My body feels weird ~ pls help!

I don't know if this makes sense to anyone here, but I have a strong history of repressing my emotions. As a child, my aim was to stop the chaos surrounding me. I was scared and sad, angry and confused as to why I couldn't get my family to get along.

I've now distanced myself from the family, in hope of getting out of the darkness and into a healthier state of mind. The problem is that I feel blank inside. I cannot figure out the emotion/s.

I feel a heaviness in my chest, restriction in my throat, anxiety (I want to run!), as well as a stillness ~ (as though someone's yelling, "sit still!" at me). Kind of like being a prisoner or something. Does this make sense to anyone?

How do I let emotions that I've repressed out? I asked my T this Q today, to which he said that was tricky because I very rarely shed a tear even in therapy. When I do cry, I instantly angrily tell myself to stop. The T said that is a learned behavior, deeply ingrained in my psyche over the years.

But, how in the world can I feel better if I don't let these emotions out? I don't see my T for another 2 weeks and I feel as though I'm on a teeter-totter. Any experience with events like this? Please help if you can.

Thank you ~

I repress my emotiontion but for different reasons i didnt grow up in chaos like that. I dnt no what to sugest to help you

Posted by shezbut
"I feel a heaviness in my chest, restriction in my throat, anxiety (I want to run!), as well as a stillness ~ (as though someone's yelling, "sit still!" at me). Kind of like being a prisoner or something. Does this make sense to anyone?"

I can relate to this in a way. I feel trapped with all the emotions that i just cant let out. I feel week to cry and be vunerable and for needing help. When i start to cry i can only cry for a few seconds then i really angry at myself and i just cant phiscally cry even if i need to. I feel the tears inside my eyes but i cant let them out. i do be saying to myself cop the f*** on you fool state of ya sitting here crying.

wish i could help you or give you positive words. I hope you can eventually work this through with your therapist. good luck

I had a T long time ago had me rip up a phone book and used to tell me to dig in my garden to get my feeling out, it did work for me for a time.

Shezbut you have made and effort to set a boundary for the first time. And your going to have mixed feelings about that. I can relate to that feeling because I used to give in to my family all the time. I worked my life around them and eventually the time came when I did have to stand up and voice my opinion. That was mostly with my sister who was always the controling force in the family.

But what that meant was exclusion for me. And I am not a spring chicken and I do have to say it has been uncomfortable for me and I do have mixed feelings. But there comes a time when one has to stop allowing others to claim territory over them so to speak. And the old me just did whatever to make everyone happy.

You have decided to disconnect and work on yourself, guess what, you never made that effort before. So what you are feeling is normal as it is new to you. As far as crying during therapy sessions, don't worry about that, you dont know what you feel yet, your going to have mixed feelings for a while. And the tightness in your chest and your throat as well as feeling blank are all about self doubt. Why? because this is alien to you, you have never done this before. And the blank feeling is mostly because you actually don't know how to feel about it, almost like you are waiting for something to happen as might have in your past. And the feeling of sit down and shut up? Well, that is anger trying to come out and yet you are not sure how to let it out and what it even means yet. And maybe a part of you is angry that you have needed to break away in order to work on yourself. And that reaction is also partially a feeling of guilt that somehow you didn't command enough respect in your family or you may even feel like some of the issues were your fault somehow.

Your going to have to take time to sort it out, and it will take time. And you may fair better if you keep a journal for yourself and write down whatever your feelings are, including the ones that you describe here. You may even be doubting how to be loyal to yourself, after all you have had a confusing past and there were good memories there and still there were things that effected you, and as you mentioned the atmosphere in your home was disruptive. And remember that is what you know, you dont know anything else.

What is going to happen now is YOU ARE GOING TO LEARN WHAT TO KNOW MORE AND MORE. You have made some decisions and you havent figured out the next step yet, you have no practice at it, no real knowlege of it.

Just concentrate of self soothing talk and remind yourself that you are new at this and that is all. You are really taking the first steps to being on your own journey, and that is often confusing and the lack of emotion? Well you don't really know that yet. No one says you have to react any certain way, it is an individual type of grieving process, there is no right way to do it, you will develope your own way now.

You will be getting to know you, getting to know all about you and you will be learning how to be you on your own for the first time. Remind yourself that you are worth the investment and it is now up to you. You have to give yourself permission to separate yourself from the opinions of others that you have dealt with all your life.
It is time for you to form your own opinions. That takes time.

So go easy on yourself and just say to yourself, I am not sure who I am yet but I am special and each day I will learn more and more about how to be me and be ok with it.

Open Eyes

I can relate to a history of learned repression of feelings -- That was definitely my survival tactic of choice growing up and is still something I'm working through as an adult.

I've been trying to get more physically active. It may not be an emotional expression, exactly, but it does help me feel like I've gotten something out of my system. It might help your physical feelings, and it gives me a feeling of accomplishment, so I get to feel a positive emotion and not just the bad ones.

I think posting here has helped a little in this regard -- it's a safe place for me to express emotions, I'm in total control over what and when I share, etc. If I get upset, I can pull myself together at home, at my own pace, and know that other folks have gone through these types of experiences, and it might feel bad now, but we will be OK.

I am working on this now with my T. I've repressed my emotions for so long, I honestly think sometimes I don't know what I'm feeling. T is having me work on recognizing my emotions now. Not sure how to do this though. Wish I could help you more, but I do understand what you are saying.

Have you asked yourself what the danger is in letting them out? Keeping them in is .. a misperception of control (of the chaos, when little), fear of something too (of not being seen or validated if in emotional pain? fear of falling into deep dispair? fear of.. )

What do you see would happen, or what would the consequences be if you let them out?
Can you envision crying and having compassionate thoughts about yourself, similar to how you might respond to someone else in distress?

I can definitely relate. I haven't cried once in therapy (which I almost feel "cold" for that, considering it is all of my private stuff and feelings, past private experiences, etc.) and haven't cried in so long I can't even remember when. Which would be fine, except depression wise and life quality wise it's gotten worse compared to say, a year ago.

Wish I could help you too but I can't say I'm really sure how, as just thinking of doing it myself doesn't work. But it looks like some good advice already so I'll definitely keep an eye on this topic.

I took a Dale Carnegie course 20 years ago, and mostly we gave little speeches, sometimes 2 a night. One night I even skipped the first half of class, I SO did not want to do the exercise. You roll up a single sheet of newspaper into a tight tube, then we each gave a speech about some injustice - mine was women's lib related, like why does women's shirt dry cleaning cost more than men's (I think they have since alleviated this injustice!) and while talking, you hit the table with the paper tube, over and over. I was VERY surprised at how EMOTIONAL I got. I really should do it again, I don't know why T's don't "offer" it. Those cushy bats were popular in the olden psych days, whatever happened to them, and punching pillows & stuff.

Aside from that, I think our caretakers scared the carp out of us and DID tell us to sit down and not move off the couch, and we were able to follow those orders, even as young as we were. I don't remember before, but I do remember after telling my older brother he should sit still like me and quit making our mother mad. I also remember being told, and hearing my cousins being told to "stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about" - those "dumb" kids got in trouble every weekend, not me! But now they all have big houses and families, and I have carp.

I don't know Echoes.

A big part of me is numb inside ~ sometimes, I feel something. But it is a rare occasion. Unless it's anger. Anger, I feel too free to let out in the open. Which results in lots of apologies and regrets.

I have distracted myself from the feelings that I originally posted on and am back to the numbness.

Hankster did make a good point ~ perhaps the negativity & repression of sadness or fear was a generational kind of thing. "Don't speak unless someone is speaking to you. Stop crying or I'll really give you something to cry about!" (paddles and belts were often used to get their point across to us ~ and they weren't used lightly.)