New Emotions
As we get better at recognizing our emotions we may start to have new ones… such as regret, grief and just a general ick. My general ick is less than shame, but it makes me more functional and able to feel things.
Trauma can emotionally numb us… especially if we grew up in an environment that did not let us have emotions. These stone-faced families cover emotions with control and manipulation. The people in them are often numb and don’t realize it because that’s just how they grew up. They also don’t know that they need to do healing, because they think the lack of emotions is them ‘handling it’.
This isn’t true. And this numbness makes it more difficult for us to emotionally regulate because the emotional speedometer or emotional battery has no scale to it. There is no ability to consider levels of emotion. There is just no emotion - then BAM! - big emotion!
As we heal, more of the numbness slides off to reveal bigger emotions underneath. These are emotions that we were often not allowed to have. They feel dangerous to have sometimes, because they’re new.
The best way to deal with emotions when you’ve spent decades emotionally numbing yourself, is to slowly allow yourself to feel the emotions in small increments. You’ve gotten really good over the years at shutting down the emotions. As you heal, you’ll be able to peek at the emotions and when they get too overwhelming, you can use your trained numbing skills to shut the door.
It’s worth noting that you should not return to bad habits like drug abuse or alcohol, misuse of illegal substances or self injury, if you need to shut down the emotions. If you feel yourself wanting to do those things (or other illegal or self-harming activities) when you look at the overwhelming emotions, please seek help from professionals who are trained to handle substance abuse, self injury or other mental health issues.
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