Good, Bad or Indifferent?

Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.

Katharine Hepburn

One of the more curious things about emotions that on the average people don't want the 'Bad' emotions and they want the 'Good' emotions.  New Agey type thinking encourage and believe that only the 'Good' emotions are acceptable all the time.  They also preach to stay away from 'negative' people.  I tend to go along with Dr. Banks if you are sad all the time they will come to take you to the loony bin but if you are happy all the time they will come and take you away too.  To me, our emotions are like the world, there are high points and low points and in-between points and they all add richness and variety to living.  When I started counseling, I had argued with my medical doctor that I couldn't be depressed and not know it.  I felt it just wasn't possible.  Shortly after counseling started, we discussed this in a session; I learned that it is possible not to define emotions the same way.  I also learned that my emotions were there, I just had a significant lag time between event and feeling.  I learned that I buried my feelings deep, away from prying eyes.  I learned that emotions were more than smiling and frowning on command.  I know that when a child is born their emotions are on the surface.  A toddler leaves you in no doubt as to what the feel in the moment.  Scowls or gurgling laughter erupt at any given moment.  I watched my mother in action with my younger sister more than I remember her doing this to me.  I suspect because of my behavior she did but it is not something I remember.  I watched mother tell my sister that what she felt was not her feeling.  If she said she was excited mother told her there was no need to be.  If my sister said she was angry my mother would again dictate to her what she should be feeling.  If my sister was sad, she was lectured on how she should be happy since she was so lucky to have so many blessings.  It did not matter what emotion existed, mother contradicted and demanded a different one.  I learned from watching that an adult caregiver can convince a child that what they feel is not real or not appropriate until the child does not trust their own feelings.  I knew by the time I was a teenager to have strict control over how I felt and to not show happiness or sadness with my family.  They would rain on my parade or tell me how ungrateful I was.  As an adult, I recognized before counseling that in our family only my mother was allowed to be emotional.  The rest of us had better control how we felt or there would be blood on the saddle.  After marriage, I tried to be more myself but old habits die hard or not at all if you don't know another way of living.  I also learned that having iron fist control over my emotions was rewarded.  From my teenage years to counseling, I could count on one hand how many times I cried.  I could name all of them, too.  I was praised for keeping a 'cool head' in difficult situations.  I listened to people criticize others that were 'too emotional.'  Society reinforced what I learned from my mother about 'controlling' my emotions. 

Counseling was the first place that told me that I needed to feel what I felt at the time that it happened.  I was fortunate that KavinCoach believed that emotions were healthy and necessary.  What we did with what we felt was important.  He let me know that throwing dishes on the floor when I was angry was not an acceptable reaction.  He set about explaining that my iron fist control over my emotions was called dissociation and earned me a spot on the mentally ill list.  My dissociation was severe.  It would take me weeks to figure out what I actually felt about an envent, days to feel angry, and I didn't match the right emotion name with what I actually felt.  I would laugh when I was angry and become angry when I felt sad.  When I was given a list of pictures to identify emotions from facial expressions, I could only get the most obvious ones correct.  I couldn't recognize emotions in others or myself.  (Check out what I mean on this web page about reading body language: http://psychology.about.com/od/nonverbalcommunication/ss/understanding-body-language_2.htm)  KavinCoach rapidly discovered that any discussion about emotions could send me into a complete shut down faster than any other discussion.  He proceeded with caution and emmence patience.  He understood better than I did what I would need to experience to reconnect successfully with what I felt.  He understood better than I did that my disconnect with my emotions held a direct correlation with my multiple personalities.  I used the different personalities to hide my emotions.  He knew but didn't explain it to me how much it was going to hurt.  Feeling hurts and processing them along the way is healthy.  Storing them up, packing them away, and stuffing them down is a recipe for disaster.  Layer after layer of emotional pain was processed.  KavinCoach let me set the pace.  It was slow and difficult.  A lot of pain came first.  Then blips of happy now and again that kept me moving through the pain to the next blip.  Then joy entered in, oh wow, I had no idea how awesome I could feel.  I was accustomed to keeping all 'good' feelings under control, too.  Allow myself to feel joy fully was something to be repeated.  I kept slogging through anger that hid more hurt, fear, and frustration.  I kept going to counseling with a weeks worth of garbage to sort out.  When I had an extreme reaction to something I knew there was a poweder keg of old emotions adding the boost.  KavinCoach taught me a process of recognizing, acknowleding, processing, and embracing my emotions, all of them.  I learned about the richness and depth of emotions that was robbed from me as a child.  I mourned at my own mistakes with my children and not validating their emotions.  I rejoiced and felt sad but I still rarely cry.  Tears for me are most likely tears of joy.  Emotions so full I can't contain them all so they leak out at my eyes.  My tears filled at the births of my grandchildren that I was allowed to be there with them.  What a joyful experience that thanks to counseling I felt to the full and over flowing.  I am thankful I put in the work required to feel so much.