Examples of suppressed emotional feelings?

[12padams]

Hey everyone,

I've heard an example where a mother may resent her baby yet think "a good mother would never resent her baby and I am I good mother" and then experience physical pain to distract her from the idea that she is resenting her baby.

Still, I don't feel I can tackle my own problems until I get some more examples of what other emotional problems can be. Anyone wish to give me examples or their own unconsious feelings which caused them pain (and what the pain was).

Thanks in advance for your help

 

[dabatross]

yeah id be interested in hearing about this too. theres lots of talk about angry/resentful/guilty feels causing the pain but examples of these, particularly from people who have healed, would help a lot for the rest of us trying to figure out why repressed emotions are causing our pain.

 

[veronica73]

I find a good measure of whether I'm repressing something is the word "should."

Example: one of my best friends, who I've known for 20 years and briefly lived with, is staying with me for part of the week. I found myself thinking, I "should" be really happy about his visit but I am also really angry because I'm having a busy week and now there's this extra person around messing up my morning routine, I have to be cleaner than usual, etc.

I know intellectually that there is no right way to feel. It's totally OK for me to feel angry even while I am happy to see my friend. Still the pressure of "should" was so great that I found I was stuffing down some feelings and having some pain for the first time in a month (but it went away pretty quickly and I was not super-worried about it they way I would have been a few months ago).

 

[12padams]

Very interesting...

Can the pain still exist when the problem is gone? For example my "RS"I pain in my hands started when I was at highschool nearing my HSC (important life altering exam australian students commit suicide over). I was worried about my HSC and was hoping that something would happen, anything even if it was accidental death to prevent me from doing the HSC? At this time I developed "RSI" and couldn't continue school.

If school was the problem how come my RSI still exists? Or does it still exist because I have been to scared to use my hands and been extremely careful with them? Or could it mean there are other problems?

Once you identify the problem how do you remove it as a problem? Has my subconscious not accepted that I am not doing the HSC now (I'm a childcare worker) and is still keeping the symptoms in fear I may do it?

 

[Forest]

Essentially the repressed emotion comes down to rage and anger. Stress is definitely a component to everything, but most of the time the underlying emotion is going to be anger.

One thing to keep in mind is that when you intellectualize the emotion or reason for your pain you are still repressing the emotion. The key is to recognize and feel the emotion. Carl Jung had a great quote of "If a man is perfect in his thinking he is surely never perfect in his feeling, because you cannot do the two things at the same time; they hinder each other."

When I read your posts I hear a lot of intellectualizing and rationalizing why you have symptoms. When you do this you continue to repress your emotions and fail to feel these important emotions that are desperately trying to escape.

The answer to why you still have your symptoms is quite simple. It is due to your continued focus on the physical and repression of your emotions. Of course, you are just starting out so there is nothing wrong with this. School was not the problem, it was the trigger. Just because it is gone does not mean you won't still have symptoms, because, as you pointed out, there are other triggers and stresses in your life. You repress emotions, not because of the HSC, but because you view these emotions as unacceptable and not what a good person would feel.

So how do you get better. First, I would stop thinking of it as a problem, but more as a situation. A problem implies that there is something wrong about you, but there is absolutely nothing wrong about having these strong powerful emotions. In fact, the idea that having anger is problematic is what created the symptoms in the first place.

Begin to recognize what these emotions are. When you are leading up to take the HSC how did you feel? When you are at work how do you feel? If you write down a list of the possible emotions that may be behind your symptoms you will begin to make progress. From there start connecting these emotions to your past and your personality. How do they interact together.

I understand that it can be difficult to see the end of the tunnel when you are in severe pain. I had RSI and no exactly what it is like to have to change your life because of your pain. But if you stay positive and begin to think psychologically you will recover.

 

[12padams]

Leading up to the HSC I felt:
Scared
Suicidal
Worried
Anxious
Behind (worse than others even though I was above average)
Limited (I felt my life would end in 2012 before I did the HSC)

While on the computer I felt:
Free
Happy
Excited
Relaxed
Curious
Interested
Investigative
Bored (sometimes)
Sore back (after long periods of sitting)
Entertained
Social
Perfect

While away from the computer I felt:
Depressed
Useless
bored
Angry
Annoyed
Craved the computer

My most common thought back then:
"I hate the physical world and everything in it. I am only here to watch technology evolve to the point where I can live happily within a fully immersive digital world where everything is perfect."

 

[yb44]

It sounds like you felt a lot of rage having to live in the physical world. No wonder the TMS gremlin morphed into an RSI symptom. It knew exactly where to kick you where it counted. The rage has continued to build as you were seemingly forced away from something you loved, an activity where you felt you were at one with this alternative, perfect world. It is quite a shift to swop computers for childcare. You are now working with small beings who generally have no qualms about showing you their own anger.

 

[dabatross]

forest you brought up the point of not intellectualizing your feelings but actually feeling them. i too have this problem of intellectualizing everything and trying to rationalize why things happen "How come I get pain on vacation?" etc. I've been journaling and stuff but Im having a hard time "feeling" the feelings as you might say. Even when I was talking to Alan in the webinar I talked about the past and I wasn't feeling these feelings. Im wondering if there are strategies to "feel" the feelings rather than intellectualize/rationalize them because thats what I keep doing. I want to feel these repressed emotions but am not sure how to do that. I think 12p is kind of asking the same thing.. I too think that he is intellectualizing a lot when reading his posts because when I write posts i do the same thing and try to figure out why Im having symptoms at this time but not at that time, etc.

I'll journal down the emotions from my past and present that I think could be repressed but I dont seem to be getting far with that. You didn't journal a lot in your recovery did you? I remember you saying just eliminating the fear of doing the activity fixed your TMS. I do the physical activities every day and I try to think psychological as well. I can't really "resume" any more physical activities because Im already on the computer every day as it is so there isn't anything to resume.

So its one thing to journal down your stresses/emotions and try to figure out why repressed emotions are causing your pain but its another thing to actually "feel" these emotions and I know Im not doing that very well.. maybe you can comment on that 12padams and forest.

 

[veronica73]

My main TMS symptom was headaches and though there were certain activities I associated with headaches, a lot of times they just came up out of no where. Challenging myself with activities didn't really do much for me in getting rid of pain, although it has been nice to slouch, sleep on my stomach, be online for hours at a time, etc.

I think what you are asking here, dabatross, is HOW do you feel your feelings. This is still a big issue for me and one of the main things I'm working on with my TMS therapist. For me one way to feel more is to just stop what I'm doing and focus on my breath and on what's going on inside without thinking about it (though thoughts come up). Another thing I've started to do is notice when I say "should" and when I feel resentment--this is usually a big clue that I'm angry even if I'm not actively feeling angry. I sometimes find it easier to get to feelings after I've been meditating, spending time with my dog, dancing, something where I'm more engaged with what's going on with me as a whole person not just my thoughts. Journaling helped a lot too but I haven't felt as drawn to it lately.

 

[Forest]

I remember you saying just eliminating the fear of doing the activity fixed your TMS.

Overcoming the idea that I was fragile did help me recover, but it goes beyond simply not having fear anymore. It is really reaching a point where you do not care if the symptom is there or not because you no longer focus on the symptom.

This is what accepting the diagnosis and thinking psychological are all about. It involves changing the our thoughts and focus from the physical, i.e. our symptoms, and treatment, to the psychological. Once I decided I had TMS, I realized that there was no need for me to worry about or care about my pain because it was caused by my repressed emotions.

While I did not journal, that is not to say it is not helpful. We get TMS because we repress our emotions. In order to recover you need to find a way to be more allowing of your emotions. Journaling can be very helpful in doing this if, as Lori would say, you FEEL your emotions as you journal.

@12p - It is great that you are able to have the introspection to identify all of these emotions and thoughts. It may not seem like it, but you are setting the stage for your recovery. One thing you could try to do is journal about a couple of these items and see what comes up. Ask yourself how do they make you feel and why are felt that way. Remember, it is perfectly okay to have feelings of anger or rage. They are just thoughts.

Part of recovering is learning how to process your emotions. If you ever find journaling or feeling your emotions to be overwhelming simply take a breath and remind yourself that everything is going to be okay. Also, if you are nervous about what emotions may arise, I would suggest working with a psychologist who will be able to help you process everything.

Lastly, I don't think you have to fully understand every iota of your emotions. It may be enough to simply recognize that we have these emotions and allow them to be part of us for these brief moments.

 

[Pandamonium]

Oftentimes people have trouble not just feeling the emotions but identifying which emotion they are feeling. I read once that anger is often the feeling we think we are feeling but there are usually lots of other emotions going on too which result in the anger. One of the things I did in my recovery was to go through my life story thinking about the major events and trying to identify which emotions I was feeling at the time, then I tried to journal or work through those feelings. There are online lists of emotions to assist you if you are struggling to find the right ones e.g. http://www.higherawareness.com/self-healing/emotions-and-feelings.html

Hope this might help someone.
Panda

 

[veronica73]

Great link, Panda. I find that I repress all kinds of emotions. Anger and sadness are the big ones for me, but also happiness and even more neutral feelings like boredom.