Hi
I'm struggling for years already, being unable to hold a job or function in daily life without job.
It seems like I'm constantly in shutdown, and I can't even communicate my stress and desperation to a therapist because when I'm stressed, I stop expressing anything.
I also seem to forget anything that's even slightly emotionally charged. So even when I can express my emotion, 10 minutes after that conversation I have no clue anymore what I talked about.
Underlying all this seems to be some kind of fear of feeling my emotions. Anytime I feel something, I quickly notice that the feeling/thoughts disappear and I just feel numb and a headache or stomachache.
Even when I'm by myself, I can't seem to express any feelings, as If i'm trying to hide for myself.
And it seems like nobody knows how to deal with this. I've been to a few therapists and it all ends up the same. At the beginning i'm hopeful, but then after a few sessions I realise i'm getting more and more into a shutdown and express myself less and less until I eventually stop going.
Just searching for therapy seems pointless, because I don't have money left and nobody seems to understand my difficulties.
Is it possible that this is a trauma response? I've had trouble expressing and feeling my own emotions to a somewhat lesser degree, and I've realized that a lot of the reason why is that I was punished for showing distress when I was growing up, hid and suppressed such things as a result. Learning about the concept of CPTSD (Complex PTSD, less like normal PTSD than it sounds at first), and practicing something similar to IFS (Internal Family Systems), have both helped me more than any of the therapists I've seen. Identifying internal "parts" and trying to listen to what they in particular have to say has helped me connect with and integrate my emotions to some extent. Expression has been happening in the form of a kind of freeform journaling, both writing and drawing whatever I feel like, which has worked better for me than normal rote prose journaling. I don't know if any of those concepts or techniques will help your situation, but it's what I've got to offer.
I, also, have had a fairly disappointing time with therapy. I'm currently seeing my 4th therapist and wondering how worthwhile it is to keep seeing this one. Most of the real progress I've made was on my own, just doing research and exploring the Internet (mostly Reddit though I'm trying to move away from using that). If I look for a 5th therapist I might look specifically for one who is autistic themselves to see if that works better.
I wish you well, and hope you find what you're looking for.
I think in my case it might be related to emotional neglect? But it's difficult to figure that out, because it's difficult to remember the things that didn't happen, obviously.
And I don't really know that much about my parents, rarely talked to them, even though I lived with them for 30 years.
Neglect is definitely something which can cause CPTSD-like reactions in the psyche. Emotional neglect was a part of my upbringing as well. For what it's worth, I actually have been able to identify it somewhat by talking with friends who had healthier emotional upbringings, and noting what they experienced and I did not.
Talking with your parents so little that you don't even know much about them after living together for 30 years definitely counts as neglect.
I'd recommend having a look at the book "Complex PTSD - From Surviving to Thriving" just to see if what it describes matches. It does talk about emotional neglect as one of the things which can cause long-lasting problems.
Yeah, i've read that book and found it very fitting. That's why I started looking into this. I'm still not sure how to move forward though, I've had some improvements but still experience anxiety attacks and nightmares (without knowing the cause). And I just don't remember anything from my childhood.
I stayed for a long time with a friend already, and I notice the big difference in how they approach life and contact with their family.
They even visited my family once, but didn't want to return anymore. Even though they were kind and welcoming (I think), they felt stressed when they visited.
Yeah, at some point I also came across complex PTSD. And it seems to check all the boxes.
But the weird thing is that I can never really connect my current issues with things that happened in the past.
I actually barely remember anything from before I was 15 years old. And anything I do remember is just a sequence of facts, no emotions or feelings.
My last therapist was saying that it's impossible for me to have trauma (probably because I never show much emotion at all during a session)
I have found that it helps for me to do some writing of things that randomly pop up in my head, but this is always extremely difficult, as I'm rarely aware of my thoughts at all.
Yeah that sounds like a lot of emotional distress & suppression from an early age, at least in my unprofessional opinion.
O_o
Maybe they had a different definition of trauma than what I know of. There are different responses to traumatic experience. Some of them make big, flashy results. The fight response can make people highly abrasive. The flight response can make people nervous workaholics. The fawn response can make people into over-gentle doormats. The freeze response though can make people clam up, to hide and to bottle, to show as little externally as possible. It's also, funnily enough, the strongest trauma response. The other 3 are active responses, trying to do something about the danger. They're biologically preferable to freeze because they're options for solving a problem. The freeze response is a last resort when other solutions have been tried, and no way to deal with the traumatic situation has been found. Showing no emotion is not an indication of lack of trauma, it can be an indication of inescapable trauma.
Hey that sounds good! Even if it's hard to do with any regularity, having any healthy medium for processing is good. Maybe you can even try turning it around, start writing literally anything that's in your head, even if there's hardly anything you can perceive, and just keep going, see if you can sort of prompt thoughts to start flowing through a medium like writing. That type of technique works for me sometimes.
I'm sorry to hear what you've gone through, no one should have to grow up in neglect like that. Keep searching & observing, I don't know if what I've said will help you much but I do think you can find the answers you need if you persist.
Thank you. I appreciate the words.
I often find myself taking a bunch of steps to try and improve my situation, keep it up for a while, and then drop everything because I fell sick, or got exhausted.
So the progress is so slow. But I do see some. Moving more also seems to help, but it can be so difficult to get started again. I always feel so uncomfortable.