I appreciate everyone's support. Thank you very much. I am feeling better, and I think today's session prevented a psychiatric crisis. Which is exactly what urgent care is supposed to do.

I do understand hubby's viewpoint for the most part, since I was also an abused child, and I also went "robot" for a number of years. (Fins, as a girl, even I was raised on "if you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about.") To this day I can't show any emotion at all in front of my mother, because I don't trust her. I'd have an easier time bawling hysterically in front of total strangers, than even shedding a silent tear in front of her.

Example: I had all three of my babies with no painkillers. When I was in labor with my third child, it hurt just as much as it the first two times, when I screamed bloody murder, but my mother was in the room with me the third time, and I didn't even utter a squeak. Couldn't. And I also didn't cry when that baby died two months later. Couldn't. Oh, yes, it hurt. The worst, most horrifying mental torture I've ever experienced in my entire life, and I felt every ounce of it. But I didn't have the ability to cry. The thing is, I *know* how messed up I was when I felt pain but couldn't express it. And I hate the thought of my husband being in that place. This is why it disturbed me so greatly to see him lose three relatives, one of them especially beloved because she alone stopped his abusive childhood from being a *total* hell, and not be able to respond to it emotionally.

T pointed out that it isn't always ONLY a matter of, "I've always been punished for showing emotions, so I'm going to shut down." In T's words, "His father didn't beat him for being emotional. His father beat him for being alive." And in addition to shutting down just to avoid punishment, there is also an element of, "I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of seeing me break down." I relate to that. I remember thinking like that. I remember being slapped in the face, and immediately becoming absolute stone because I would NOT let my mother feel like she won.

I guess we're not so different.