Wednesday, June 20, 2012

To live, you feel

Oscar Wilde
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

Living without emotions is existing.  To live, you feel.  Emotional abuse cruelly uses emotion to torment the victim.  No scars, no bruises, no evidence of any harm.  The scars are hidden in the heart of a person.  My neighbor/pedophile excelled at this type of abuse.  I learned through brutal experience to totally disconnect from everything that I felt, everything that I was.  My pain was his pleasure.  To stop his pleasure the child existed no more.  By not existing, I survived.  A paradox of thought.  Warped beyond reason. 

 Before I knew my past, I told KavinCoach it was like I was standing outside of the candy story and could look inside where everyone was laughing and eating and enjoying themselves...I stood on the outside looking in.  I was a witness but not a participant.  KavinCoach taught me to reengage in living.  Step out of the cold and come inside with everyone else.  The fear was powerful that if I stepped inside everyone would know how bad I was.  KavinCoach was right.  I had nothing to fear.  I stumble but I don't fall.  I feel so many different emotions.  I felt happy before sometimes.  I felt sad before sometimes.  Should any one emotion take too much attention a switch would occur.  Integration brought all feelings to one place.  I couldn't shuffle away.  I felt them all.  KavinCoach asked me which feeling I experienced and felt fully first.   I still smile at the unguarded shocked look I got when I said, "Boredom."  He thought for sure it would be some other emotion.  As a child, I was taught that only stupid people were bored and if I every said I was bored I would be given LOTS more work to do.  I never mentioned being bored.  If one part of myself started to feel bored, another part took over.  Integration closed the escape hatch.  I had to feel bored.  American Sign language express the emotion in a visual that sends the message loud and clear.  http://www.ehow.com/video_4943534_american-sign-language-bored.html  Anything to do other than being bored is preferable.  You know occasionally I still feel bored but to me that is a signal that I do not have enough to do or perhaps I am needing to wait for someone or something.  I take a book with me when I know I need to wait.  I think about my next post or plan some activity with friends or family.  I still don't feel bored often and that is OK...because now there are a lot of other emotions just waiting for their turn to be felt. 




2 comments:

mulderfan said...

I was afraid of experiencing anger because I didn't want to explode with rage and be like my NF. One counselor told me to allow myself to "sit in" the emotion, let it engulf me completely, then let it go.

Never allowing myself to be justifiably angry made me feel powerless which then led me to wallow in self-pity...next step: drown my sorrows in booze.

In my support group the 1st time I blurted out, "I'm pissed off!" it felt kinda good!

Laurel Hawkes said...

I will never forget being asked by someone who didn't know me well, "Don't you ever get bored?" I was 21 at the time. I thought for several long moments. I surprised her and myself by answering, "No. I can think up more to do in five minutes than I can possibly do in 10 years."