neo651
Active member
I have a very [insert adjective] problem. I'd like to call it "unusual" but I've only ever been emotionally close enough to one person to confide it in and two people does not a survey make.
I very rarely feel emotions. Of many types. I've identified happiness and stress as specific examples thus far. For example, many years ago I dated a girl and I was in love and we got along very well and everything was good. I was happy. But I didn't feel it. How did I know I was happy? Because I acted happy without realizing it and people would tell me. They said I was more confident, more outgoing and with respect to work and school I myself could see that I was more productive. But despite this I never FELT happy. Not that I felt unhappy. I just felt nothing.
Conversely, I've noticed that when I'm stressed I can never tell until I have some sort of a stress reaction. We all have ways we react to stress. For me it's certain, various, types of behaviors I start to exhibit. One day I'll catch myself doing one of the things that's a stress reaction and say "Oh boy, I'm all stressed out". But once again, I don't FEEL stressed. I don't feel anything.
The only times I feel emotion is when it's very extreme. The first time I told that girlfriend I loved her and she reciprocated I was elated. It was one of the rare instances where I actually felt an emotion. But unfortunately it's very brief. Usually a few minutes, hours if I'm very fortunate, and then nothing again for months or years at a time.
This causes two problems for me. The smaller of which is that I have to learn how to identify all of my emotions based on my own behavior. It's as if I were incapable of feeling physical pain so I have to constantly inspect my body to make sure I don't have some dangerous cut or infection on me. It's very tedious because it's not until a certain emotion hits those high levels that I know which emotion I'm experiencing and then I have think back to figure out what actions were associated to it.
The second problem is that I have this drive to feel the emotions I'm missing out on, no matter what they are. The emptiness of emotion bothers me so much that I'm willing to feel negative emotions just so that I can feel anything. And as most of us know, bad things come more easily than good and so I've effectively become an emotional masochist. Whenever I have a problem I drag it out, ignore it, amplify it, whatever it takes to keep it there. Because as long as I have a problem I have something to feel bad about and so I have something to feel and I like that. Happiness takes a lot of work to cultivate and the process fails very frequently and doesn't last any longer than any other emotion. But misery breeds easily. So I can always have some on hand when I need to feel.
Since I've figured this out I've wanted to seek professional help for it but I'm no where close to being able to afford a therapist. I wonder if any of you may have some insight. Thank you.
I very rarely feel emotions. Of many types. I've identified happiness and stress as specific examples thus far. For example, many years ago I dated a girl and I was in love and we got along very well and everything was good. I was happy. But I didn't feel it. How did I know I was happy? Because I acted happy without realizing it and people would tell me. They said I was more confident, more outgoing and with respect to work and school I myself could see that I was more productive. But despite this I never FELT happy. Not that I felt unhappy. I just felt nothing.
Conversely, I've noticed that when I'm stressed I can never tell until I have some sort of a stress reaction. We all have ways we react to stress. For me it's certain, various, types of behaviors I start to exhibit. One day I'll catch myself doing one of the things that's a stress reaction and say "Oh boy, I'm all stressed out". But once again, I don't FEEL stressed. I don't feel anything.
The only times I feel emotion is when it's very extreme. The first time I told that girlfriend I loved her and she reciprocated I was elated. It was one of the rare instances where I actually felt an emotion. But unfortunately it's very brief. Usually a few minutes, hours if I'm very fortunate, and then nothing again for months or years at a time.
This causes two problems for me. The smaller of which is that I have to learn how to identify all of my emotions based on my own behavior. It's as if I were incapable of feeling physical pain so I have to constantly inspect my body to make sure I don't have some dangerous cut or infection on me. It's very tedious because it's not until a certain emotion hits those high levels that I know which emotion I'm experiencing and then I have think back to figure out what actions were associated to it.
The second problem is that I have this drive to feel the emotions I'm missing out on, no matter what they are. The emptiness of emotion bothers me so much that I'm willing to feel negative emotions just so that I can feel anything. And as most of us know, bad things come more easily than good and so I've effectively become an emotional masochist. Whenever I have a problem I drag it out, ignore it, amplify it, whatever it takes to keep it there. Because as long as I have a problem I have something to feel bad about and so I have something to feel and I like that. Happiness takes a lot of work to cultivate and the process fails very frequently and doesn't last any longer than any other emotion. But misery breeds easily. So I can always have some on hand when I need to feel.
Since I've figured this out I've wanted to seek professional help for it but I'm no where close to being able to afford a therapist. I wonder if any of you may have some insight. Thank you.
