Yes, you are right, animals have feelings, for sure. I don't know when something is a "feeling" and when it is an "emotion". I get the sense one is more complex than the other and almost has a name. I don't know which one I am experiencing.

I challenged the idea of normal emotions in myself, because I feel what I was believing clearly was not working for me. Maybe pretending is not the right word. It is extremely difficult for me to put into words what I am trying to say.

It is like I feel some kind of feeling X. Now I feel it say for the first time in my life (OK, I felt other things like when I was a child, but let's say the feeling of "love" for a girl, which comes later in life for the first time). I don't know what it is. I feel a warm, soft feeling when I think of this girl and when I see her. It is a feeling also like I want to protect her and I want to hold her in my arms. It is a feeling like I want to touch her softly and I want to take care of her. It is also a feeling that I want to be alone with her only in a room and then I want to kiss her and feel her against me. I also dream of special (not ordinary) sex/"making love" with her. On TV and everywhere, for 25 years, I have heard people saying this is defined as "love" that you feel for someone special, usually a person of the opposite sex (not including homosexual people of course, who feel this feeling for the same sex obviously). You also feel it for one person only and they are very special in your life, and when that person is gone, you feel sad and long for them. So, I can confirm all these "elements/components" to the "emotion". I say YES, I feel all of them too. Now, I compose the whole lot together and I agree, I am convinced what I felt is "love", as it is named by the universal conventional name worldwide. We pretty much all agree on what these elements constitute in each emotion.

But, can you see what I am saying? Yes, the elements are there, but for me it feels like the same feeling the whole time and just some of the components are missing or there are new ones present in situation X where they were not in situation Y. People call it say "love" and "happiness". For me, I can't even identify what is what. I just feel a good feeling inside, that I can see OK, it is not the same as the way I feel for the girl. For example, I don't miss the burger as much as I miss her. But, that's exactly my problem.

I am so idiotic, I only realized I felt some kind of feeling for her once she was out of my life already too, I started longing for her, and by deduction I said to myself, so she must have had some kind of place in my heart or somewhere. The only conclusion I could come up with is that I must have "loved" her, since it pains now so much when she is gone and when I think she is perhaps with another man. But, I don't even know what to call it. My feelings are ***-backwards and in reverse! I have to deduce feelings from the absence or presence of other "elements/components". It is extremely confusing and quite frankly I often have no idea what I am feeling any more .