Found this pic & thought it was so fitting. Haven’t done a #SameHere🤙Symptoms post in a while, so here goes – quick one (for me at least 😂).
Mentioned a bit back l that I started a new daily online exercise program to combat emotional flatlining, & that if it helped me, we’d add it to the TSRR Practices list.
This particular practitioner, as she asks us via video, daily, to write down simple pleasures/gratitude statements, describes that early on, we may not get full on strong feelings back – but instead: “kinda, sorta, feelings.”
Anxiety, depression, ptsd, ocd, this mish mosh of stuff that goes on when stress & trauma affect our systems, they do what docs have described to me as: putting our emotions on shelves. There are many theories as to why this happens – some think it’s a defense mechanism, bc our systems can’t take any more energy expenditures so we go numb. Some think it’s a disconnect of our pleasure centers – whether how the synapses fire, or how the neurotransmitters pass. Some say it’s related to our “old brain’s” dysfunction.
The bottom line is, whatever the reason, it sucks when you feel this nothingness. For some of us it’s a complete “lack of.” And for others – it may be specific memories or time periods or subject matters we are numb to.
But when we get these kinda, sorta, feelings back, it’s a bleep on our radar screen. It’s like the mercury in a blood pressure monitor going up for a second & then coming down. And even, per this pic, it’s like making progress pushing a heavy “bolder brain” up a mountain, only halfway, for it to fall back to the bottom as our exhaustion sets in.
If you know this feelings – celebrate that you feel something!! Don’t get down that you haven’t had a “full” feeling. Like those lines in the baseball field, you are developing new pathways & connections & this is what you want. It may take a while to push to bolder all the way to the top, but when you do, the appreciation you obtain for gaining back those “simple” feelings is remarkable!
