[JaneC]

My T today was talking about a regular theme in my emotions over the months, being shame and guilt, and was explaining that they are often the easier emotions to 'feel' or the second tier of emotions. He says that they are often used as a way of masking underlying emotions that for whatever reason are harder for us to face.

He asked me to look deeper and see if I could uncover the deeper emotions, that he feels I ma avoiding. I thought maybe anger, fear and hopelessness, but he asked me to go deeper.

I have seen here discussions of emotions masking deeper ones, but I ma struggling to find something deeper.

My T mentioned helplessness. That he feels helplessness was the deeper emotion I was feeling, but couldn't express and so used shame, fear etc. I just went blank when he spoke about helplessness, I felt nothing! I completely rejected the idea.....immediately. It is like I refuse completely to entertain the idea.(I think that I recognise that I probably was helpless very many times in my life, but I have NO FEELING attached to that intellectual understanding)

Ok, my questions are....have you experienced this sort of discussion? What came out of it for you? What are some of your deeper emotions, and if helplessness is one of them....how do you experience this? What does it FEEL like?

[RedCedar]

I've talked about this with my T a few times. I definitely use shame, fear, "feeling awkward", anxiety, and self hatred/body hatred as masking or second-tier emotions. I'm still exploring to find out what the deeper feelings are for me. Sometimes it's to cover feeling out of control (similar to helpless maybe?), feeling unworthy, or to keep me from acknowledging trauma.
That sensation of having no feeling of helplessness, even when you can understand it on an intellectual level, seems like a good indicator that you're detached from that emotion, or protecting yourself from feeling it...

[CantExplain]

For me, anger covered everything. When I dug deeper I found feelings I never knew I had.

[ScarletPimpernel]

My T and I have talked about primary and secondary feelings. She's been helping me identify the deeper feelings in order to meet my own needs so I can feel more in control.

Some deeper feelings include: loneliness, helpless, betrayal, vulnerable, violated, etc. They are more defined/specific version of emotions such as anger, depressed, sad, happy.

[Partless]

I haven't heard of the idea of first or second tier emotions. I know some emotions can be more painful than others, such as shame. But if anything, I would imagine that emotions like shame were the deeper ones. People are more likely to react with, say, anger, than to feel or admit shame.

In terms of helplessness, I think that's a common feeling in anxiety and depression, along with hopelessness. It's a feeling I'm quite familiar with. It's quite painful. I can't tell if it's separate from other feelings, like anger or fear. I've expressed it quite a few times in my therapies in the past.

How does it feel? Well, whereas in shame it's like you're melting and shrinking (or perhaps want to melt and shrink and disappear), helplessness feels like being totally stuck, it's very frustrating, but also terrifying. Like your hands and legs are tied up and you keep trying to go up the stairs and you keep rolling back down or perhaps can't even go up. You just want to scream and cry.

[vonmoxie]

Maybe the reason feelings of helplessness can be deeper after repeated trauma is that it can't always be felt in conjunction with surviving. Once I found a way not to feel helpless, and felt invincible instead, I could never go back. It worked for me, for a long time. Feeling helpless though, for me, was tantamount to being back in that place that I was abused, betrayed, where I had no escape.

Shame, on the other hand, protected me in a weird way. It separated me. If I couldn't love myself, I didn't have to love those that abused me, and I wanted very much not to be connected to who they were and what they had done. Shame definitely played a big part in providing my helplessness with cover from the storm.

I don't know that shame is any "easier" to feel.. the shame I felt as a child was crippling. However, I do think it can protect us from other feelings. Shame, at least, has the appearance of being something that can be controlled, an emotion that starts in us, as the result of abuse. But emotions like fear, and helplessness, that happened right at the time of abuse inflicted on us and from which we had no safe haven, on the other hand, are directly associated with feeling completely out of control, and that is a state of mind we humans tend to avoid at all costs, doing very odd things sometimes just to feel as though we have some modicum of control in our lives. I daresay it's not even in our DNA to have any capability at a young age, to fully process feelings we would never have had if we had been protected. I was constantly told by the same people who abused me, how protected and loved by them I was. How lucky I was. It's no wonder I buried my real feelings so deeply. There was nowhere else to put them, and I knew they were going to corrupt everything about me that they could touch. I had to batten down the hatches.

Idk. That's what I'm noticing for me; your mileage may vary.

[JaneC]

Originally Posted by RedCedar

That sensation of having no feeling of helplessness, even when you can understand it on an intellectual level, seems like a good indicator that you're detached from that emotion, or protecting yourself from feeling it...

That sounds reasonable, and I am once again intellectualising this, perhaps you are right that I may be pushing the very idea of it away as a protection.

[JaneC]

Originally Posted by vonmoxie

Maybe the reason feelings of helplessness can be deeper after repeated trauma is that it can't always be felt in conjunction with surviving. Once I found a way not to feel helpless, and felt invincible instead, I could never go back.

It's no wonder I buried my real feelings so deeply. There was nowhere else to put them, and I knew they were going to corrupt everything about me that they could touch. I had to batten down the hatches.

Idk. That's what I'm noticing for me; your mileage may vary.

These things stood out for me, thank you.

I know my gut reaction when T bought it up was ....... no, don't be ridiculous, I'll never feel helpless again. I didn't tell him this, but it was the thought that went through my head.....I do not know where it came from.

This takes a lot of thought and brain power.........

[sweepy62]

Yes , over and over. Masking emotions. She says I am buried in layers of emotions. I use anger, humor, sarcasm, to hide fear shame sadness. She says I should let those emotions come out. I'm numb, I don't know how to. As far helplessness , that's deep, I never thought of it, I don't think , I would ever let myself feel that because, that would mean I'm needy IMO .

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