What's the real problem here?

50 years ago I was an overcontrolled perfectionist with anorexia nervosa. Therapists encouraged me to express my feelings. Feelings were pretty disconnected from my awareness.

I recovered from anorexia but went to therapy off and on over the years, primarily for depression or anxiety. I tried very hard to get in touch with my feelings and eventually I was able to. And in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s vehement expression of emotions was a cultural norm.

Nowadays the pendulum has swung back again and I am castigated and despised because although I can now feel and express my emotions, they can get dysregulated – causing me me to be seen as a social problem when I express them. Still in therapy, paying out of pocket.

Does anybody else here see the possibility that we are society’s scapegoats, not the problems? Or – if we ARE the real problems – why is it a problem for others, in these days of "boundaries", if we suicide?

Feelings are overrated, IMHO.

You might enjoy reading Thomas Szasz, The myth of mental illness-- probably one of the best books from the 1970s (I think that's when it was written; I read it in grad school in the 1980's) about the social construction of mental illness. There is much theory in psychiatry and psychology from the perspective that we label people as "mentally ill" when they don't conform to social expectations. And that therapy can be more about teaching people to fit into "polite society" rather than helping them per se.

So I guess I get where you are coming from. It's great that you recovered from anorexia, but I'm sorry you are still feeling rejected because of your way of being in the world. I hope that you stick with therapy if it helps you, but it is always your choice not to seek treatment.

I don't have a clue. I also have emotional dysregulation and feel like an outcast. I have depression, and feel like I have to push myself each and every day/hour/minute to make it through only to have to go through it again. I choose to be in therapy because it gives me hope that I will someday work through it all. Otherwise, I would continue on in the same existence, and that is not an option.

I believe assisted suicide should be a right of every human being. I believe in the quality of life, and right now although it is better than it was after termination, it is still a struggle. I still struggle with that issue and issues before it. My issues are compounding, and I feel trapped to carry on and put on the mask that hides what others don't want to see or know. I believe many suicides are often people taking control of their lives, escaping inescapable pain, when they can't achieve this goal while living.

I don't know if we are scapegoats or the problem, but I don't fit in in life. I don't fit in with my FOO, I don't fit in with relationships at work, and I don't fit in with the therapeutical relationship. So, what is my purpose here? To suffer in silence so others don't have to hear/see/feel my pain? I say, Give me liberty, or give me death!

My mother has just died so I don't have to try to fit in with my FOO any more. I'll look at the Thomas Szasz book. Thanks.

Just wanted to say that I can certainly relate to most of what's being said here as I have felt the exact same way myself more often than not ... I feel so bereft of self at times that I'm not sure when or where I lost me or how to even get me back ... Wish I knew the answer ... But, so far ... Nada ... !!!

I'm sorry about your mother. I hope that you are taking care of yourself. I think I gave an answer to your question as to how I really feel, but I didn't take into account really what you were trying to say. You're in my thoughts.

What you wrote was really fine -- real feelings are what I'm trying to accept in myself, I certainly accept them in others. I hope my reply was OK to you? I was trying to say that now that my mother is gone, I'm somewhat relieved of the need for her acceptance, because it's not available at all, even on a conditional basis. Not that I would have wished her death to come sooner. I would have wished that we could have come to a place where I felt unconditionally accepted by her, but we didn't. That's the painful part, the source of feeling rejected for much of my life, and possibly an important part of my emotional regulation deficits.

But being sensitive to being rejected -- that also means I'm sensitive to being re-wounded in therapy. And saying that I can choose not to be in therapy is like saying that I can choose not to go to a doctor when I'm sick. Yeah, sometimes that's a good idea, too. But we usually don't reject people because they're sick. Unless they were lepers before it was called Hanson's Disease and they had treatment for it.

OK, maybe society has to protect itself from emotional lepers -- by rejecting the people who have been rejected and are therefore emotionally dysregulated. Maybe that makes it easier to understand -- it's not PERSONAL that people reject me. (Huh?)

I think that we are society's scapegoats. I like your original post - it highlights some things I have suspected but was not sure. Each decade there are psychological fads. I remember when I was a child in the 80s, the fad was Ritalin (give em a Ritalin to shut them up, even if the problem isnt ADHD). I'm not sure what the fad was in the 90s because I was relatively functional and did not go to therapy. But now in the 2000s the new fad is Mindfulness. Except in this decade the idea is not to "shut them up" like in the 80s, it is more like you described - to feel and express emotions. But not TOO much otherwise you are labelled BPD. But not TOO little otherwise you are labelled a narcissist/sociopath. ANd if the current fad does not work for you - you are labelled as a difficult client and no therapists will have you.

I just ignore the fads and stick to stuff that had been proven to work. Well I do TRY the fads at least once (you never know, it could work) and if they dont work, I do not try them again. And if the therapist I have does not like it (like my last one), I get rid of them and find one who will stick to the evidence-based practise.

I really want to understand but are you saying that you dont think you should be therapy because of your rejection sensitivity? When you said that we usually take people who are sick do u mean that therapists take us even tho u dont think they should? I truly want to understand hear what you are saying but my brain isnt working. Im pozting from my phone. Thanks for bringing up the subject

I don't know how you are "expressing" your emotions. I don't know that the style of the 60's and 70's was that particularly healthy with the telling everyone else how you feel --whether they wanted to know or were part of a situation or not.

Emotions/feelings are information for us. They, along with our thoughts help help us navigate the inner and "other" relationships we have as a part of living. Letting someone know we feel they screwed us, is not particularly helpful to us or them? We need our feelings to help us act; other people do not need our feelings, they have plenty of their own. They might like to know our feelings, might find them helpful in interacting with us but just emoting per se is not a relationship help?

We cannot control our emotions or thoughts, they arise on their own; we can only control our actions. That is not to say that we are not responsible for ourselves at all times; control and responsibility are not related. Telling someone else how we feel or what we think are actions. If we feel and do not pass the feeling through our thoughts and reasoning or we think and do not go any deeper to see what we are feeling, and then tell someone else; in my opinion, we have not taken good responsibility for our actions.

It's all right to feel angry, hurt, frightened, excited, happy, sad, whatever we feel. Feelings just are. They do not hold judgments; it's not right or wrong to laugh at a funeral, to cuss and look back when you trip on a sidewalk crack :-) I think we get tangled up when we start trying to do things as society would have us do them, first, before recognizing what we feel and think and what we would like to do ourselves, for ourselves. Worrying about what others do or do not think of us and our actions, not examining our beliefs that others know what we are thinking or feeling or "should" know and operating on those beliefs is where I've had the most problems in the past and where therapy helped me the most.

Hi, I would keep working in therapy so that you can understand your emotions and learn to work with them. Do you have a lot of stored emotions from the past?

Sorry about your mom.

Maybe a society consisting to a significant extent of emotionally dysregulated people has to protect itself in this way...

this has been a really liberating thought for me, which you express so well here: that feelings just are. Kind of like the weather and maybe as changeable for me. When I approach them this way, it is a lot easier for me to go through my day. Giving them TOTAL power doesn't work; nor does repressing them....but like the clouds, they mostly move on. That is where therapy helped me the most. Thanks for your thoughtful post.

Also, for me, worrying about what "society thinks" just seems like a real waste of time. What, after all, is society? It's different in New York than in Idaho, and it's like a phantom...why even care?

This is a very good point. The trouble is, that where I was coming from, I just took the therapists' word for the new "right" way to behave. Because I probably had a (undiagnosed/untreatable at the time) personality disorder I had no way to understand the other things you wrote about.

I continued trying therapy, though, because I continued having problems. I have tried other things, too -- spirituality, religion, etc. I've done a lot of my own research along the way.

I'm certainly willing, and have, to take responsibility for myself. But I'm not seeing anything, in public at least, from the profession taking responsibility for ineffective and sometimes iatrogenic therapies and therapists. Sure, we all make mistakes. But it has been harmful to me when therapists made suggestions that they thought would help my internal psyche (such as express your feelings) without alerting me to the potential problems. That may sound weird or odd -- but then that was probably a part of my personality disorder. I had shut down feelings, as a way of becoming socialized as a child. When therapy encouraged me to unleash my feelings, they unleashed me to become subject to social rejection which I had no way to understand.

Sure, it was my problem to begin with. But when I learned in therapy to behave in other ways, without a way to understand the effect of my actions on others -- something just doesn't seem quite kosher here, that it's all on me although the consequences certainly are. Or is that just my misguided understanding again?

I think it is very possible to learn to express one's emotions in a healthy way that doesn't harm others. Before I went to therapy, I was not good at expressing emotions or even knowing I had them. Now I can do this so much better. Phew! Luckily, I don't have dysregulation to contend with. I do relate, though, to what you have described as first working in therapy on one problem, and then having to work on something quite different as you progressed. It sounds like you thought if you learned to express emotions, that would be it for therapy. Now it turns out you need to work on another problem--the dysregulation. It can be boggling sometimes to experience how many problems to work on just seem to come out of the woodwork when we go to therapy. When I first went to therapy, I went for help with depression and my marrriage. Then we ended up doing trauma work, learning to detect and express feelings, learning to let myself cry, improving relations in my family of origin, then with my own daughter, handling conflict, dealing with the impending death of a parent... The list just goes on. I hope you can hang in there and work on the dysregulation. You've had a big success in therapy in learning to express feelings. Keep going.

I think that you have to finish up your work. Working through this stuff is hard. New problems come up and you have to keep working it.

Maybe I wasn't clear. I am continuing to work in therapy. But I had a very hard time finding someone who could work effectively with me on this stuff. And a lot of the theory and therapy about attachment issues, etc. is relatively new. Helpful and effective -- but I lucked out when a friend mentioned that she thought that a therapist I had been working with was not responding to me appropriately. I couldn't really see that because of my issues -- and where was there anybody who COULD help me see that? Certainly not the therapist, because of his own issues.

So, I consider that it was a miracle, a deus ex machina, that I had the good fortune to have such a good friend, whom I met in a support group. It wasn't the in "the system" where I found the "help" that I needed, in order to get the appropriate professional help that I needed. That's very scary. How many other people are out there who haven't had my luck?

Here's the point I would like to try to make: I think either (1) the professionals need to come up with a better way to deal with situations when they begin to realize they are "out of their depth", and/or (2) people seeking help for deep-seated issues of identity and sense of self need to come together to form an advocacy and referral network.

Or maybe -- PC is wonderful forum and I'm also talking with my current therapist, who does a lot of training for other therapists. Maybe that's all I can do.

My experience has been similar: it has not been within the "system" that I found sufficient help. As I read it, throughout the history of this endeavor, "professionals" have made a lot of mistakes that have had very bad consequences. I suppose that is understandable if we are all just pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps, having no big daddy to give us the straight truth, but instead having to work it out for ourselves. But it is for me a frightening process.