emotional tmi

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.

LL you said something once about how sharing small secrets with people makes them feel more like friends. That some relationships are cemented a little more by a little secret sharing? Maybe I am paraphrasing this wrong, but I thought about that statement a lot. I think it's true, too. Why I bring it up is I think maybe "emotion sharing" has the same effect, to a certain extent, and can be approached in a similar way. A deliberate inclusion of "I am feeling a feeling" really is all you have to say. That's as much as you have to say, if you want.

FWIW I don't know you IRL but no way can I imagine you coming off as Data or something.

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

this might not be helpful but in the spirit of emotional tmi, i would like to share that i am mad at these constituencies >:[

Yeah A, I don't think of you as being cold or unemotional at all.

I kind of feel like I'm like this but I'm sure this is much more "acceptable" or even expected in men.

LL you said something once about how sharing small secrets with people makes them feel more like friends. That some relationships are cemented a little more by a little secret sharing?
this is totally a correct interpretation of what i said! i just don't usually talk about my feeeelings, so sometimes women (and men) think i am unemotional.

n/a i think this is a lot more acceptable in men than it is in women but i didn't start this thread to talk about gender differences, just about a discomfort sharing ~*emotions*~

i don't think you're cold either btw

the people who have said i am cold or standoffish are, on the whole, just way more open about their emotions than i am and usually they can't understand why i am not exactly like they are. either that or they are people who i have deemed untrustworthy with my secrets, and i tend to keep more things inside than most people thereby having more "secrets"

hey A, here's an example:

yesterday, my most recent ex (and still my best friend and occasional lover, what) said, "well, if [person] comes down here and doesn't even recognize that my life has been really hard for the past two years because of our breakup, then i'll get really upset and crushed."

and in my head, i was like 'you tried to play it off like it was all cool with me for awhile when all i wanted was recognition that what we had when we were seeing each other was something special,' i almost immediately realized that was more an angry loneliness speaking than my own self, who loves and cares for him with everything (and he feels/acts similarly towards me). i realized that there was a truth to my immediate emotional response, but that there was also something reactionary and rather stupid about it. so in response after a minute or so of munching on some mexican food, i said, "well, to be honest, you didn't recognize how hard it was for me. yeah, it was a different situation since we dated for barely a year and you and [person] dated for 3+ years, but it was still really hard to be around you when that was all i wanted to do. it sucks, but sometimes that's the way things happen, and i'm glad we are eating together and sharing our lives together in this way, as close close friends."

in other words, for me at least, there is always the immediate emotional response when with other people, and i try to acknowledge that there is always a bit of subjective truth to whatever emotional intelligence or reasoning is behind such responses. this is different than the actual 'played-out' emotional RESPONSE, which in the case above came almost immediately, but sometimes takes weeks or years.

i feel like i just made this more complicated, but in the end, what i'm trying to say is that coming to grips with one's immediate emotional reactions is key to 'showing' or displaying one's emotions in a more effective, productive manner.

I find the whole 'emotional sharing' thing to be a tightrope sometimes. And it also depends on your friends' personalities.

There are some people in my life who basically wanted me to have an emotional enema every time something was wrong, and I mean there's just some things you gotta face alone or just aren't worth blowing out of proportion, right? I've had other 'friends' who reply with a simple "sucks" when I mention something's upsetting me.

I very rarely talked about anything with anybody prior to turning 18, even my own family. Then I started and went way overboard and turned into an emo twit that even I couldn't stand and my friends hatedi t. I overcorrected a bit too much and people still complain that I hold too much in.

IMO, the best thing to do is think, what types of things would I hope my friends could feel comfortable coming to me about, and when would I consider it overboard? and apply it to your own actions.

i forgot to mention that in high school people actually DID call me Data
not only did i wear a burgundy blazer with shocking frequency, but i have yellowish-green eyes

creepy :-/

(i'm over it, of course, but geez, it did stick with me)

he's my fave character on TNG!

oh man I'm sorry LL

i'm pretty private about my feelings in general. but then when i do get emotional i just start crying uncontrollably, not just when sad or hurt but also (especially) when i'm angry, or when i'm overjoyed, or whatever.

anger is definitely the most difficult one for me to channel. these things are learned early on; e.g. "no one is allowed to be angrier than dad"

also expressing emotions is important but fuck being 'productive' about it.

Having a bipolar spouse, I've learned that I need to stay on an even emotional keel to counterbalance her highs and lows. The last year or two, I've started to feel that keeping my own highs and lows artificially tamped down is taking its toll on me. I feel brittle.

hey NO hard feelings at all abbles -- i didn't take it personally then, so i will not take it personally now :)

mostly i just want to work on being a warmer more emotionally available person. not because i am female and this is expected of me, but because i am genuinely like that inside and i think it should be represented by the way i am outside. it's tiring being so guarded all the time.

sorry to be all ~feelingz~ but this seems to be getting the better of me these days
i've been giving lots of stuff away too, so it feels like there's this final ROAD ahead of me when really i am just trying to get rid of some unnecessary clutter.

still, that was hard-won clutter, and it meant something to me. now it will have a new home, and i feel ok about that.

but

who will i be without these things? without my flower hats? my many books? my beautiful old shoes?

why are you giving away your things

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