Thanks all for your words of insight. Perna, I disagree that 'feelings are affected by thoughts and words." I've been reading lately that our brain is divided into 3 major divisions. The reptilian brain controls our bodily functions, the cerebral cortex is where our rational brain works, and the limbic system houses our emotions.

According to my T and the experts I've been reading, the limbic system is the most powerful in regards to our behavior. We need to be conscious of our emotions in order to be able to manage and control them.

The emotions are in the driver's seat and if we are not there to steer the wheel, the emotions take over. So, maybe we could honestly say that the 'rational' part of our being can be hijacked by the 'emotional' part.

So, when it's stated that we experience 'trauma' when something happens to us that is completely out of our control, isn't it possible that emotions can do that? That we have lost control?

To state that we might have done something 'for a good reason' implies that the rational part of the brain was involved in the decision making process.

I don't want to slip down that slippery slope that will offer perpetrators of violence or crime an excuse that their emotions 'made them do it.'

But, in my case, I had years of unrecognized and buried resentment built up. I cannot even begin to explain what I felt when that huge store of emotion was released. It was the most bizarre experience I've ever had. I left my husband in a flash even though my 'rational' brain knew that it was wrong. I felt like I had been sucked up in a tornado and there was no way out. My emotions completely and utterly controlled me and my normal decision making faculty had no strength to combat them.

Eventually my H and I reconciled but I still have a vivid bodily memory of those moments in which it seemed like my out of control emotions terrorized me.

I learned that we ignore our emotions at our own peril. My job now is to learn how to be attentive to them. That's where my T is helping me.