seperating emotion when discussing abuse

Hey, I don't know if anyone has seen any of my previous posts but currently I am for the first time in my life confronting my past and trying to deal with it.

I finally told someone the truth a few weeks ago, and since then life has literally been crazy. But I do feel like I have come on in some ways and am finally starting to take some positive steps.

My only problem is, whenever I talk about any of the abuse in my past I always turn into like literally a rock. Anything I say is said without any emotion because I just seperate it all out. I think its a habit from the past, where I would disocciate myself from situations as a coping mechanism. I NEVER cry and people find it weird how I can be so in control when I talk about it but I just don't know any other way. Sometimes I worry that because I dont show the emotion, people won't know I have it and might think I'm lying or something, I dont know. Having said that they do say they can see it hurts me even if I do try to hide it. I just don't like being out of control even though I really do just want to cry about it and show people how I really feel. My friend said when I talk about things that hurt me, it is like the lights are on but noones home and she can see I just go somewhere else inside me and its almost like I'm telling a story. I have a habit that if saying something is going to make me cry, I just wont say it. But then I know its never going to get any better.

Does anyone else ever do this? Anyone else ever felt like it? Any advice or further understanding on this matter?

I once asked my therapist why I can't just decide to act a different way. He said your brain develops along certain pathways over time. You can't just suddenly change it.

You say you've never known any other way. That knowledge isn't just something intangible floating in your brain. It's the wiring of your brain. It hasn't had to cope with this before. You've been coping in a world where you haven't been able to tell, and now that you have been able to tell, your coping mechanisms aren't working because they were developed to cope with the previous world, not this one.

Please excuse the rubbish metaphor, but it's a bit like saying: my shoes have been hurting me for years, and now I've stepped onto an ice rink and I can't even walk any more. I want to walk, so I'll get somewhere, but I keep falling over. If I don't walk, I'll never be able to change my shoes, but that doesn't mean I can do it.

"I have a habit that if saying something is going to make me cry, I just wont say it. But then I know its never going to get any better."

I think a very great number of people have felt exactly this. You didn't want to have that thing to say and you wish you didn't need to say it and go through the pain of saying it. You're dealing with shame that belongs to someone else, that someone else has subjected upon you, and all the feelings that come with that.

The way you feel may not make sense to you right now, but it does make sense.

Hi pickle, you are very normal and what you describe is common. Our will to survive things is very strong. We will do all sorts of things to get through situations. You sound like you have a lot of self understanding and good friends. Good luck on your journey and keep us updated on how you are doing?

Thank you for your responses. They are both really helpful.

The things you have said both really make sense, I think it will just take me a while to see it. But thanks for saying it to me I need to hear it.

I must have stopped crying over my issues after many people got angry with me for crying---and also when someone I really cared about told me that I was "just seeking attention".

I learned not to cry.

Now, I think ppl think I am okay when I am not. It's interesting that you say you are afraid that people think you are making it up when you don't act emotional. I experienced something different: Being emotional just made everyone around me disgusted and they wanted to avoid me. So I learned not to act emotional, even when I was sharing horrible stuff. In fact, one day, I was talking about something that happened with my abuser and laughing about it; it was funny to me, then. And the person that I was talking to said, "Carol, it's NOT FUNNY. Why are you LAUGHING about this?! You went thru something terrible."

Yes, I learned to laugh at trouble, but maybe to a point where I could not even experience appropriate emotions anymore.

I lived in an environment where it was okay to be happy but if you were sad or angry, forget it. No one was going to deal with you.

Carol

It's your experience. I don't think anyone else has the right to judge how you should feel or react.

I do the same thing. Its the only way I can deal with it. I close my eyes and tell a story and dissociate from the fact that it happened to me. Sometimes I go as far as use third person and call myself "The girl"

Thanks for all the respobses they all mean a lot and are really helpful.

Carol, either way I think we're both in ways arguing the same thing but in different ways. Feel free to disagree but I think either way we're having to.disocciate ourselves emotionally to hide our emotions one way or another. Either way as ypu said yoirself, it is a learned behaviour.

I think humpur is another coping mechanism to hide emotions.

I grew up in an environment where most were angry and sad, and my abuser made me nothing but angry and sad. But I had to be the one to not show it.