loss of family (I thought I had) even if it was symbolic.  It worked for me. I got tired of looking around at all the gifts and things that relatives had given me for years with bad motives, without real love that made me feel depressed. It was like a museum of all the bait  I fell for.

This purging of the house made me feel like I was somehow in control and it was satisfying. I didn't think of hurting people when I destroyed objects. I thought of what feeling the object represented and how the screwed up relationship made me feel so much like dirt under their toenails. I was smashing what they did to me as a child and what I allowed them to do to me as an adult. I was validating myself and putting into a  tangible, demonstrated act how my life was wrecked in the past by their bullying and how I was moving on to a fresh life without them. I don't believe in hate or vengence. This process took a few years. I never will get satisfaction  from their understanding how they made me feel, so I made up my own ritual to get satisfaction. It is like I did something about a situation that can really never be fixed.

I do express my emotional states cerebrally to others. I have also analysed what triggers me and try to prepare myself for an upcoming trigger. It helps. My husband and I share our trigger points with each other and we are learning to see each others point of view. But it wasn't that way when we were first married! Phew! Guess being married 27 years has its advantages. I hear men get more emotional as they grow older and women get tired of it all, been there, done that. My husband is exploring his emotions now at 53 and I must say that it was worth the wait.

For examples of what I smashed, threw away, burned and gave away, I'm posting a new topic because I'd like to know what other people's Ns give them.

[flower]

>>>>edited<<<<

[Anonymous]

flower,

There's nothing wrong with some primitive smashing if it's okay with others in the house and doesn't frighten them.

bunny

[mighty mouse]

Flower,

I too purged the house and took stuff to Goodwill. Nothing wrong with smashing a few things...it's cathartic.

MM

[flower]

Thanks bunny and Mighty Mouse for your comments.

------------------------------------------------------

Thanks so much for your insight and support.
 It aided my healing. Too much of my heart
was in this post to let it remain here for posterity on the web.
The post served its purpose and now it is time to
edit it or gently take it down.
 
To every thing there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven:  Ecclesiates 3:1

------------------------------------------------------------

[BlueTopaz]

Great thread- I got a lot out of it.   Sooooo much wisdom here.  

Ishana- great message, and I couldn’t agree more when you say that those who don’t know how to handle certain emotions expressed of others (could even be something positive like love) often put down those emotions in the other person.  

I have realized that I can say almost anything to someone, if I say it in the right way.   That is, word choice, and voice tone.    

The theory part is easy lol, but the challenge is in practice, and not losing it in the heat of the moment, and going into an explosive kind of anger.  

One thing that might help with control there, is imagining how you usually feel after exploding.   Imagine the damage done, guilt, shame, sadness, frustration, felt.   It really can be motivating in choosing the time out behavior in place.  

However, I didn’t find this to be true with xN of course, where there was a severe sensitivity to “criticism and rejection”, and where it was perceived to be there when it did not exist.   Sometimes, no matter how angry feelings are expressed, it does not make much difference due to other people’s emotional limitations.  

In general, if I could say one thing that I think is most helpful with anger management, I’d say it is not to react to things right way, when feeling on the verge of exploding.  Say nothing, and take time to think things over.  Time almost always changes my perspective, the intensity of my reaction, and even what my reaction will be.    If I still feel strongly, I try to figure out a good/calm way to express how I feel.

I think the more we think about things before reacting, the more clarity we have as well.  We can actually see better what is really bothering us, and can address the real crux of things better.

We also are human, and can explode and say all kinds of things, from time to time.  If it happens and I've said something truly mean and hurtful, I apologize.   I also accept apologies, situation reversed.

Anger needs to get expressed and released of course.   I think it is just a matter of doing it in more constructive (to healing and resolution) and less damaging ways.

[Onyx]

Ellie

This is exactly my point! Unresolved issues from our childhood make us potentially easy meat for people who can easily pick up on our weakness. The really good thing to do is to seek out professional help with issues concerning the aforemention. Whats happened to you recently is indicative of how your exposed emotionally from way way back. Get that sorted and you won't need to put soooo much energy into something that will fall on deaf ears anyway

David

[Ellie]

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