Inability to feel

Greetings,

I'm looking for an advice on this.
For years now I've been unable to feel pretty much anything, only when there's extreme stimulus am I able to feel, be it love, anger, hate, joy, etc.
My guess is it's due to my mother's death which I, as a child, got over too easily (as said by other members of my family) - I suppose being alone in this and unable to share anything with anyone back then, I just ignored that emotion, and over time I've lost pretty much all ability to feel.

At this point in my life, it's extremely important for me to regain it, in any way possible. Indifference had its use but now I feel as if I'm losing so much of life. The world of thought has become inane and boring. I'm sick of it and would do anything to feel again, either bad or good, just SOMETHING.
Thank you.

Hi welcome to psych central. I too lost my mother as a child and didn't have anyone to support me back then, so I just pushed all the bad feelings down, and pretended that they didn't matter. As a result I did lose touch with my emotions, and developed all sorts of unhealthy coping mechanisms such as self injury and a drinking problem.

I've found that therapy has been very helpful for me in connecting to my emotions again, although it has been a long slow and very painful process. You might want to consider therapy, if you can afford it or have insurance that will cover it. Just don't expect it to be a quick fix. I've been in therapy for 12 years, and now I can feel emotions again - now I'm learning how to deal with them.

If you do decide to pursue therapy, I'd look for a therapist who has specific training in working with childhood trauma.

Good luck.

--splitimage

I am like this too. I don't have a lot of feelings. I would rather feel anything than nothing at all, it is really hard to get help when you have a lack of feelings too.. I find that people empathize and react to the expression of emotions -- for example if somebody cries then people are more willing to help them and understand their pain.. I wish you the best of luck and I hope you get your feelings back.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/1501
http://www.creative-personal-growth....-emotions.html

(((((Black lordheaven)))))--I was without both parents as a child--My mom divorced my father when I was 2, and my mother was diagnosed as a Paranoid Schizophrenic....in and out of institutions all of my early years.

I learned early on to balance a checkbook, iron my big brothers shirts, put dinner on the table, go to the laundromat, etc--was doing these rather well at age of 7!!

I was told I was "a pest", "a nuisance", I should never have been born, etc- by my older brothers--------and i was totally neglected and abused as a wee one, in puberty, on into adulthood.
I accepted it all with no feeling it was "normal"--However, just as there is sunlight, there is rain; when my mother was present; she told me always that I was "loved no matter what" The "crazy lady" saved my life, she also had some input with positive parenting of my grown children. I love them unconditionally.

Neglect, as a form of abuse is exceptionally difficult to formulate in the formative years. I learned to be "socially acceptable" through trial and error.

I am. I survived. I am, today a human with feelings (often too many--ugh!!)-----As SplitImage has already stated--through 40 years of therapy; (some of it good, some of it bad)--"connected to my feelings"--As stated by Split Image-

a good therapist is needed to accomplish this--also sharing here is a "good thing" (ugh-Matha Stewart phrase)

I give thanks to The Byzantine for the excellent sites!!!

Welcome to pc----------------theo

http://www.readysetpresent.com/produ...motivation.htm

please don't do anything bad in order to feel. that will just end up biting you in the butt. have you thought of trying emdr? i haven't done it but i hear lots of good things about it to help one get unstuck and to process traumatic experiences.

How are you doing, Blacklordheaven?

(((Blacklordheaven))) Have been thinking about your post all day. Pretty much feel the same way. No feelings at all, unless put in an extreme situation. I dont know if its because of medication. I do know that apathy can be a side effect of certain anti depressants. I dont know what your taking but you may want to research its side effects, and discuss it with your Dr. It really feels like crap to feel nothing. Funny we are even able to feel like crap. Youd think it would at least take that feeling away. Hang in there!!!

How's it going Blacklordheaven?

gosh! I thought I was the only one that felt that way. I hate it too.

http://www.personal-development.com/chuck/struggle.htm

What a great article, Byzantine!!!

Truly worth it to take it to heart, and practice it!!!--thank you

"Inability to Feel"--yes, I once was there. It was where I needed to be at those times in my life wherein I needed to just "cope". It is an excellent coping mechanism.

Then there came a time when I was so numb, the numbness hurt me. It was time to feel again.

Deep down inside of me, I had to reach far into the depths of horrors that had been
inflicted upon me, and go through them.....slowly, and carefully.

Then I had to---through Great Pain; validate them. They are a part of who I am today. I place no blame for them. That is self-pity: the path to destruction.

Self-Actualization (Maslow?, Erikson? theory on growth and development) is the outcome.

I am who I am.
It was what it was.
I will be the person I was meant to be----------theo

Wow, I'm certainly glad (well not "glad", I wouldn't wish it to anyone, but you know) that there are others who are this way too. Hope you find your way.
I'm not taking any pharmaceutical drugs. First time i hear of emdr, I'll check it out.

I'm fine, live life the same way I'm used to. There are several options on what to do. The first is not a scientific one, so i won't talk much about it here, alternative, no hard feelings if it doesn't work. doh
The second one is illegal, so I won't talk about it.
Third option is psychotherapy, which will be something alltogether new to me, as I've never even talked to a psychiatrist.

Theodora, seeing what you've gone through, and in the end are a normal, well, feeling human - gives me great hope.

Nice article, but still feeds frustration.
It's funny, really, how hard it is to remove blockages and mechanicsms we ourselves created.

Gee- I thought we'd lost you-----been awhile! Good to hear from you!

Glad to hear you are working on this.

I just reread my replies to you; I have to tell you; I really don't have all the attributes you've given me in your post. I still struggle.
I really don't know what "normal" is--but after all the years in therapy, and working
on myself, I am able to FEEL.

Sometimes I feel silly, sometimes sad, I even get up on my soap box from time to time, I often feel frightened and out of my depth, I even panic.....my mind starts to
run away from me, and I have to go get it back. lol

Nah- not "normal" at all--------I don't really want to be that anyway--------

Life is rough--we all struggle--I am glad I may have given you hope---wow that feels good!!! I am glad you've come back-----I send you hugs----theo

http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/940

For me, chasing something that I think I should be experiencing seems never to have brought me anything but trouble. The way out of wherever I've been stuck has always turned out to be to pay close attention to whatever I am aware of, and allow it to be just the way it is. For instance:

"it's extremely important for me to regain it, in any way possible"

"I feel as if I'm losing so much of life"

"The world of thought has become inane and boring."

"I'm sick of it"

Those were apparently what you happened to be aware of when you posted that. Not always feelings per se; perhaps more like attitudes, another mode of experiencing. They may even have been part of a story you were telling yourself to distract yourself from something else -- still another mode of experiencing. Perhaps the most obvious way to block out something you're experiencing, is to think it must be a mistake and you should be making yourself experience something different.

I used to struggle constantly against "blockages and mechanisms". It took me quite a while to realize that those blockages and mechanisms didn't have an existence separate from me. I was creating them and keeping them in place precisely by struggling against them. It was only when I discovered what I was doing to keep them in place and could be aware of choosing to do it, that I could also choose not to.

Those are some very good points, and i know you're right. Just one question. How did you discover what you were doing to keep them in place? Cause after so many years of being that way, it has become such a normal thing that I don't remember how it used to be. I can stop struggling consciously. But there are things within the unconscious that also need to be resolved. I have no qualms that I'll succeed, eventually. But it will take time.

@Theo: I didn't mean "normal" in that sense, more like being a normal human with a full spectrum of feelings.

Thanks everyone, and good luck to all others who're also having the same issue.

The story of my life! lol
I did go for two years of psychotherapy a long time ago, a year each with two new psychiatric residents. I could've been their first patient for all I know. I'm sure I got something out of it but I'd have a hard time saying what.

I lean toward the "alternative", myself. Some things are "unscientific" because they really are nonsense, others only because science is still catching up to them. Carl Rogers, who helped invent counseling, was too alternative and unscientific for my teachers when I was in school. So was Abe Maslow, whom theo mentions earlier in this thread. Now that I'm safely out of school and don't even have to pretend to be scientific, I'm free to favor Alan Watts, the author of Psychotherapy East and West. Last year I quoted from another of his books here.

I've had a long history with alternative approaches myself; I posted just a little about some of them here and here (two replies to the same long thread). I'm pretty sure it was Fritz Perls, the Gestalt guy, who said (though I can't find where he said it): suppose someone came to him because their hand was always in a fist and they couldn't seem to open it. If he worked with them, he'd first get them to make an even tighter fist. As they learned how to do that, they'd also be learning how to open their hand. To me, that's pretty much the epitome of an alternative approach -- and I wouldn't be surprised if the same principle turned out somehow to underlie a good part of accredited, scientific therapy.

There! The surface has been scratched, even if just barely.