Okay so I am not good at the whole feeling your feelings thing. I can identify angry when I feel it. I can identify amused when I feel it. Everything else is.. I dunno. I know I feel something when my heart rate gets elevated or I get to acting worked up or hyper, in a frenzy like. But I don't know what it is that I am feeling when that happens. If I can recall what happened to get my heart rate up, sometimes I can think back and insert the correct emotion word. But I don't really know if that is what I was feeling or if it's just the most suitable word. It all registers as general upset to me. That's how I have been viewing this problem I have. I also tend to think it's an autism component or some degree of alexythemia.

Now I have to wonder if it is neither of those things and some result of my life. It might be me detaching from emotions. Dissociation, right? I'm pretty sure that's what it really is and now is time for me to own that and work on the whole feeling feelings thing. I don't know how to do this though. When I do get to feeling internal upset (just me, on my own) it refuses to stick. Even when I am not fighting it, it's like my brain is still fighting me and saying nope. It stops right in the middle. I can go from zero to a thousand back to zero in half an hour or maybe even thirty seconds. I was talking to my spouse last night and I full blown flipped out on him and cried hysterically for like ten seconds then nothing... like pass the salt, wouldja, kinda nothing. And when I do feel things for longer... like the half hour type, it's like when it's over it's gone from my mind. Even though it happened to me, it's like it didn't. I have no idea how to move forward with this.

I have no idea how to make myself really understand that feeling is ok. I can say that it is, and I think I believe it is, but I guess I can't really believe it if I can't manage to do it, right? I dunno.

I guess I'm wondering if any of you know anything about learning to let yourself actually feel things. Can people do that? Are there books about that? As dreadful as this all seems to me, I would like to try to move forward with it, I just don't know how to proceed. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

-Veda