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Originally Posted by hungryghost
When I got to the part about imposing emotional structure, delaying self-gratification, and learning all those related "grown up" emotional skills, something in me panicked and rebelled like crazy.
It sounds like agonizing work, and for what? "Living" rather than surviving? What's the value in that? Why can't I stay like this? I'm fine. If I take my anxiety meds, and avoid triggers, and dissociate, it's fine and I'm relatively content if I don't look at the dark places. It's enough.
It's taken me a long time to become capable of repressing it well enough that it no longer bleeds through regularly. It's far away, and I exist separately from it now. I don't have outbursts. I rarely rage at people anymore. If something triggers me I suck it all inside and react quietly so that people don't notice. I can't risk ruining this and destabilizing and becoming like I used to be - constantly on edge and prone to hair-trigger rages and meltdowns and panic attacks.
The entire thing feels like a big catch-22. In order to recover, you have to break again. In order to find your authentic identity, you have to destroy what you've built to survive.  All while still somehow living the daily life you have.
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I've quoted a lot and my answer will probably be a mish mash that will hopefully make sense.
I suppose the questions to ask yourself do you want to recover? Are you content the way you are? Is recovery possible?
You could say that you are recovered, because you don't have outbursts and are in control of your emotional reactions. You sound a lot like me. Is that recovered? I don't think so, to me, it's just a different manifestation of dysfunctional way in which to cope.
There will be some that say recovery is possible for EVERYONE, which I guess is true and false. I could say that on the outside it's true that you are recovered, but emotionally underneath (your inner being), if you're like me, then the answer would be false.
I believe, it all goes back to childhood and where we stopped growing emotionally and developed dysfunctional ways in which to adapt, whatever a healthy emotion is it did not fully develop. This will be different for everyone and some will have a more FULL recovery (logic + emotions that are linked together) than others. It seems that my emotional range is extremely limited. If you presented me with a scenario I'd know immediately what the logical response should be, but depending on the situation I'd have to think if I'd feel anything emotionally. Whereas a "non" would be able to immediately answer the question in terms of logic / emotion. My manager once asked me if I felt empathy with the customer, because he wanted me to empathize with them more. My answer was no. I don't feel empathy even though I logically knew what I should feel. I did not like pretending by saying something that I did not feel. It felt like a lie, and it felt like they could see through me. My thought process is I do not know these people, we are not friends, we never will be friends so why would I feel anything. It's completely foreign to me why someone else would care. I don't understand that. When I have achieved something that I know I should have a content feeling or a sense of accomplishment. I have the logical part of knowing I achieved something, but otherwise I don't feel anything and I'm still left feeling empty. It feels like a waste of time, because I could of done nothing and felt the sameway with a lot less effort. I guess this is where it goes back to childhood and emotional development and sense of self. It's developed over the ones adolescence. I don't know how that can be learned as an adult. I could say that I'm recovered, but I've also become EXTREMELY detached which is just a different form of dysfunction.
If recovery to you is logically knowing, being detached so you can control your dysfunctional emotions/outbursts then recovery is possible.. It seems you've achieved it.
If recovery to you is logically knowing, feeling appropriate emotions and having the two linked together then I think it is more questionable and that success will vary with everyone.
In someways, I see controlling the external dysfunctional behaviors as being the easy part. They're actions that can be learned. I've been quite successful in using some dbt skills. It's helpful in accomplishing some tasks and dealing with certain stresses. It's a learned process. It's the feelings/emotions that is the hard part. I'm not quite sure how to feel something that may not be there, and if it's not how do you learn it? I don't know.. Without the emotional development it's basically just going through the motions of life and not much else.