Learning to Feel Again

If you were to ask me what my favorite Disney/Pixar movie is, I would have a really hard time picking. I mean, Lion King is just a classic that has amazing characters and music, Finding Nemo is adorable, but the story of Beauty and the Beast is just beautiful too. Truth be told, I can’t pick JUST ONE to be my favorite, because they all have parts in them that have stolen my heart (though Beauty and the Beast, especially the live action remake is definitely a contender for first place). But I digress. The point of this post is not to declare my favorite Disney movie, but what I have learned FROM watching Disney movies. I honestly think Disney is more for adults than it is kids, because I’ve had major life revelations from Disney that no child could comprehend (but that’s another story).

I know I’ve said it before, but one of my favorite movies from Disney/Pixar is Inside Out. When I first watched in 2015, I remember my teacher brain being so excited because I could use it as a teaching tool for an introduction to emotions. I had many kids in my class that year that struggled with emotional regulation and just understanding what emotion they were feeling and how it made their body feel. I could hardly wait for the movie to come out on DVD because I had so many great ideas on how to introduce the Five Core Emotions to my kiddos. For those who haven’t seen the movie, the Five Core Emotions introduced are Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger. I had kiddos in my class who struggled with anger and with fear. I was so excited to try and help them understand and navigate these emotions, just as Joy did in the movie. But what I failed to see then and am only realizing now is that it wasn’t just the kids that needed an introduction to emotions and what they mean and feel like. I needed one too.

You see, I spent the majority of my childhood really feeling only two of the Core Emotions – Fear and Sadness. As a kid who was physically and verbally abused at school almost daily, I lived in a constant state of fear. Sadly, my childhood brain wasn’t able to deal with what was happening to me and thus I developed Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I wish I could say that I dealt with it in my teen years and it hasn’t affected me as an adult, but if you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll know that’s not true. C-PTSD has affected every aspect of my life for almost all of my 25 years of life.

I’ve lived the majority of my life in Fight, Flight or Freeze mode. I’ve been hypervigilant, viewing almost everything as a threat for so long that it is what my brain and body is comfortable with. I know what fear feels like. I know what it’s like to experience sheer panic where you truly think you’re about to die. I know what it does to my body – how it makes my muscles tight, how the tension headaches come, how my stomach always feels like it’s in knots and my appetite disappears. I know what it’s like to feel sick deep down in my gut 24-7. I know what it’s like to have an “elephant” on my chest and barely be able to breathe. I know what paranoia is. I know how it made me Obsessive Compulsive to the point I had to go on medication for it. And speaking of medications, I know what it’s like to try brain altering medication after medication, weening onto one and off of another while dealing with all the unpleasant side effects that come with them. I know what it’s like to feel like a hollow shell of a body, unsure if I’m alive because I’m meant to be or just because I’m taking medications to keep me alive and “functioning”. I know what it’s like to live in overdrive ALL THE TIME. To never be able to relax. To constantly be waiting for the next horrible thing to happen. I know what it is like to not feel safe… ever. I know how hard it is to trust people when every one outside of my family has hurt me in the past. I know how hard it is to fight to stay alive when every one else is screaming that I’d be better off dead to the point where I believed it was true. I know what fear is like.

As I write this, I have tears streaming down my face because I now know what it’s like NOT to feel that way all of the time. I can’t believe that I lived that for so many years. Moreover, I can’t believe I survived it. But the fact is, I did. I fought like hell and here I am, on the other side of so, so much trauma and pain. Trauma therapy wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. The nightmares have stopped. The panic attacks have stopped (I haven’t had one since the beginning of MAY!) The OCD has lessened. The flashbacks have stopped. But now I have a new “problem”.

I have to learn how to feel again. Because I really only felt fear and sadness, my body doesn’t know what to do with all the other emotions. I don’t really know what joy and happiness feel like. I’ve had moments, but it is a foreign emotion to me. Same with anger and disgust. These aren’t emotions I’ve experienced that often and therefore, I don’t know how to recognize them when I’m feeling them. That’s why when someone has asked me recently how I am, I’ve responded with “I don’t know” because I literally didn’t know how to describe the emotion I was feeling.

My therapy homework for the last week has been to work on developing an understanding of emotions and not just the Core Five. While the Core Five are a good starting point, there are so many emotional words that fall under those main categories that I need to learn. I’m now learning the lessons that my kiddos needed to learn 4 years ago. I’m finally learning Emotional Literacy. I kid you not, my homework was to go home and look up an emotions/feelings chart. I felt rather elementary while doing it, because the majority of the ones that came up were for teachers, like me, to use in their classrooms with kiddos. You know, the ones with pictures displaying what different emotions looks like?

But, after digging a little deeper, I found some “adult” ones that hit home. I’m attaching the one I’ve been using the last little while. My assignment was to go through the words for the different core feelings and see if a) I knew what the word meant, b) if I’ve ever felt it before and c) what it felt like in my body. Let me say, it was a rather humbling experience as there were numerous words on different charts that I had NO CLUE what they meant, let alone how to pronounce them. But, humility aside, this experience has been extremely eye-opening for me. I have A LOT to learn when it comes to the emotion department. I used to think I was good at teaching kids Emotional Regulation strategies, but after beginning my Emotional Literacy project, I realize just how much I don’t know.

I’m currently working on identifying words that describe emotions that I’ve felt at some point in my life so that when someone asks me how I am, I have a better answer than, “I don’t know”. For example, today in therapy, my therapist asked me how I was and I answered, “I’m morose. I feel gloomy.” To which my therapist rattled off the perfect summation of why I could be feeling that way (which, was pretty dang accurate). But I had an answer. I gave him something to work with rather than an “I don’t know”, which isn’t overly helpful for a therapist (though he is rather good at summarizing how I’m feeling when I don’t seem to have words).

So, the next time you ask me how I am, and you’re really asking (not just being polite), don’t be surprised if you receive an obscure emotion word. It’s part of my therapy process and it opens a door for me to be vulnerable with you (something else I struggle with) about what’s been going on in my world.

If you’ve resonated with anything I’ve written in this post, know that emotions are freaking hard to understand. I get it. Don’t be ashamed if you have to join me in my Emotional Literacy project and learn about the emotions. Don’t be ashamed if you struggle to comprehend what you’re feeling, because you’re not alone. I spent 25 years of my life not knowing anything but fear and panic. It’s okay if we’re late to the Emotions Party. And if you know someone who struggles with this, be patient. It’s hard some days to put words to what is going on inside. But if you stick by us, one day we’ll through some emotion word at you and the flood gates will open and vulnerability will begin again. More importantly, know that when I answer “I don’t know” when you ask how I am, it’s not because I don’t trust you or am trying to be annoying. It’s more likely that I’m just confused by what is going on inside my body. And that’s okay for now, because I’m learning to feel again and I know others out there are too.

Love,

Becca

Emotional Literacy Images Taken from Google. No Copyright Infringement Intended. Cover Image Taken from Google. No Copyright Infringement Intended.