seems I'm not able to experience emotions on a fysical level anymore

[lemon flower]

The past year I have been through a lot of changes in my life and I have been (partly) disconnecting from my ex-dBPDbf. In general I feel I'm doing fine, I am studying, reorganising my home, meeting new people and slowly I'm starting to get out of the self-created isolation I've been putting myself in for many years.

So far so good... .

Still, I feel often confused about what direction to head on in life and on a relational level I know I have issues, so I took the decision to go to a psychologist.

I am starting to see some patterns in the choices I made and the people I used to allow in my life and we came to some interesting conclusions (most of them are quite recognisable I think, such as feeling too responsible, being over-loyal, always being the strong one, suffering from a low self-esteem, and probably all this allready started in my childhood).

But what worries me most is that I seem to have gradually been blocking all my emotions to a level where I no longer really "feel" them, I no longer respond on a fysical level to most emotions except when something really extreme happens, such as a sudden outburst of anger or sadness,or anxiety that feels more or less as a nervousness in my stomach.

In "normal life" I usually don't feel anything, at least not on a level that I can reach out to, and this is scary, especially because I wasn't even aware of these emotional blockingmechanisms for many years. 

Can someone rely to this ? Did you find a way to reconnect to your emotions ?

[misuniadziubek]

The past year I have been through a lot of changes in my life and I have been (partly) disconnecting from my ex-dBPDbf. In general I feel I'm doing fine, I am studying, reorganising my home, meeting new people and slowly I'm starting to get out of the self-created isolation I've been putting myself in for many years.

So far so good... .

Still, I feel often confused about what direction to head on in life and on a relational level I know I have issues, so I took the decision to go to a psychologist.

I am starting to see some patterns in the choices I made and the people I used to allow in my life and we came to some interesting conclusions (most of them are quite recognisable I think, such as feeling too responsible, being over-loyal, always being the strong one, suffering from a low self-esteem, and probably all this allready started in my childhood).

But what worries me most is that I seem to have gradually been blocking all my emotions to a level where I no longer really "feel" them, I no longer respond on a fysical level to most emotions except when something really extreme happens, such as a sudden outburst of anger or sadness,or anxiety that feels more or less as a nervousness in my stomach.

In "normal life" I usually don't feel anything, at least not on a level that I can reach out to, and this is scary, especially because I wasn't even aware of these emotional blockingmechanisms for many years. 

Can someone rely to this ? Did you find a way to reconnect to your emotions ?

Meditation and yoga are good for this.

[lemon flower]

Meditation doesn't work very good with me, but I'm allready practising yoga.

I find yoga a good way for a better sense of general wellbeing and to get more aware to body and mind to let energies flow, but until now I didn't reach any emotional level yet.

My psychologist tries to work into remembering some childhood trauma's but I feel a lot of inner resistance to "dig" into possible painful memories, I fear to be confronted with those hidden emotions of sadness or anxiety... .

[Lucky Jim]

Hi lemon flower, I understand exactly what you are saying.  Many of us, including me, learned to stuff our emotions as a coping mechanism during childhood.  Certainly it is almost a necessity when one is in a r/s with a pwBPD, due to the constant turmoil.  So maybe you have learned to avoid your emotions?  Again, I think this is common.  The goal, in my view, is to be authentic, which includes recognizing any and all feelings as they come up.  Just look at your feelings, without the need to do anything in particular.  Just be aware of your emotions and take a moment to honor them as they arise.  You know when you get that feeling in your gut?  Pay attention to it.

LuckyJim

P.S.  There are only four basic emotions: mad, glad, sad and afraid.

[lemon flower]

Hi lemon flower, I understand exactly what you are saying.  Many of us, including me, learned to stuff our emotions as a coping mechanism during childhood.  Certainly it is almost a necessity when one is in a r/s with a pwBPD, due to the constant turmoil.  So maybe you have learned to avoid your emotions?  Again, I think this is common.  The goal, in my view, is to be authentic, which includes recognizing any and all feelings as they come up.  Just look at your feelings, without the need to do anything in particular.  Just be aware of your emotions and take a moment to honor them as they arise.  You know when you get that feeling in your gut?  Pay attention to it.

LuckyJim

P.S.  There are only four basic emotions: mad, glad, sad and afraid.

hi Jim, according to my teacher of psychology there is a 5th basic emotion: astonishment :-)

anyway, trying to be more aware of your emotions is certainly a first step, this is based on the idea of mindfulness, right ?

thing about emotionally blocked people getting in touch with pwBPD might also be related to the fact that we kind of choose people who are emotionally unavailable... .

[Lucky Jim]

I like that 5th emotion!         

Yes, it's based on mindfulness.

You could be right about why we choose a pwBPD.  On the other hand, you could also say that a pwBPD is the other extreme: someone driven by emotions running rampant.

LuckyJim