Day 8 Recognizing Emotions

On Friday at work, I was feeling anxiety symptoms for most of the afternoon and evening and when I got home and started journaling, I looked for the reason and couldn't find one. It had been a good day. Doubt assailed me. Then I suddenly remembered that incredibly aggravating hour I spent wandering through Office Depot's support line phone maze - the multiple chat sessions, phone calls and conversations with people who couldn't' speak my language well enough to help me. How funny that I had sublimated that whole button-pushing experience so well that I didn't even remember it when looking for triggers for my anxiety! Getting phone support can really trigger feelings of being dismissed by the very people who you justifiably expect to help you - and that is a deep trigger for me.

One of my big fears has been opening up the volcano of pain I have kept repressed all these years. I no longer suffer from depression because I have found new ways to think about my story, and also because I have found an uneasy sort of peace through resignation with the weakness and fallibility of humans, including myself. So it was pretty scary to start journaling about one of the most painful periods of my life and the inner child emotions that came up. Fortunately, they were much less intense than in the past, but I sure felt the despair of the inner child and the bitterness - the inner "if nobody likes me then I'll just take my bat and ball and go home". For hours after I felt angry, bitter, sulky and cross. I was ok the next day though. I hope this means I can trust myself to experience the pain in doses small enough to keep me from going entirely back to that old place. I would like to hear the experience of others of you in that regard.

 

Hi Sudonym,
I think your experience is very positive. You're "dipping into" the difficult emotions, and yet not getting too afraid of them, or overwhelmed, it sounds like. Then from this experience you have direct evidence of what is causing symptoms: these difficult feelings. The Inner Child is feeling angry and fearful of not being taken care of, and in despair. Contemplating that this may be occurring quite a bit of the time, even when you aren't inquiring, and are unaware of these feelings, is an education. It explains symptoms.
Andy B

 

Ick! I had a dream last night where I was vomiting blood at both ends. I guess we all know what that was symbolic of.