Connecting with emotions

This question was in one of the PTSD facebook pages. I decided to share my answer here too. Q: How does one connect to emotions in therapy? I have a super strong social/protective self which is hindering my progress. A: Wow. That is a tough question. I survived by disconnecting then my counselor wanted me…

Sent myself to my room

Before I started counseling, I recognized that at times I would get raging angry.  I knew my anger was out of proportion of the incident.  I would send myself to my room.  I placed a blood shot eye TV vegetable with fat lip in front of my door.  Fair warning I was not reasonable, not…

Sneaky Grief

My counselor did not warn me when he helped me reconnect to emotions that these pesky things are messy, sneaky, inconvenient and down right troublesome.  I am struggling in a morass of emotions of my own making.  But I’ve never been happier, more at peace or better adjusted.  Too many people want to runaway from…

All emotions

I lived without emotions for quite a while.  I would file them under the ‘do not disturb box.’  I did this for a good reason.  Growing up in a home where being ’emotional’ was like the worse thing you could do, I stifled my emotions more and more.  Did not help growing up being a…

Feelings?

I wasn’t allowed to have feelings or they were purposely and maliciously twisted for the purposes of my abusers.  Stop the feelings – stop my abusers controlling me.   This brings me to self care #5 Allowing myself to feel all emotions – joy and anger are the most difficult for me. https://healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.wordpress.com/2017/07/16/25-obvious-non-obvious-self-care-issues-complex-trauma-survivors-struggle-with-lilly-hope-lucario/   Judy’s…

What to do with anger?

My counselor taught me that anger is a secondary emotion, hurt, fear, and frustration come first. If your therapist is willing let them walk you through pealing back the anger to explore the hurt you have felt, the fear generated from your experiences, and frustration that people don’t change. Another part of the package is…

Reminder to myself

I deleted a comment from a person that was angry with me over a post that did not meet his need to feel validated.  I feel sad that he is hurting so much.  It is a reminder to myself that not everyone is in the same place when they read my blog.  I’ve been writing…

Don’t tell me why

I get articles about PTSD and depression…Every so often one of the articles tells me how I feel and why.  Don’t just don’t.  This particular article was about depression and stated why I feel depressed.  The article did share one of the causes of depression but it is not my cause for depression.  Over years…

Depression

Depression is one of the symptoms of PTSD.  I realized after several years of counseling I use depression to put a damper on the anger generated by the hurt, fear and frustration I experience every night in my nightmares.  If I am depressed and tired enough, I won’t have nightmares.  A break of sorts.  I…