emotional tmi

xp - it's easier when something completely horrible happens that you'd be expected to have intense feelings about, like a break-up, the death of a close friend or family member

Try being over-emotional very occasionally first, about something essentially trivial. The effect will probably be comic, and rather like Basil Fawlty, but you might find it liberating and be able to carry it over into other realms afterwards.

Warning: you will probably find expressing emotion to be very tiring/draining.

surm - i cry during country songs too -- i cry all the time during songs! -- i just don't talk about my feelings or express them to people

yeah, i have that experience all the time wrt music
that is a good point

these are really good tips

for better or worse, ilx actually helped me in this regard - because for me, it was mainly "i'm not the type of person that is emotionally vulnerable" - but on a message board where most everyone doesn't know who i am, i could experiment with being a different type of person, and then it was just a matter of transferring the online to the IRL

last time i really got weepy was when watching the wedding scene during the muppets take manhattan
so i do not actually have a heart of ice

i just seem like i do

sarahel that is another good piece of advice, ty

omg wedding scene love u

also "i hope you dance" just came on the radio, Lechera

this one always gets me

i mean, i was sobbing
it was so beautiful

aw surm, that one gets me too

i guess maybe i just need to practice talking about these things

(not my crying - the muppets singing "she makes him happy" about piggy and kermie. the love in that room omg!)

:) :D see ur already doing it!

always introduce yourself as a poet and then whatever you say is emotional

also i'd say forget the whole 'sharing emotions with others' for now, step one is accepting and being comfortable with your emotions in your own skin

i regretted posting that :-/

being repressed really sucks

also learn
to just type,
your posts
like
this
:

people really like to see u more open, i think -- holding too much back does not always come off as approachable

but i think dave is kinda right -- like being comfortable is important, a lot of people get uncomfortable when faced with someone who seems uncomfortable or out of control

you're right about feeling comfortable inside first

every time i even start to feel a repressed emotion, i feel really taken off guard. like the other day i was walking to the produce market and listening to music and my ipod shuffle (that i usually use for running) played the bangles' version of "hazy shade of winter" and then hole's "malibu" and i felt like the world was telling me that i was falling apart. and i thought, am i falling apart? and then i was like WOW this is not what i need on the way to the goddamned grocery store. after that it played bohannon and i felt better.

i know this will be tiring. i just never...i dunno, i have never embarked on a personal emotional journey before.

also i have been called standoffish like i don't know how many times in my life

i guess a little public cry for help will be what i need in the new year. i just figured that ilx is the sort of place where there might be others who have experienced this. i can't really, um, talk to anyone about it y'know

i have broken down in tears at the grocery store before -- like tears of sad, though i also had a tearful Daisy Buchanan moment in the presence of the most beautiful, delicious-looking pastries that I couldn't afford

oh yeah, i've cried in public
but that's pretty easy -- i can cry to myself. it feels pretty natural and nonproblematic to me, tbh.
it's talking about what's making me cry that i don't generally do. that's also what makes me uncomfortable.

but sometimes it's funny - like it can be vulnerable and also funny, which makes me feel less vulnerable talking about it - like crying in the whole foods dairy aisle because Inna-gadda-da-vida came over the store P.A. - i mean, there are plenty of songs that make people cry, but "Inna-gadda-da-vida" is not known to have that effect.

did you talk to anyone in the grocery store during your iron butterfly moment?

i can also see how that might be awkward, esp in the dairy aisle

repressed emotions also have this nasty property of becoming amplified every time you put off 'dealing with them'.

it's like, one thing thing in general that causes me anxiety is the feeling of being 'out of control' of situations and things. thats kinda what scared me away from my emotions cuz they really dont live in the world of rationality and logic (those being my most effective tools for feeling 'in control').

so each time a repressed emotion or something would flare up, it would be more intense than the last, reinforcing my fear of emotions being something i cant be in control of and therefore fear and anxiety.

a turning point for me was realizing that by dealing with emotions as they appeared, feeling them and being with them, i was able to feel a sense of control over them and not let them get out of control in the future. the worst thing they can do to you is make you feel uncomfortable for a couple minutes/hours/days

my interpretation of emotions is that they are simply messages from our brain and it makes sense to listen to them and figure out what's causing them. i mean, when youre mad, there's probably a good reason why. when youre sad, there's probably a good reason why. etc..

apologies for rambling, this has been a huge thing in my life for the past 6months so i get excited talking about it :X

i've got a pretty similar problem. i get angry pretty good. and sad. positive emotions i have a very hard time expressing. it certainly did not help my last relationship in the least. i remember i was leaving town for a bit with my ex (gf at the time) and she was telling everyone at her work and even the animals she loved them all, going around to each and every one. i remember thinking "i don't even tell my mom that". i've only recently even been able to write it in cards etc.
it's weird and unhealthy i guess. i've no idea why i'm like this.

wow alot of xposts

i ran into a girlfriend of mine right after it, and told her about it -- i think i actually posted about this incident on 77.

But one thing that helped me, that maybe could be applied more generally - is framing the vulnerability in a comfortable way - that is more consistent with how you perceive yourself or the way you tend to relate to people. Like, the post upthread that suggested talking about emotional responses to music. I framed the experience as a "funny story" because me and my friends regularly tell each other "funny stories". Or, if you are the type of person that is really into science, it can be presented/framed in that way -- like emotions are neurological messages from the brain, etc.

Amanda, i identify with this to an uncomfortable degree, but i just wanted to say, you don't come off as a cold person at all! you come off as really warm and caring! imo other people perceiving you as cold should not be what you're concerned about; you should just be concerned about the degree to which not talking about this stuff is making your life difficult. <3 okay now i will finish reading the thread.

aw thanks

to ddave - don't apologize -- i appreciate knowing these things and the fact that you shared them

i once wrote an emotionally effusive letter to shirley collins and sort of regretted it because i was afraid of being a crazed superfan. she wrote back and said thank you for your letter -- she was genuinely glad to receive a handwritten letter and she sent me a picture of the area where she lives and everything (not her house, but the area). reading that letter from her was among my top 5 personal moments. how nice of her, and how wonderful it felt to have someone (someone like her!) respond positively to an outburst of emotion from me, of all people.

maybe i should fall back on this positive experience when i clam up -- does this seem like a good idea? to try to conjure positive experiences and stop being so scared by the negative ones (of which there are many)?

that's an excellent idea, and an awesome story!

not to babble about myself too much, but i have noticed that i do communicate positive emotions toward people, i just tend to do it through acts of service or help to others. i show people that i care about them by cooking for them, by always having the thing they need in my purse, etc.

are you a Virgo?

oh god, you could tell?
yes

dito. i show i care about people in alot of ways. but vocalizing it is where i just have a very hard time.

haha - it's just that your post sounded exactly like my mom, who is a Virgo - her instinctual reaction when i was sad, was a variant of, "I could make you some nice toast with my really nice homemade rolls ... oh, and i have this really nice cheese that i got the other day. here, i have some kleenex in my purse, let me get it for you."

i even have an extra umbrella in my car just in case one of my students needs to walk home in the pouring rain. i would never say "hey, i care about you guys" but i will loan them my umbrella.

your mom gives you hilariously practical presents, right?

yes!!! like the huge container of hot chocolate mix that had been sitting in my cupboard for years. But after my break-up last year, it was the best thing ever -- i wanted something soothing and comforting, but being single I was concerned about my appearance, so I didn't want to eat a bunch of ice cream, and the hot chocolate mix was exactly what i needed.

My mom's response to the break-up: i can come up and take you out for a nice lunch, and then I will help you clean your kitchen, because having a clean home always makes me feel better.

i'm a pretty emotional person, but as someone whose dealt with friends and lovers who are in similar positions as you, ll, i'd say that the number one thing in getting to talk about emotions (of all kinds) is acknowledging the verity of those emotions at the time they're happening. a lot of more analytical people have trouble with this, but trust me, allowing them to happen instead of analyzing them is key to being a happier, more emotionally healthy person. analyzing them later, reflecting upon them, is also necessary...

i dunno -- as an analytical person, i can't really _not_ analyze things, but i can try and separate the two: the phenomenon and what it means/connotes/the best way of putting it in perspective and dealing with it, etc.

yeah, my general reaction to having emotions is: analyze, bottle up, put away
what i would like to do is: recognize, analyze, accept, move on

i'm not saying that analyzing them is bad! just that your general reaction patterns need to be changed.

acknowledging the verity of those emotions at the time they're happening
can you expand on this? i'm not sure what this means exactly.

Also, sometimes it takes a long time to work out what your emotions are! Like, I'll realise in the evening that I'm actually really angry about something someone said to me in the afternoon. I'll say so to the missus and she's all 'yeah, I've known that for hours'. But by that time it's not like I can go back and do anything about it without seeming like some kind of petty weirdo.

^ this

all the time I'm like "oh I was having emotions yesterday beep boorp bloop"

Amanda, for what it's worth, I know we aren't like best buddies or anything, but I have never thought of you as cold or standoffish, either! Quite to the contrary, in fact: you're often giddily brimming with enthusiasm about stuff. Not to say that your passion for things like music or food or movies or animals is a comprehensive reflection of your inner emotional world, since obviously it isn't -- just that I don't get that sense about you.

that's good to know -- i don't feel like i'm generally cold or standoffish but it would surprise you how much i have heard that very thing throughout the years from various...constituencies

i have ways of demonstrating that i am not a robot that some people can read, this i know. it's just that certain things i am unable to communicate, so i always exist in this area where i am comfortable and people don't have any idea what's actually happening in my head.

this is kind of disturbing because sometimes i don't know what i've said and what i haven't; i only know that there are things i'm not saying and i am very quiet about personal emotional stuff.

i do love music and food and movies and animals, though.

!!!!!!!

acknowledging the verity of those emotions at the time they're happening
can you expand on this? i'm not sure what this means exactly.

hey, what i mean is that when you're feeling an emotion, it's important to acknowledge that at the time, this is what you're feeling. it doesn't matter if it's reactionary or silly in later reflection or analysis, because that's the way emotions work. ignoring them isn't going to make them feel any better or worse, it's just going to make them dead.

can you give me an example? i'm not sure i get it. i need to what now? not being intentionally dunderheaded, i just don't always know what i am feeling at the time. it takes a while to realize what's going on. if i do realize it, then what? i just have to say "i am feeling a feeling" o que?

sometimes i find it easier to talk about emotions in spanish because i have to think harder about what i'm going to say (not my 1st lg) and i can express myself, but i have to be more creative about it. also it doesn't always feel like it's me saying its so i am less self conscious about the content of what i'm saying and more focused on the form.

sounds tempting!

I will take you for the best Polish borscht ever.

I'm sorry. I can't shut up about this fucking soup.

I've never had borscht! Liquid beets didn't really appeal--is is THAT good even if you don't love beets as much as LL does?

This is a topic I can really hold forth on. YES IT IS THAT GOOD.

There are different kinds of borscht. Polish borscht is a clear broth and I think this one was beef based (though Wikipedia says it is often vegetarian). I don't like chunkier Russian borscht and cold borscht can kiss my butt. I do not like beets very much at all, much less to the extent of our beet-loving LL.

See I could talk emotionally about how much I love beets for a really really long time. Those are the most welcome feelings, the feelings of love for things I love.

Ahhh okay! A beef-based soup is exactly what Laurel's doctor would have ordered if he knew I was asking! I will drink all this Polish beef borscht with you.

See I could talk emotionally about how much I love beets for a really really long time. Those are the most welcome feelings, the feelings of love for things I love.

― the MMMM cult (La Lechera), Wednesday, November 16, 2011 4:28 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

<3 <3 <3

also bell that is horrible, your mother going through your stuff. as far as where she is getting the stuff she said to you about finding a man, she's probably projecting and has boundary issues and it really has nothing to do with you as a person.

THE MOST REASSURING THREAD IN THE WORLD

for the ironically self-negating reasons that make posting itt hard if you relate to its premise, i do not totally wanna get into this, but just i hope you're good LL i am so feeling every post of yrs above.

I hear you, and without asking for details, I get it. In fact, I wanted to revive this thread and resisted because I didn't want to be the one to do it. :)

yes.

i just figured that ilx is the sort of place where there might be others who have experienced this. i can't really, um, talk to anyone about it y'know

i mean i think there is some kind of emotional release going on in the act of searching ilx for EMOTIONAL, ha ha. i hadn't read this all before. i think we are sorta in the same ballpark, i am not a big fan of the posterity of oversharing on ilx, but webmail if you ever want emotionally uptight high-fives.

idk if you were theoretically gonna bump this thread with more progress updates on your social & emotional blossoming, but i hope it's all good or working out for you at the moment. i always think of that moment in annie hall when woody allen sleeps w/diane keaton & lays back and says well, there goes another novel, like there are potentially pluses to an unexorcised backlogue of feelings, so either way can work.

apparently there was a point when i wanted to note progress, but really i no longer have any interest in discussing my progress or providing updates to my emotional state.
it remains a horrifying idea to even consider tbh.

the difference is that i no longer care. i think mookieproof suggested that maybe it's ok to not want to be an open book. that's what i'm going with atm.

yes, for real. & it is generally bad to spend too much time trying to fit a square thing into a triangle shape, you sometimes just have to go w/the way things are. there are safeties to not telling people stuff, anyway, so even if it isn't perfect it can be a lot less discomforting, & a lot more autonomous, than having to be sensitive to some of the things that can be raised w/oversharing, etc.

even the concept of oversharing is extremely subjective

Did someone call my middle name?

Hi, guys!

hugs for all my emotional friends

As a man with no real handle on his emotions, I have no idea what it meant, but I was about to go to bed a couple weeks ago and paused in reading a book to pet my cat a little and something came over me and I had tears in my eyes and I gave him a big hug.

kind of lack of information, but sometimes even in tmi world we don't know how to express where these come from

hugs for all my emotional friends
A chaste swift pat on the back for the rest of us ;)

we're all emotional, just in different ways

I had a awful childhood, routinely beaten and molested well into my teens, which I dealt with by instinctively shutting down my emotions so I couldn't feel any pain. It worked in that sense, but I also lost with it the ability to feel love or affection. Couldn't really feel much of anything actually. Was just sort of there, floating aimlessly through life.

Spent years in support groups and counseling trying to work my way out of the abyss i'd been thrown into against my will, worked so hard to try and carve out a decent life from the hand I'd been dealt, and came thisclose to a breakthrough. I did about 80% of what I needed to do, but the 20% I didn't do prevented the other 80% from working, and now i've slipped further behind then i was when i started out. I wish I could get my emotions back, but they won't come.

that is a lot of information -- i think we may have opposite problems?

also i am sorry you have been through a lot of horrible experiences
i hope you have continued to work through whatever you need to work through

Wow, I'm really sorry dude. Didn't have things even close to that bad, but had a similar thing with shutting down emotions... my feelings are really intense, so bad stuff is magnified.

What helped me was going back to past experiences and feeling those emotions again ... you recapture yourself from those moments. It wasn't pleasant, but it was necessary. If you shut down one emotion you shut 'em all off.

Not sure if you've tried that, but it helped me ... but I can't imagine the kind-of pain you'd have to relive by doing that. It seriously was the only thing that helped, no therapist or other person could ever do that for me, and it takes courage to put yourself through it.

In order to go back to past experiences, you have to be able to remember them. I uaually can't. There's a good reason for that - just the thought of trying to remember them is beyond scary. It would destroy what little is left of me.

oh man i remember NOTHJING before 5. My father was an alcoholic. My first real memory is of my mom throwing my brother and I in the car at 3am and never going back home. Recently I made the mistake of casually asking my brother if those years had been really bad. His answer was a short 'Yes.' but his tone implied so much more and my whole body felt like it iced over. I know I'll never be asking anything about those days again.

apparently there was a point when i wanted to note progress, but really i no longer have any interest in discussing my progress or providing updates to my emotional state.
it remains a horrifying idea to even consider tbh.

the difference is that i no longer care. i think mookieproof suggested that maybe it's ok to not want to be an open book. that's what i'm going with atm.

― La Lechera, Tuesday, January 24, 2012 12:59 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

I just got a strong wave of this feeling again and noticed the date on this post -- maybe I'm just tired of emoting after the holidays?

this thread is like endorphins to me

hate to bump this thread but re: emotional regulation
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/the-science-of-laughing-through-the-tears/382824/

got to corpse pose today and just started bawling in the middle of the class. it's happened a few times before; generally some ichor that needs an outlet. kinda embarrassing but I figure if it gets to that point idgaf.

ugh it's like springing a leak! but better than exploding.

yep