Emotions are beneficial, regardless of what my mind tells me. G-d gave them to us for a reason. They are good and useful when in proper balance.
...therein lies my problem.
Memories seem to come to me in floods mostly it seems. One day...nothing, whole years of things I forgot and honestly would prefer to have forgotten. With those memories come emotions...or at least I think they should??
When I first began to remember things, it was before I'd started seeing my therapist and for the first several days, there was no emotion whatsoever. I disclosed my memories to a friend (which was a miracle in itself) who said to me, "Wow you're taking this well, I'd be curled up in a ball somewhere". She later told me she'd been very worried that I had become stoic because I showed no emotion towards what I remembered. I'm sure it made it difficult to believe, but there were other factors she knew about and these memories just served to tie it together.
About a week or so after remembering is when it started to hit me and then I crashed big time. That crash was so terrifying that I finally broke down and called my friend of one year and scheduled an appointment. I'd known her for 6 months before I realized what she did, I guess we just never got to that subject, we were always chatting about other things. She's proven to be an incredible gem in my life and I have no doubt that our Messiah caused our paths to cross. Most websites that I've read tell me never to choose a counselor that I know, but I honestly don't think I would have talked to anyone else.
Today I remembered something while driving in the car - I heard a sound that instantly brought me back to a situation where I could have easily been killed. Suddenly it was though I was there in that moment - it was a flashback. They happen. I didn't lose it.l I didn't freak out, but then I'm not really the type that does...I wish I was. I wish I could produce tears, but oh well. If you knew me IRL, you wouldn't notice me at all..I'm not a weird person or anything. I can laugh great big belly laughs, I can crack jokes and carry on in the business world as I do every day - I have very good fronters. Thank you wonderful A team! YOU are the BEST!
At this moment, I really don't feel anything towards it, I just remember that it happened. Should I feel something? I dunno? One thing I clearly remember about that memory is what I was thinking at the moment it was going on. I was thinking, I should be afraid right now and I'm not. Something about that seemed strange to me at the time and yet I was only a child. I think I'd already made very clear barriers at that point and had already been well taught how to forget. Now I remember and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel if anything, if at all even.
On the other hand... I actually CAN produce tears (Tears can cry, but she rarely comes out), but when I do...Katie, bar the door! After that crash noted above, I was found curled up in a bathtub crying (for the 3rd day straight) and had made roughly 300 cuts and 30 burns. I don't remember any of it except dealing with the healing of those marks for quite some time. If I do release emotion, it comes like a torrential downpour and I've been taught never to let that happen, so it doesn't happen often and hasn't since that last "episode". My counselor says it's strange that I've been seeing her as long as I have and I've never cried in her presence. Our upbringing has been that you don't let anyone know when you're having problems, you just put your big girl panties on and deal with it. Big girls don't cry. Big girls don't cry. Big girls don't cry remember? No, the dead can't feel pain and that's how we're supposed to be towards things, like a dead person.
this part of it sucks and I want it to SO be over like yesterday. Please G-d, don't let me have bad dreams from this tonight.
Dissociation is a powerful tool. I didn't have any memories from my childhood to talk about when I started counseling. I did remember my adult life and I could count the number of times I had cried in 25 years on one hand and could recount each occasion. My counselor was actually shocked that time. I think I only cried hard once or twice in his office in 8 years. I can now cry at night, sometimes. I also remember "training sessions" teaching me not to cry. Undoing that conditioning is slow going. I work at staying connected to my feelings. It was awesome when I started feeling the really good feelings like joy. My experience is that the safer I feel, the more emotion I can feel. I am still puzzled by some of my reactions but it keeps getting better. Before integration I had one of my selves that had no emotion of any kind. I now know how I had earned the nick name 'Dragon Lady' at one of my work places.
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