Issues with feelings/emotions.

[Animatronic_Squirrel]

This is something I'll probably be taking to a psychologist, but I wanted to get some outside opinions before I did so.

So, like a lot of us, I had some pretty bad issues with depression when I was a teen; after intensive therapy when I was 18, I recovered enough start moving on with my life (albeit haltingly). Something I've only recently realized however, is that I seem to have internalized some mechanism whereby I'm repressing a lot of my emotions, and telling myself 'Yeah, I don't care about anything' a lot. Basically, I seem to have a cynical mindset, to the point that even when I DO want to care, and feel things and move on with a productive, peaceful life my brain automatically shuts it - net result, I have a lot of trouble investing in things emotionally (or much at all otherwise). And I don't really feel desire for anything - even sex, or self-preservation.

Anyway - this is pretty disruptive. Anyone else experience something like this before?

 

[David_Dare]

It's tough to deduce exactly how you feel, or what your mindset is, but I think I can relate.

I, too, was diagnosed with depression in my teens. I was put on meds, and then went off them because I felt they did nothing for me. I considered it a "thinking" disorder, and needed to "think" my way out of it. I did see a therapist for a short time, too, who also hypnotized me, and he was great. Since then, I always like to talk about things with close friends when I'm feeling down, although I'm not sure that it helps every time.

Anyhoo, many years later, I can say I truly feel numb most times. I just want to feel something, a passion for life and new people. Honestly, getting involved with the wrong type of woman instilled serious trust issues within me. There are other factors, but I think that's the main one. It wasn't so much the woman, but my inability to discern my own boundaries with them and keep away. This site is helping me to think differently and construct a healthier persepective on women, dating them, and life in general.

So, nowadays I try not to invest too much time and interest in women and people who don't recipricate. It's like they steal my power away. It helps. I still have some work to do, but I think I know where you're coming from.

 

[Chase]

AS-

Sure, I went through this.

I don’t know if it’s simply that the intensity of emotions you experience while depressed dulls the mind to emotional sensitivity once you come out of it, or if the coping mechanisms you construct to protect yourself from it simply just revolve around protecting yourself from emotional experience. But I’ve dealt with this.

Had to spend a few years re-emotionalizing myself to a certain extent. Even then, I never quite fully unlocked the raw emotional sensitivity I had as a child pre-depression. I’ve gotten a lot closer though.

I’ve noticed it’s sped my reaction times as well – whereas before, I used to have to pause longer before deciding or speaking, particularly in emotional situations (presumably because I was filtering thoughts/feelings through some kind of “no feelings” filter), I respond much more rapidly and from-the-heart these days.

The best prescription I can give you is to do emotional stuff that feels “silly.” E.g., dance in the middle of a shopping mall, sing as you walk down the street, hoist a girl up in your arms and swing her around you, etc. The acts of acting like a man in love with life shakes off some of the rust or protective coating depression defenses slather over everything internally and allows you to feel more freely again. Just like how the act of smiling makes one feel happy, and straightening one’s back makes one feel powerful.

Although incidentally, one of the most beneficial incidents for this whole process may have been a period I went through of extreme duress. I got ripped off by a business partner, had to shut a business down, lay off a bunch of people, got swindled out of a bunch of money, and came close to having to give up on traveling, entrepreneurship, etc., and flying back to the States in defeat to go take another soul-crushing 9-to-5 job. There were really no defenses for those emotions, so I just had to go through them, feeling totally beaten down and savaged. And then I looked around and kind of laughed because in some ways I was far worse off than in my depression days, but didn’t feel nearly as bad. Then I dusted myself off, grabbed my nuts, and worked hard to win the war I was in and make one of my businesses survive (that was this one).

May have even simply been because that business partner was such a talented natural manipulator, and I simply couldn’t keep up with that when I had to keep taking a step to filter everything through the “no emotions” filter. It was adapt or die, and ultimately I adapted, dropped the filter, and learned to make gut-level decisions quickly and on-the-fly again to not get killed.

So maybe, if you want to unlock those locked up feelings, I might recommend “try things that will test you” and “surround yourself with people who will force you to operate more quickly and honestly, or else get screwed.”

Chase

 

[Animatronic_Squirrel]

Thanks for the post Chase - I like the idea of basically putting yourself in a situation where you'd basically end of having to 'choose' to feel in order to survive. Kind of extreme CBT.

Another quick question - as you've learned/decided to 'feel' more, did you ever go through a stage of having to re-learn emotional control as well? As in, were you ever overwhelmed emotionally after so long not feeling as much? Emotional insensitivity is an unhealthy thing in the long run, and I'd not choose to keep it; but I admit, I have found that there was a sort of peace to it too, and as I've grown more emotionally sensitive, I've sometimes had trouble coping.

 

[Drck]

Depression has many causes, different intensity and duration, it is usually a result of different factors such as genetic predispositions, neurotransmitter imbalance, and also environmental influence such as emotional trauma. So not knowing the exact cause it is difficult to address it.

I found sort of escape from depressions in spirituality. On one side I am quite ambitious and motivated, I achieved fairly good accomplishments in my life, and on the other I always have doubts whether everything - all the ambitions, study and work - is even worth it. These doubts could be perhaps source of depression...

For example, what's the point of studying, building carrier, stressing out at work, investing money, paying bills - if I could be much happier simply enjoying nature? So that's important question, if you start asking such questions you may fall in depression because you will see that there is no point in building materialistic life... There is really not much point of focusing on business, gaining knowledge, saving for retirement, getting girls...

It's all just an illusion that that we as a society live in, it is sort of forced upon us by people and media that we are surrounded with.... We live in illusion that all these materialistic things are somehow important... good car, nice house, good income, social recognition, latest smart phone, pretty GF, sexy wife ... What for? It's all BS, we don't really need these things to be happy...

So if you ask these or similar questions you could get quite depressed. Don't just read those questions, ask them yourself... You won't have much ambitions to get ahead with your life because everything in your mind is pointless. You will just see people around you who are always busy worrying about thousands of useless things, who are always finding importance in some insignificant actions... Have you ever thought of happiness of dung beetles...?



...Thus the spirituality, at least for me. Spirituality removes all the nonsense of this world, it will allow you understand that it doesn't really matter whether you are so called successful or not, because the "success" is really just an opinion of different people who themselves are clueless about this world, about what is important or not...

All the "successful" people are really just seekers of happiness, they think that collecting materialistic things will make them happy... They collect money, they collect success, they collect businesses, they collect knowledge, they collect girls, they collect social recognition, they collect laws, they collect pretty and exotic words... And the more they collect the more they need to collect, the better collectors they want to be... not realizing that all these collections will make them happy, but only temporarily...

That's why all collectors can't give up their collections, they don't know how else to be happy, they don't understand that true happiness starts when you really get rid of all the collections, of all the achievements....

I know, I know, it must sound quite depressing, even confusing. Drck must be unbelievably depressed person, you think. I've never heard so many depressive things on one page, you say, it's fucking depressing just to read about those things.... But that's exactly how collectors think.... The reality is that Drck is quite happy, I'll even bet that I'm the happiest person in this entire forum...



So its not really about intellectual understanding, it's rather emotional understanding, you will feel the pointlessness of this world... You feel with your heart, not with your brain... Feel, don't think... Spirituality will naturally increase your positive feelings multiple folds because those feelings will no longer be bounded to the silliness of this world, to the achievements of diligent collectors, to the happiness of materialistic world... Can dung beetle be really happy when he realizes that all he does is pushing shit against gravity...?

Also, just to make it clear, I'm not for any religion, I avoid any religions, I don't like organized religions... perhaps I don't even believe in God... But the spirituality is big... Spirituality is how you feel, that's how you can "see" through this world, that's how you keep more permanent happiness - because you are no longer dependent on collecting things of this world...