[precious things]

I am doing trauma work in therapy and because I am so disconnected emotionally from my experiences my T is really trying to help me look at the feelings surrounding the trauma. He told me its like I am reporting the experiences but cut-off from the feelings....and he's right. I can see the experiences, use my adult brain to say how I must have felt, but I don't feel it...

For those of you who have done this kind of work....how do you begin to feel when your default mode has been to disconnect/dissociate? Is it just the more we talk and work with it the true feelings will emerge? I'm afraid my defenses are just so long-standing and built up, that it's near impossible for me to make progress on this kind of work.

[healed84]

I'd like to know as well.. I am in the exact same situation.. For me, I am doing more work in The Courage to Heal and writing about my experiences.

[stopdog]

I don't even understand the phrase. I think I am feeling things but the therapist has said the same sort of thing to me.

I stopped talking about the past because I couldn't connect with the feelings... it was too frustrating... my xT told me that it was creepy that I could talk about such sad terrible things with the same facial expression and tone of voice that I would say "I had pizza tonight for dinner". Oh well my current T and I mostly stick to current day stuff

[refika]

I'm in a similar situation, but somewhat opposite. I have no trouble with my feelings that are directly related to my trauma. In fact, those feelings are so overwhelming, I can't even bring up the memories or talk about it without being completely triggered or turning into a pile of mush.

On the other hand, I have been a pro at disconnecting from all other feelings in life. I must have asked my T a million times that just once, I would love to feel happiness, love, sadness, fear, etc., to anything NOT related or triggering of my trauma. That's something we are working on now.

As a result of our work I have found that just talking about things, answering the age old question "how does that make you feel" and just taking more time to be alone with myself, either listening to music, walking outdoors, etc., has helped me become more in touch with my feelings. So yes, the more you keep working with your T, the more you will be able to become more in touch with your feelings and you will be able to express them.

[critterlady]

My T explained it like this - there's a part of me whose job it is to keep me safe. For me and other trauma survivors, that part tends to work overtime and keeps us from feeling things that hurt. Since you can't feel the good without the bad, the positive emotions are blocked too. Only when the part that keeps me safe believes I really am safe will I be able to feel the feelings related to my trauma. That takes time and for many people, myself included, it happens just a little at a time.

One thing my T does to try to help me access the emotions is to have me consider how I would feel if what happened to me happened to someone else- some other little girl. It certainly helps me feel the anger and even some compassion for the little girl I was.

[Perna]

For some reason my T grabbed "humiliation" and told me to think about that for the week between sessions and, of course, I was immediately humiliated by a boss at work. I worked it through (was painful) and got to anger and figured out how to deal with the anger and set a boundary and then things got really exciting and I reported all that back to my T and she then asked me to look at "disappointment" and I had a similar breakthrough.

Getting one or two feelings going in present time like that helped me with all time. I "got it" suddenly and was better able to go back and forth and see what was there from prevous, etc.