freaky t dream

And away from those pesky bears.

Oh, stopdog, you of the dismissive-avoidant attachment style, the thing about getting rid of all this emotional crap is that the more healthy our emotions become the more useful they become as additional sources of information about the world and the more they help us successfully navigate it. At least that has been my experience.

I can relate very strongly to your aversion to (which in my case was really terrror of) feelings. Most of your posts sound like they could have been written by me five years ago. In the interim, and with a great deal of fear and trembling and suffering and sweating, I have spent a great deal of time and energy facing and fighting that aversion.

Emotions are always a source of information. When I began my journey, the information was mostly about my past. My reactions to things in the present were really reactions to things in the past that I had never allowed myself to feel, so they seemed to make no sense. They were often disproportionate, inappropriate, and overwhelming. When I finally allowed myself to have feelings about my past stuff, that backlog started to clear out, and ever so gradually, insanely, maddeningly gradually, my emotions have started to become more in tune with what is happening to me in the present.

Given their motivating qualities, witness the bear-chasing-you example, that can be incredibly useful. Every now and then I catch a whiff of the intuitive response that "feels" right in the situation. Call it savoir faire, but as someone who spent so much of my life "out of touch", it feels miraculous.

And when that intuition involves the building or nurturing of intimacy in a relationship, the felt value of that moment is nearly indescribable, and, in that moment, I feel a solid inner certainty that I was put on this planet to forge connections with other humans--that my meaning lies in love.

I truly hope that for your own sake and the sake of others with whom you might someday truly connect that you do not decide to cut off yourself from the amazing resource of emotions or from the spiritually fulfilling experience of genuine intimacy. It's a b1+ch to start on the path; it is incredibly risky; you will be hurt. But it is worth it.

I know the emotions are not in response to anything real (unless a bear comes along). I am one of the 90+% head responding types. I am quite irritated that the rational knowledge does not lead the emotions to follow. I usually do not act irrationally, and I do have a deep appreciation for some of the irony in my situation, but for me, any little blip feels like chaos. Even though I know I am not acting inappropriately, I do not guess at what others mean or feel nor do I think they are acting in response to me, I don't usually do anything extremely off, but the constant feeling of impending chaos/annhilation is bad.

Not everybody moves through the world emoting in a big and open way.

It takes all kinds.

Just to clarify, when I used the words "disproportionate, inappropriate, and overwhelming," I was referring to my felt inner state not outward behaviors. Those words could well be an apt characterization for feeling a "constant feeling of impending chaos/annhilation" at any emotional blip.

What I'm saying is that the feelings you're having about your other feelings don't qualify as a "blip." In fact, some of my most powerful emotions are emotions about my emotions.

That's certainly something you might well want to discuss with your therapist. Why do everyday "blip" feelings lead to these very non-blippy feelings about your feelings?

It would be better to go to the bars!

Emotions don't follow, they lead. A person can keep up with them, deal with them and keep them in check (not repression/suppression, though).

Aha! So that's what's wrong with the universe.

Is it always bad to dream about T as opposed to not wanted and uncomfortable?