[deflatedballoon]

So last session I spoke to my T about a range of different things from my past and present that have been affecting me. She went on to ask what emotions these elicit in me e.g. sad, angry etc as I seem to recount them in a very 'matter of fact' way. I was worried I would come across like this. I find it very hard to outwardly show emotion and I have never cried in front of my T as of yet. I worry she will start thinking my problems aren't genuine or affecting me as much as they are. Does anyone else have this problem? I don't know how to tell her that the things I bring up really do eat me up inside. It's very frustrating.

[zoiecat]

Oh I can totally relate to this one. I always tell my therapist that I am emotionally challenged. He is constantly asking me what emotions does that bring up? Where do you feel that in your body? I'm like I don't f***ing know. He he says can you look at your words ( that is my list of emotion words, I feel like a four year old being told to use my words). Ivan huff and puff bring out my list of words at the back of my journal I bring in every day and have to figure out what words or emotions tie into what the heck I'm talking about or feeling at the time. I absolutely hate it and he knows it. He must ask me this at least 5 times every session and it's the same go around every time. I will sometimes yell back and say why do you keep asking me that f***ing question and he will say what is it that I do for a living. Then I come back and say who cares what I think who cares what I feel cares what emotion it is I don't care.

Anyway sorry for the rant there. Emotions are just very very difficult for me. I am currently in DBT class which is supposed to help me deal with this but sometimes it just puts me on overload. It all stems back to childhood. I was never allowed to act like a kid I was raised at a family business I was expected to act like an adult. No laughing no giggling no crying. God forbid no throwing tantrums. Quite honestly there was never any joy my childhood so I never learned how to show happiness. Then there was the physical and sexual abuse where I learned never to show fear or pain. Now after Decades of stuffing my emotions down deep inside with food here I am. Stone-faced and emotionally challenged. It could also be described as emotionally avoidant or simply devoid of any emotions.

I know that is probably not the response you were looking for but it just really set something off inside of me as we have been working so hard on this for the past 4 months or so. In reality he is working so hard on it and I've been working so hard to avoid it. Just remember you're not alone.

[zoiecat]

Sorry I kind of went off before I fully read your questions. No I don't think your therapist is going to think that things are not bothering you. They know that we all have emotions and there's no getting around them regardless of whether we show them or not. The reason for asking us to name the emotions is so that we learn to recognize them and deal with them. My understanding of it is that you can't learn to deal with your emotions until you're able to label them. My therapist also says even when you are numb you still have emotions going on inside that your body is dealing with. There you go I can talk the talk and regurgitate what he tells me non-stop every single day. Unfortunately I can't walk the walk.

[deflatedballoon]

Originally Posted by zoiecat

Sorry I kind of went off before I fully read your questions. No I don't think your therapist is going to think that things are not bothering you. They know that we all have emotions and there's no getting around them regardless of whether we show them or not. The reason for asking us to name the emotions is so that we learn to recognize them and deal with them. My understanding of it is that you can't learn to deal with your emotions until you're able to label them. My therapist also says even when you are numb you still have emotions going on inside that your body is dealing with. There you go I can talk the talk and regurgitate what he tells me non-stop every single day. Unfortunately I can't walk the walk.

Thank you so much for your reply. I'm sorry you find this so frustrating as well. It certainly makes me feel less alone. I too had expectations in childhood to act very adult like. Probably where my problems stem from. If only my T could feel what I feel inside sometimes. It's like I know I should be feeling intense emotions but I feel so disconnected I feel nothing. Hope you're doing okay!

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

I used to be like this for the first 6 or 7 months of therapy. It wasn't surprising, as I never show any kind of emotion usually. But I still feel them, and actually know quite well what I am feeling.

My T never pressured me to be more open or anything like that. He just went with it. Sometimes he asked what I am feeling right now, and if I said "nothing" that was fine too.

I don't think a T should feel this is weird. A lot of people are like this. Some take a week to trust another person, some take years. And both should be fine. What always helped me was thinking "well, even if he thinks my problems are not that bad, it's his job to be there for me if I think I need it, he has to deal with his emotions on that not me".

[MrsDuckL]

I totally relate! Like Zoie, I was raised in a household where emotions were frowned upon—the only person in my household who showed emotion was my mentally ill mother who never got treatment.

I’m starting month 6 of weekly therapy and I’ve yet to cry in front of my therapist, save for a few times my voice cracked or I briefly teared up. Therapy for me so often becomes a discussion of feelings I had during the week in relation to my journey, say when I was alone and I felt comfortable enough to sob and cry over a particular feeling. A few times I’ve gotten paranoid that my therapist will think I’m not genuinely experiencing these emotions since I don’t live them in session—but the man is kind and never said anything over it. A couple of months ago I ended up laughing over recalling to my therapist how I was able to identify and name the feeling of loneliness for the first time in a decade. Like, it seems so absurd and something my own 4 year old could do more easily than I could! (I hope my preschooler will be able to do better job of identifying his own emotions.)

Anyhow, Im going to give your therapist the benefit of the doubt and say they probably don’t find it weird. I think it’s a common struggle in therapy, especially among people like myself who weren’t allow to express emotions when they were younger. I use a journal app on my phone so I can capture and identify feelings throughout the week, and I use this to drive the topic of discussion for my therapy sessions. I feel like I’m making *slight* progress, although it’s a slow process for me.

I've always been a crier, but I grew up in a household too where emotions were bad and I would be punished for being emotional, yet somehow that didn't stunt my ability to cry. The crying thing has always been too strong I guess. I've never had a problem crying in front of t, but I do often laugh as a defense mechanism at what would normally be a not appropriate time to laugh, I never quite understood why I don't just cry - crying is my go-to usually - well, maybe I do understand, it's usually when I should be getting angry at something, that I laugh because I have a really hard time with letting myself feel anger, I fear it, I fear that it will explode, so I laugh instead. I dunno. Emotions are hard. I've been therapy for 6 years this go-around, and only rarely have I actually allowed anger to show itself in a session. (It hasn't gone much better than I expected, either.)

[rainbow8]

I've had over 20 years of therapy with 5 different T's and never once cried. We didn't show emotions in my family either. My current T sometimes asks me, when I say that I wish I could cry in the session: What would the tears be saying? She knows I want to cry, but can't. T's know we feel stuff, but can't express it or don't know exactly what we feel. I hate that "where do you feel it in your body" also! I say "I don't know" usually.

[winterblues17]

No I'm not one to show emotions, whether in Therapy, with friends, or even on my own. I don't think I will either, like I've felt sad a few times, especially recently but my natural instinct is to just shut it down and keep talking through it. I learnt that at quite a young age so I suppose that's just how I am now. I've spoke about it, even panicked on a few occasions about it, the thought of losing that self control over my emotions does scare me, whether that be in sadness or anger.
I did and I suppose still do worry that by not showing emotions and coming across quite blank and hardened my T must thin, I don't care about things or something isn't really affecting me, when I fact it can be eating me up inside. Although I think she just knows that's how I am now and that even without the emotions on display I'm still feeling the hurt.
I think just as much as they are used to people crying etc, they are probably just as used to people like some of us on here that don't/can't for whatever reason.

[Spangle]

Originally Posted by deflatedballoon

So last session I spoke to my T about a range of different things from my past and present that have been affecting me. She went on to ask what emotions these elicit in me e.g. sad, angry etc as I seem to recount them in a very 'matter of fact' way. I was worried I would come across like this. I find it very hard to outwardly show emotion and I have never cried in front of my T as of yet. I worry she will start thinking my problems aren't genuine or affecting me as much as they are. Does anyone else have this problem? I don't know how to tell her that the things I bring up really do eat me up inside. It's very frustrating.

I can really identify with this & was very much the same. However, there will come a point when you are able to. We have spent a lifetime putting this **** at a distance, so we can manage. When the emotions do come (& they will!) it will come like a tsunami. Your t is probably more than aware that your coping mechanism is to be ‘matter of fact’ about it. Be a bit more kind to yourself as you can’t hurry the process.

[annielovesbacon]

You're not alone. I've been in therapy for two years and I've never even come close to crying in front of T (though I'm not generally a crier). I also relay my problems in a matter-of-fact way, and when my T asks how I feel, I'm like ???? ?? ??????? ??? I don't f--king know!
She gave me an emotions chart (which made me feel like a child so I threw it away lol...like a child would) but that's not the problem. I know what emotion words are. Angry, frustrated, upset, insulted, content, sad, blah blah blah. My problem is I literally can't identify my own emotions. I don't even know if I have emotions. I never react correctly to emotional situations. After going through very stressful situations, such as

Possible trigger:

when three of my friends attempted suicide on the same night

I tried to sit down and ask myself how I felt. And I really didn't know. And I couldn't figure it out.
Anyway, to answer your question, I don't think your T will see your problems as ingenuine. In fact, she seems to know that your problems are indeed problems, and she is wondering why you aren't showing emotion -- like that might be an additional problem. If you can share with her what you shared here (that these problems are affecting you, you just don't know how to express it), maybe you can explore that with her.

[alpacalicious]

During the last session my eyes were starting to water but I supressed the tears. Because if I start to cry, then what. My T won't hug or show affection towards me...he'll look at me and that's it and I don't want to be at the center of attention. Also I'm afraid to worry him or that I'll bother him...I find it difficult to express them, not only in therapy but outside too. I think it has to do with how my parents raised me. My father didn't want me to express emotions, he always told me to stop crying, or not to laugh. And my mother too didn't validate them, or she was overprotective and made me feel guilty for crying because she looked too worried. But this isn't our fault. How our parents/caregivers acted....it was their decision.
Maybe you don't feel ready or safe enough to express them and that's ok! Verbalizing them and talking about them still counts, even if you don't express them in a non verbal way (crying etc) you are still talking about them.
I think your T understands why you don't express them. Expressing them with your T could take some time, but remember that it's all about small steps! Maybe you could write all of this in a journal and read it with your T?