Thoughts and Observations on Feeling

I had another therapy session this afternoon. First in a week and a half. First since the disastrous one 11 days ago). Good lord, I wonder if it was as draining and hard on him as it was for me. :-( I almost cried and I am very much hoping he didn't hear it in my voice the time I came the closest. Chip, chip, chip... Sure, you'll get some emotions, some feelings if you keep on about them. If you keep bringing them up, always asking 'What is it like for you now?','What are you feeling now?','How does it feel to have said that?'... *shudder* Even writing those questions made me feel uncomfortable.

I hated talking about last session. I hated trying to explain I was mad without actually having to say it. Responding in the affirmative when he suggested that I had been hurt (I didn't actually say it myself). I felt ripped apart, bruised and battered along with a myriad of other things I can't identify or describe. Unfortunately I think it might have been a good thing. But God, I hated it, I really did.

Feelings? Who cares, I don't know what am I am missing. And if I am unaware of the fact that it exists for other people, that I am the exception rather than the rule...

To actually FEEL feelings... Is it strange that I had always been under the impression that a physical sensation attached to a feeling was not the norm, but rather something that didn't really happen all that often? I remember one time while I was in Junior High... I hugged my grandma, no special reason just, you know, what grandparents and grandkids do. And I felt something in my chest... I don't know how to describe it except to say that it felt good. I thought it was so cool, I didn't remember feeling anything like that before. A few days later I was at my best friends house and I was telling her mother about this exciting thing that I had experienced when I hugged my grandma and she gave me a funny... 'Yes... don't you always feel that?'.

Well, as I said I didn't remember feeling it before and so I probably thought the question was a little strange. I do remember being embarrassed a bit but not knowing why. I certainly didn't think on it long enough to wonder if everyone felt it much more often then I did.

Fast forward about ten years or so and I find myself medicated and talking for 50 minutes a week to someone I didn't know from Adam nine months ago.

With therapy always coming back to my 'feelings' it didn't take long before I realised that this disconnect my therapist was eluding to might have a part in that story of 10 years ago. That what was for me something novel and exciting, might actually be pretty common place for everyone. That this evident shying away from feelings that I have been told I do (with which I agree and believe me if you had been in my session today, experienced it from my point of view you'd agree too), somehow could be connected to that as well.

Does it matter? Should I miss something I wasn't all that aware of to begin with, now that it has been made known to me? 'Think about your feelings, sit with your feelings, identify you're feelings'... I'd rather not, thanks, especially not the bad ones: the anger, the hurt and pain, the impatience, the jealousy... I could keep going. Probably there are some on my list others wouldn't consider bad. *shrug* It is entirely possible they are not. I know I have a tendency to be hardest on myself, to be my own worst critic. Not a day goes by I don't berate myself for something. But such is my existence, such is MY normal, and I don't know how to fix it. 24 years is, after all, a lot to try and undo.