The material presented
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information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Is it normal to not have feelings or for your feelings to be muted or numb? I grew up in a highly dysfunctional home with an alcoholic father and a mother who borderline personality disorder mother, who eventually and is currently addicted to Rx meds.
Now that I am in my early 40's it seems like I just walk around numb - like I have no feelings at all. I am seeing a counselor and she seems perplexed many times by my answers and I wonder if there is something wrong with me. My dh has even said to me he is not sure I am capable of having a real relationship. I am starting to think he may be right :(
I am currently in the process of confronting and distancing my relationship with my sister who is an alcoholic as well. She completely flew off the handle and went postal on me yesterday for mentioning to her that I don't want a relationship until she gets well. I don't really "feel" anything. Not sad or anxiety or upset. Just nothing.
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Fear is an evil worse than evil itself. St. Padre Pio
I was raised by a mother with Borderline Personality Disorder. Your numb feelings, I believe, could very well be a learned behavior brought on having to deal with a mother with this disorder.
Have you read books on Borderline Disorder? I read about 6 and it truly helped me understand the disorder, and it truly helped me realize that I was not crazy!
I, too, sought counseling and stuck with it for many years. Between living with an alcoholic and having a mother with BP, I needed lots of guidance from someone who not only understood both illness, but who could guide me out of my darkness.
Do you attend Al-Anon meetings? I encourage you to try the meetings in addition to inividual therapy. I did not try meetings until recently. While I do not attend them regularly, I do think if I had attended them long ago, in conjunction with private counseling, I would have been on the road to recovery much sooner.
You can learn to feel your feelings, as well as learn to have richer relationships. I think if you do research BP, you will begin to understand why your feelings are numb. (Of course you do not have to have been raised by a BP to have learned to numb your feelings.)
Does your therapist treat clients with BP? Mine did. I think that is why he could help me so much.
It does get better if you seek answers for yourself. It looks as though you are doing just that.
-- Edited by GailMichelle on Saturday 25th of September 2010 04:12:07 PM
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You have to go through the darkness to truly know the light. Lama Surya Das
Resentment is like taking poison & waiting for the other person to die. Malachy McCourt
Care, I am certain it is normal to feel numb in your situation. I think it is the body's way of protecting you from what is going on around you. That is how I feel when things are rough for me - when AH is being particularly awful and when my (now late) mother was in the throes of alcoholism and was, by turns, upsetting and embarrassing me.
Well done for confronting your sister and letting her know you cannot tolerate her until she sorts herself out. That must have taken a lot of guts on your part. Let's hope she takes heed.
I worry, though, that when the numbness wears off (because it will), you will become quite low in yourself but, hopefully, your counsellor will be able to help you with this.
Do look after yourself, Care and I hope you manage to find some peace.
Love, Tish xx
-- Edited by Tattyhead on Sunday 26th of September 2010 12:04:05 PM
-- Edited by Tattyhead on Sunday 26th of September 2010 12:04:24 PM
Aloha Care...I relate very well to your post and yes for me it was normal until that is I actually learned what feelings were for me "an inside reaction to an outside event" (rocket science to this stuck man), and I did some research on PTSD. Do your research and the problem will be come temporary. I don't just have relationships...I need to have appropriate ones. Keep coming back ((((hugs))))
For me it helped learning in this program that I had the right to set healthy boundaries for myself.
Regarding lack of emotions, I also came to understand that for me I could be (or had been for ages) this piller of strength during any crisis (and actually think it hadn't affected me) until I began to journal and realized my melt downs would occur two days afterwards.
What helps me the most is to say what I mean, mean what I say and realize I don't have to say it in a mean manner. Be kind to you. What's normal for one isn't the same for another.
Hi Jerry, Yes, I have been doing a LOT of research of PTSD lately. My dh and I have been through a lot with having six children (four c-sections and one was life threatening) as well as a major car accident on TOP of all the messy stuff from childhood....well you know. Makes for a lot of piled stuff. The books on PTSD help, but many of the books only deal with single events so sometimes I can't relate, but I try.
Not being able to relate seems to be a current theme for me :)
I smiled...see? Doesn't happen often so I make note when it does. :) Look, I did it again.
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Fear is an evil worse than evil itself. St. Padre Pio
I sure relate to that "numb" feeling and in the strongest sense urge you to continue therapy and working this program. I grew up in a highly addictve, dysfuntional, abusive home and seemed I repressed a lot of what happened until I was in a car crash that made me feel totally vulnerable and my whole childhood that i spent so much time running away from came crashing down on me and I was that little vulnerable, abused litte girl again who never felt safe. I fought these feelings as long as I could until it came to the point in my head all of a sudden no place was safe for me except my own home. I had a total meltdown...still didn't seek help except for anti depressants which only made me feel more numb. Long story short I took it to a whole other level and pushed everyone out of my life, lost my job ( that was my dream job) and didn't leave my house for over a year, not even to the mailbox. I just saw danger everywhere. I was blessed to have my husband by my side and saw me through every excuritating moment. Recovery didn't come for me until I found alanon as my son is an addict and I was totally numb to that too. Now my story obviously is on the extreme side of the spectrum certainly doesn't mean the same will happen to you. But i will say that if you are anything like me as a child you probably protected yourself by becoming numb just to survive and now those feelings are resurfasing. Prayers are with you Blessings
Your post made me just want to hug you or pat you.I would say, clearly Numbing out is a defense mechanism or coping skill to protect ourselves from things that are just too painful or too big to handle, especially as children Id venture most of us here have coping mechanisms in varying forms.We develop them for good reasons, and there are times/seasons that I think they are Gods mercy to us. Sometimes we need to use them to survive. It seems good to me that you are recognizing- Hey something is not right here and taking steps to address it. The beginning of a new and/or deeper healing season for you. : )
My husband has the same coping mechanism, he tends to feel numb, to not express or be able to recognize or identify his feelings. (Except in his case, anger.) From where I and my children sit on the other side, its a hard thing- to know how to deal with it or even how to understand it. Once I was telling my counselor that while I love my husband, I get bored in our relationship.She responded Of course you get bored, hes unable to recognize or express his feelings.That struck me, I hadnt realized how much of relationship can hinge on that ability.
Before he got into treatment, we were seeing our Pastor (who also has a degree in marriage and family counseling.)He clued in right away that my AH was numb.I hadnt even identified it, and I live with him. This causes hell in intimate relationships, and identifying it in him helped me a lot. He also suggested that perhaps my husband was suffering from PTSD, that he see another therapist who deals with PTSD, and who treats it with EMDR therapy- a type of therapy using tapping or tones to help the brain integrate- sort of helping the brain take all the little bits of trauma experienced as a child (or otherwise, its now the VAs apparent chosen method to deal with battlefield type PSTD) and integrate them, a sort of filing cabinet system in the brain if you will having to do with the right and left parts of the brain. (obviously, I struggle to explain this thing!) I guess the theory is, once integrated, or when the experiences are appropriately filed, he will not need the numbing thing, and will be able to learn how to feel and appropriately deal with feelings. Your comment that your counselor seems perplexed made me wonder. Is she? Because given your childhood it would seem pretty normal to me. And there are ways to identify if it IS, indeed a problem for you, and ways to address it if it is..maybe she is simply mirroring for you, to help you recognize it.Just a few thoughts from my own limited experience with life. Ive learned as Ive addressed this with my husband that there are good reasons, and that there is hope and another side. The EMDR therapy seems pretty hopeful. (He started about a month ago, it's a fairly simple process).
Yay Hooray yes you did smile twice so you can do it!! Finding out why you don't and affirming that you can is the work. Practice smiling...find something to smile at and giggle at and do it. I know for me why I didn't and that was because I didn't want to commit to feeling happy. If I felt happy and acted on it it was threatening to me because it would be like saying I agree with what was going on in my life (all of it and I would be inviting people to just act out and hurt me and scare me more) Not acting happy and smiling kept my feelings in reserve. I could hold back and maybe act without restraint a little at a time or later.
The first time I broke thru the barrier of holding back I laughed and had to ask some of my clients "what that noise was"?. They thought I was nuts (sometimes THEY are right) and then they told me it was my laugh. How sad and exhilerating at the same time. I had not allowed myself to smile, giggle or laugh for years. I laugh all the time now without fear. Healthy and great for the spirit.
(((((hugs)))))
-- Edited by Jerry F on Sunday 26th of September 2010 05:36:53 PM
Caretaker, I grew up in an alcoholic home (both parents) as well, and I spent most of the years until my early 20's "numb". I felt like I was functioning as a robot -- going through the motions, but without any emotions.
I went into therapy in my mid-20's, and it was a real struggle to identify my real feelings, they were buried so deeply beneath my consciousness. My therapist had to start me at a very basic level of "mad, sad, or glad?" and later more refined descriptions.
For me at least, it was a self-protective mechanism that developed in response to the pain of my daily childhood life. And I accept that, because it worked very well at the time to save me from a lot of heartache. Just as I accepted that numbness is no longer a functional way to live, and I have to allow myself to feel again.
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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could... Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Emerson
I have PTSD as well, and I do know that it can be more than one occurance that causes this. I have panic attacks, depression and anxiety. I have been through therapy and have found only through alanon that I am able to look at my life a whole new way and kind of move on from that childhood trauma... Take care of you
