Emotional (dis)regulation thread for expression strong emotions and supporting each other

[erinaceus]

Inspired by a few threads on the MH boards and elsewhere on MN, this thread is:

• A safe space to express strong or overwhelming emotions;
• Somewhere where MNers can support MNers who are experiencing strong or overwhelming emotions;
• We can share strategies for coping with strong or overwhelming emotions. Healthy strategies preferred, but bearing in mind that what is healthy for one poster might not be healthy for another poster.

to everyone who knows what I mean.

Oops, sorry .
I don't really remember anything about it - was there violence in it? Or a gruesome death or something? I'm ridiculously oversensitive to that kind of thing so that may be it.

I'm so angry with myself. I'm forcing myself to type this because I have to let it out somewhere, but my problem is that I don't know what I want to let out. Only that I'm extremely afraid to open up.

No idea if that makes sense but I'm restricting my therapy because I'm finding it impossible to open up, let alone identify my emotions.

Plus I feel guilty because DH is so fretful. I have chronic pain and he wants me to moan/chat about my emotional problems. But I just can't, I don't know how and he's interpreting that as me being even worse than before diagnosis/medication.

*Moan/chat about my emotions like I can do with regards to the physical pain.

I understand. I always feel as if feeling angry with myself is one of the worst feelings. I like it a bit less than feeling ashamed of myself.

I only learned all these words within the past year or two.

One therapist expressed incredulity:

You Googled a feeling?

I thought it quite a sensible idea. I find Wikipedia to be quite good for this. For example, I was feeling bitter. According to Wikipedia:

Bitter = sense of injustice + feeling of powerless to do anything

which described precisely the situation I was in.

Do you find therapy helpful to you? My DH is the opposite. He tells me that he feels talked at, and sets boundaries, and then I feel ignored or as if I am pissing him off, which is because, erm, I am being ignored and because he is exhausted by my talking at him. Ah well. Feelings, eh?

I like emoticons, me. I find them much more useful. Maybe MN should get some more of them, for this thread. Today I am feeling [sleepy emoticon]. I have not slept enough for the past few days. We need to buy a new bed, and we have tried, but we do not seem able to do it.

That is why I started this thread. So that we can practise the I-statements. Sometimes, I do not know how I feel. Then I feel...confused...or numb...or I feel nothing...

I Wikipedia feelings too! It helps me articulate, at least in my own jumbled mind.

I've only just started therapy, and she's quite lovely and well, normal so that helps. She swears, she talks about her addiction to her mobile etc. Because she's a 'real' person I definitely feel comfortable around her. It's more... It's like I can't 'do' therapy. Like trying to play chess when all you know about it is that it's called chess. Or playing a sport without knowing the rules, if that makes sense?

I ended up in that situation. I had to stop talking therapy and do a more expressive type of therapy. Talking therapy became functionally useless for me - the words got in the way.

If you are seeing a psychotherapist in private practise, then you could change therapist and change approach? If you are seeing a therapist and she is being paid for by a different route such as the NHS then changing approach is more difficult, but it can be done. In my adult life I saw and have always seen my psychotherapists in private practise, which has its cons and its pros. Do you have medical input (psychiatrist or supportive GP)?

You do not have to answer these questions. I have both (psychotherapist and GP) and I believe it to be the case that in some sense I need both, because a GP cannot do therapy and a therapist cannot prescribe medication, and I have found both of these helpful at different times. I have been under the care of a psychiatrist as well, multiple times. It took being an a very non-crisis situation to set this up, and the crisis I went through in order to get to my current set up was Not Fun At All.

There was a time when I felt as if I was burning through psychotherapists trying to find the right fit. In the end, I changed tack entirely and started with a psychotherapy that does not rely on words.

Yes, she was the recommended choice by my psychiatrist, as she specialises in complex trauma and BPD, I agreed to see her instead of making my own choice when psychiatrist told me all the degrees she had in feminist areas! I just feel like I haven't learned the rules yet!

I suspect it's because I've never been one to talk about my feelings, even as a child that this is difficult. I do want to give it a go - I get very cynical at 'do a handstand and you'll express your pain' type therapy. I'm just too literal! I think I'm upsetting myself because as a very literal person, not having words come to me easily feels wrong, somehow. A very alien experience for me.

How does your DH react? I think my DH is being good, but I can tell he's so worried (not that I'll top myself, more that I won't discuss things) as he's much more 'feelingsy' than I am. He'd never say so, but I think he can't understand that it's not that I don't want to open up to him, it's that I bloody well don't know how! Even down to his career (police) he's a very caring person. He wants to help, but I feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole.

I swear, it was almost easier when I thought I was just a wreck. Diagnosis' seem to change everything.

Bahahahaha!

My DH appears resigned and exhausted. He does not tell me how he feels, although he and I are getting better at it. He and I have and have always had a shared sense of humour which is, I hope, our marriage's saving grace.

I read a lot, and decided that psychiatric diagnoses are a sort of collective constructivism with which my experiences do not align. I am going through an anti-psychiatry phase. The psychiatrist who I was seeing at the time that this phase started did not seem to mind as long as I did not abruptly stop taking my medication, which seemed a fair deal to me.

My psychiatrist did not refer me to my current therapist, so I have to sort of be my own care coordinator, which sometimes feels like a job in itself, but at the moment I am in a position where I am able to do it. At the moment I have a psychotherapy where my sole aim is to get in the door. The rest of it sort of takes care of itself. It is early days though. Who knows? I usually give them [therapists] somewhere between six and twelve sessions before I quit in terror make a decision about whether to commit to longer term work. There is a thread about this somewhere on the MH board, if you are able to see my posting history.

IOW, stop taking diagnoses literally. There is one diagnosis that was assigned to me for the purposes of the insurance claim, which resulted in a surreal conversation during which the psychiatrist asked me what it was that he had diagnosed me with, was it X thing or Y thing?

Sounds like this ain't your first rodeo!

I like this shrink because she doesn't seem to view me as a project. There is nothing that makes the red mist descend more for me than insensitive doctors who view you as a lab project. Have had that with my chronic illness, so was very defensive about seeing a psychologist. Thank God she's not one of 'those' sort of doctors!

This was the third round, and the first time without my parents there to make the decisions for me.

I had a therapist who seems to view me as some sort of learning opportunity for her. That one helped for a number of months and then ended quite suddenly and very badly indeed.

I am terribly, terribly picky and quite brutal on my therapists. I leave if I am not getting what I need or if we are not able to agree on the goal of therapy or whatever. I need a therapist who both knows the rules and which ones can be broken, when to change them, and so on. Then it is just...fun...terrible...wonderful...terrifying...exhausting, though. Exhausting. I take breaks. I tend to go hard in therapy, and my therapist has to slow me down sometimes, which I resent on the basis that there is a reason I am trying to gloss over that bit...I get a bit meta sometimes and she is well aware that I will leave at some point, probably, or not, depending. It is good to have two, a therapist and a doctor, IMO. In loco parentis, as it were.

I'm just nodding along at your post. i feel you've hit some key issues for me. We're clearly Dement-A-Twins (is twisted humour allowed on the thread? It helps me cope)

My shrink keeps telling me not to talk so fast. But it's just the way I talk! How the fuck do you know the difference between 'that needs improvement' and 'that's just me?'

Get a shrink who can keep up?

My shrink was also trained as a psychoanalyst, which is terrible, actually, because he is not my therapist, and he gave me insider tips on how the game is played from his side, which only served to make it worse for my therapists.

He and I were astonishingly efficient together. Therapy would have been fun, but there was some reason why it could not happen which is him not me.

I have had my sense of humour pathoelgised which is nuts. It is one of the mature defences. Wikipedia says so.

Oh well, if Wikipedia says so I have a folder full of the most evil memes about serial killers and the like

No, no. She doesn't mean I go through topics too fast, she means Italklikethiswithoutbreathing. Which is hard to stop because I've never noticed, but apparently I do it when I'm nervy or cranky, according to everyone family and now, shrink.

I like the idea of shrinking the shrinks. In my first session I put my chin between my thumb and forefinger, crossed my legs, looked at her intently and said 'and how do you FEEEEEEL about that?' Because she laughed, I knew she was worth a shot!

It is a dangerous game, out-therapising-your-therapist. Fun, though. You are not the first, and nor am I, which may or may not upset you.

I talk too fast when I feel anxious. I find that this helps.

I love it when I make the therapist laugh, which some of them react to by not laughing, which is horrible to go through, when I make a joke and the therapist sort-of-stares at me as if I have two heads. Another tactic is to take the joke I make literally and either point out direct how unfunny the situation is or ask me to explain it. I quit with the one who did that.

Morning

I'm finding this thread and a couple of others really interesting reading. Ive met some of you very briefly on other threads but paranoia, or sensible precaution, means I NC a fair bit.

I don't really have the language or experience to contribute much.

I am quite new to therapy. I am finding it really difficult because I feel quite disconnected when I'm talking. I think I am very aware of the picture I paint when i talk. I don't set out to manipulate. I just don't know how to do otherwise.

It also really reminds me of studying English literature. I wanted to be good at it but i wasnt. I particularly struggled with poetry. I really didn't have much to say. My mind would go blank in a discussion. I didn't see meanings or have the emotional reaction others did. I find that in therapy. I try to bluff - as if I have a reaction but just can't put it into words.

My therapist is really intelligent. I like that. But I feel sometimes she thinks I am more intelligent than I am. Which I also like but it's perhaps not helpful.

Anyway, I will continue to read.

Oh, and I Google emotions too!

If I have any advice, it is that you show this thread to your therapist, point out your own post, and say, that is me. If he or she is any good, he or she will know exactly what to do. It depends, though, on how you feel about this proposition. If the therapy situation starts to feel sort-of-wrong-for-you, for whatever reason, then you can stop attending. I usually go back to say goodbye and thank you, but this is not something that you are obliged to do either. This is my choice because I do not like the feeling of there being loose ends.

I have been in some form of psychotherapy on and off for a long time though, and I still fuck it up quite a lot. I feel very, very luck that I am able to have so much agency in my own mental health care, a position that I did not arrive at with zero scars. I do my best not to feel bitter and am scrupulously polite, which, when I explained to one therapist, she came back with, on at least two occasions, you feel you need to be polite to me? with an incredulity that bordered on mocking.

I am a polite person. What can I say? shrugs

All that was to say, hello Annaismyothername and welcome to the thread. I have not had much sleep which tends to make me talkative. I am supposed to be doing something else right now and I have not even gotten off the sofa for the past few hours. Ah well.

I might write these feelings into a notebook of things to share when I next see her after the holidays. I don't think I'll show her the thread. I mentioned posting on MN to my GP when I wasn't really in a state to filter what I was saying. It was quite embarrassing.

I am not really "getting" therapy at all but I like her a lot. She helped me get out of a difficult situation. We don't know each other well yet so I will give it time.

I too try not to feel bitter but then I feel angry at myself so bitter is more comfortable. The definition is helpful. I try to deal with the injustice side but then I blame myself and dont need more reason to dislike myself. I might think about the "powerless" side instead.

I think from posts here I need to exercise and maybe connect with people so I can do the meaningless chatting. (Pinging a bloody elastic band does nothing for me. Sorry if thats anyone's coping mechanism.)

Thank you erinaceus. I have found it helpful in terms of MN relationship support to try and give a little back. I'm not sure how much I can do that here. Difficult to see beyond my own life. I'll try though. Do you need encouragement to get off the sofa?

(I'm still in bed )

Bahahahahaha! Yes, yes I do.

The coping mechanisms thing is hilarious. I do not get the knitting thing, and am not a massive fan of mindfulness, but I am deeply grateful for the mindful colouring in craze thing. There was a time when the only thing that stopped me shaking was colour in a kids colouring book. The mindfulness books had irritating patterns in. Mine is a colouring-in book for children. And garish crayons. shrugs

There are some threads for meaningless chatting. I recommend the Feminist Pub in Feminism Chat. When I cannot take any more, I read MN Classics.