Understanding disconnect

Talked to the Fashion students today that are learning to model.  They are learning to walk 'the walk.'  I shared with them the photographer's point of view.  I told them that what they were thinking would be picked up by the camera.  If there face is smiling but there were thinking how nervous they felt or how they hate having their picture taken, the other emotion will be picked up by the camera.  I finally understood why my first counselor realized I was so messed up.  I would sit in his office with no emotional expression except tension.  Once I was comfortable that disappeared too.  He would ask me how I felt about something and I would look at him blankly.  On one occasion, I even asked him what he wanted me to feel.  I was totally disconnected from my own emotion.  I could not comprehend what he expected from me when he would ask me how I felt about some issue.  The other emotions didn't show up in a camera either.  I had thought I was a happy girl growing up.  My mother finally let me have my baby book that she added some pictures when I was older.  I smiled for class pictures but snap shots, I couldn't determine what the look was.  When I was first in counseling, before I understood my parents part in my problems, I tried to explain to them what was wrong with me.  My mother discounted anything I said.  She declared you were just a normal teenager, accept when you got upset it was like a wall went up and you stopped responding.  My mother watched the change to nothingness I didn't consider there was a need for concern.  She felt annoyed that I could wall her out.  Took many years of counseling to understand that inside my subconscious I knew she was dangerous so she was the one I emotionally walled out.  In the process, I walled apart of myself in.  Disconnect is a complete break from the logical thinking mind and emotions.  It is a symptom of several mental illnesses.  PTSD is one of them.  Reconnecting to my emotions was a long and painful process.  Part of the time I didn't see the value since I felt more and more of the fear, hurt, and frustration long buried.  Uncovering these forgotten emotions they were just as raw and unhealed as the day I buried them.  This is the part of counseling that many are afraid of.  Processing unhealed events and emotions attached to those times is like condensing a years worth of pain into a few months.  Without careful pacing, I easily became overwhelmed while I reconnected.  The emotions wanted to flood back in....tough years of counseling and processing and feeling and working and finally getting through to the hope at the bottom of Pandora's box.  It is worth learning to connect.  Hope is a beautiful thing.