Quote:
Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
Etcetera you asked what I meant and then proceeded to say twice that “not being allowed to have feelings” didn’t apply, “didn’t fit” with respect to you. So ok. Taking you at your word. Not trying to convince of anything. (Did not mean to offend.)
I don’t want to hijack and create a side conversation. (Which is why I initially returned to Pixie’s issue.)
But to elaborate super briefly, I’d say that “comfortable being detached/dismissing feelings” is just the grown up version of not having been allowed to have them. (Alas I did not necessarily welcome that particular insight from my therapist with open arms; it was the subject of years of work.)😂
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Alright, for clarification, what I mean is that the way it was explained to me before (therapy, self-help articles, books), it didn't ENTIRELY fit me. And whatever exactly it may be that doesn't fit about it, I was still interested in the topic itself.
And then what you described about the experience in your previous post, the examples fit well for my situation, when it's not simply about being comfortable with not focusing on feelings, i.e not just the natural detachment.
I see how you said here about how this is just the grown up version of not being allowed to have feelings. But and I think this is on topic actually, I've gradually become convinced that it's not always about that. But it gets complex there.
Let me try to explain what I mean. What I'm really trying to do is not mistake my brand of emotional detachment for this. That detachment has advantages and is natural for me. I've already had it at age 3. But the detachment also has disadvantages where I'll ignore something emotionally important.
And that's where thread OP sounded like a similar issue, with OP being too rational about those emotions too and looking to not always be so rational in therapy
But like I said for me it gets complex, I don't know if anyone else has had this issue. Because I've seen therapists mistake my detachment for that thingy with feelings being like, not allowed, being ignored and invalidated.
But to me if I was to accept that idea unconditionally, it would mean tearing myself down and making myself believe all those negative things that many therapists like to bring up as "examples" for automatic negative thoughts or guesses about my negative feelings, beliefs and the like.
I see that as a danger with therapy. Maybe I'm not alone with that.
So overall it's just really hard to know if something's just my normal detachment and something is actually ignoring an important feeling to be explored and dealt with. And because of that it's too easy for me to not get to the feelings even in therapy. In the same way OP described it.