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I have plenty of emotions and I always will. Pretty much everything annoys me. I'm a highly sensitive person.
I used to think I was good at hiding my feelings because I walk around stone faced, but I don't. If I'm happy or unhappy, you'll see it on my face. I'm not good at faking smiles or being fake.
After having things happen to you, and feeling beaten down. Have you noticed whether you have no emotion, good or bad?
Due to a lot of very abusive and/or humiliating offenses in my family, I developed a coping or self defense style of repressing or hiding my feelings so, yes, being hurt by others can cause a child or anyone to hide their feelings so nobody can hurt them any more. I became "cool" around others just to be safe.
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What I mean is - one of my mother's good friend's was just diagnosed with cancer and is going for chemo. My mother is devasted and was in tears. Me - I think it's terrible, but I can't show any emotion.
Can't or WON'T? I could have shown emotion/feelings but I REFUSED TO!
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I've noticed over the past years, with all the bad stuff that has happened to me, I seem to have lost compassion. But only for humans - animals I can show emotion for (like seeing/hearing about an bused one). The news tells how a 15 y/o was stabbed to death and it doesn't bother me. Show an animal needing a home and it makes me sad.
Has this happened to anyone else?
I became very stiff, indifferent and defended with my feelings but, like you, I had very deep and sensitive feelings for all animals and for their suffering. I trusted and loved animals but NOT people! Since doing some psychotherapy, I'm better and letting my feelings out and enjoying people as well as animals. Not sure if you want to fix your feelings/emotions but, I did my fixing in 12 step support groups to undo the emotional damages from bad parenting and am feeling a lot better these days. My ability to love and be loved has come back and I'm OK with animals and people now.
good luck
Emotions from birth are boiling and bursting out of us. But eventually we learn to manage and use them. Emotions burn out of use. Are erased. And at once, we become empty. But this is not so. Anoter right time, emotions again find us. We are just get used to it. You need to shake up and you will feel life again. Love is cool. I met my girlfriend on a dating site like star-marriage com and she called me on a camping trip. I did not want to go, but I went. And something exploded in me. I became a teenager, I was head over heels in love with my girl. I'm still in shock that it happened to me. This year we will go back to the campaign, I will make an offer to her)
Due to a lot of very abusive and/or humiliating offenses in my family, I developed a coping or self defense style of repressing or hiding my feelings so, yes, being hurt by others can cause a child or anyone to hide their feelings so nobody can hurt them any more. I became "cool" around others just to be safe.
Can't or WON'T? I could have shown emotion/feelings but I REFUSED TO!
I became very stiff, indifferent and defended with my feelings but, like you, I had very deep and sensitive feelings for all animals and for their suffering. I trusted and loved animals but NOT people! Since doing some psychotherapy, I'm better and letting my feelings out and enjoying people as well as animals. Not sure if you want to fix your feelings/emotions but, I did my fixing in 12 step support groups to undo the emotional damages from bad parenting and am feeling a lot better these days. My ability to love and be loved has come back and I'm OK with animals and people now.
good luck
After a lot of crap happening, I have learned just to turn off feelings. Stuff with too much hurt I can sort of isolate, and work around, but open hurt doesn't work that way. I just seal it up and when I can work on its I will. When things are really bad, I just don't feel. But I have this clarity of what needs to be done in which order. But while I turn away from people, I deeply love my animals. Some especially just know that what you need is a cuddle and a nap a little sea of peace.
I find I like and seek the company of the four legged over people as a general rule. Dogs have a different 'feel' than cats too. Cats tend to just cuddle and purr and just want you to relax. Dogs like to sit close and demand you give them attention, and if you'll let them in you won't need to do all that worry.
I have had a lot of ups and downs in life, and am easily launched into emergency mode, and really no longer trust people unless they are old friends from before, but even then can be wary of people. But give me a cat in my lap who keeps purring and batting you with that foot until you pet back.... and I feel good and comfortable and loved.
Some just don't show it after too much verbal abuse or bullying...Is good coping strategy IMHO. As long as you are having some highs and focused so you ignore the rest well enough to function, (plus meeting all the 'other peoples needs' responsibilities demanded of a female) oh well.
Some of us lived miserable enough for a while, I don't even notice as long as I function to live independently.
Some people show emotion. Some people kind of had emotions used on them by bullies/verbal abusers, so feel no need to really turn on the 'water works' that often.
I remember the first time I actively thought, "I've only got so much to give. I'm reserving my emotions for a select few. I just don't have it to give to everybody."
It kind of shocked me when I thought it, but I think it's healthy for me at this time in life. I mean I can still tear up on a sad story and feel for others, but I've shut off emotionally from lots of people I know.
And yes, I can feel more easily for animals than humans. It is kind of weird.
Animals are defenseless and innocent. It's very common for even people with empathy for people.
Some just don't show it after too much verbal abuse or bullying...Is good coping strategy IMHO. As long as you are having some highs and focused so you ignore the rest well enough to function, (plus meeting all the 'other peoples needs' responsibilities demanded of a female) oh well.
Some of us lived miserable enough for a while, I don't even notice as long as I function to live independently.
Some people show emotion. Some people kind of had emotions used on them by bullies/verbal abusers, so feel no need to really turn on the 'water works' that often.
I've found that allowing one to be really emotional opens a door for negativity that's too easy to let in. I let both close enough to see its there, but in in. The really good emotional moments are great, but they leave you open, and there is so much out there which sinks everything else. So I try to stand back a little, and become more Vulcan like. It's possible to know about the negative voice trying to get you to hear, but leaving it alone.
I find when something nags to much, I can look at it in a more logical way. One thing is doing a 'what if' answer. Think of things which lessen or get you out of it enough you can hold on tight. Take back the power that the fear takes away. When I was in school I was 'teased' a lot since I was different. When I learned to just look at them and let them see how little I care, they went away. I can extend some scary trail far and wide, but know how to stop it too. I take myself back.
Not letting others control you is an essencial skill everyone should learn how to nourish since it makes you whole.
Flat affect is having a lack of emotional expression. It is a symptom typically observed in people with schizophrenia, autism, depression or traumatic brain injury. A person with flat affect may appear unresponsive to the world around them.
I've had severe anxiety since I was very young and I did not realize what many emotions felt like until I started taking Zoloft. For many years, the only pronounced emotions I felt were basically sadness or ambivalence. The feeling of "happiness" was very muted.
It is also more difficult to 'think' with anxiety. I am much more able to put thoughts together without anxiety.
Flat affect is having a lack of emotional expression. It is a symptom typically observed in people with schizophrenia, autism, depression or traumatic brain injury. A person with flat affect may appear unresponsive to the world around them.
I think if you've had things happen which are instantly remembered, even when the main details fuzzy out, but the memory doesn't, you might look 'flat'. We all have our baggage, but if some of it came from things which were very wounding, the safest way of keeping it buried is to NOT feel. I have lots of emotions, but you can't load them to your mental computer selectively. And if some just trip the wire and sink you in bad memories, then its better to build a wall around them. It should have a door you can open so someday you can defuse their power, but that is a very hard thing which at best takes time.
One thing I've noticed in myself is I live much more in the immediate present. What can I do to make this day better? Maybe I got a memory rebooted I don't want to remember and push it all back . Ideally, we should learn to hear our inner voice, and face the monster, but if you have just you, it has a chance to win. So you grey everything out, the promise and the monster. Its safety until the background noise isn't so thick.
We take two pathways when yesterday comes up. One is to take overly strong drugs to shut it down and live in a surface world. The other is to get therapy, and see your monsters so you can banish them. And when you know what they look like, you can keep them away. But it takes people and time money, and pills are cheaper. And if you really can't open that door, maybe safer.
It's still a black mark of sorts if one admits to not being able to handle things themselves. They may seem weak. They may seen untrustworthy, and unsociable and somehow just 'wrong'.
Maybe some of us choose not to be overly 'responsive' because we have a kind of control this way. Make noise, you get noticed. Stay quiet, blend into the wallpaper if that's your choice.
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