“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always, darker, emptier and simpler.” –  Friedrich Nietzsche

Early when I was in therapy before knowing that I had PTSD from, the therapist asked me questions on where I felt things in my body. I answered this question many, many times and it was always the same. I felt nothing in my body except for inexplicable pains.

She looks at me and says, “You get it all in your head.” I say, “Yes!”  I am thinking to myself that I get it all in my head because I am smart.  I, also, think that she thinks that I am pretty intelligent.

After this exploration, I  would learn from her that feelings are meant to be felt in our bodies.  I had no idea that is what feelings meant.   Now, I felt very broken because I could not do this basic human function.   It was one of many times when I felt shattered as I would slowly uncover the long-term trauma effects.

The only “feeling” that I had was massive amounts of anxiety.  I came to learn that anxiety is the result of not dealing with other emotions especially anger.  The other place that I lived was numb.  I was an expert at numbness. I numbed myself by being very busy all of the time.

I feared that my family may have this terrible “no feeling” thing. I went home and asked my family if they felt in their bodies and they did.   I was thankful and grateful that they were not “broken” the way I was.

To feel these feelings, name these feelings and have the feelings match the event in time space would take years and years of work.

The therapist had a poster with different emotions and pictures of what those emotions looked like on a child’s face.  I would spend many times in therapy trying to the name those emotions.  I called this, the “Wall of Emotions.” At first, it was a guessing game for me. Then, I gradually determined if it was a “good” or “bad” feeling.  That was the limit of my emotional vocabulary and range.

Also, I had no idea that one could feel multiple emotions at a time.  I thought that they were singular.

Eventually, the emotions came a little at a time. Sometimes, they were very overwhelming and from the past.  I would have rage or great pain and sadness at times.  I would have to match the sensation in my body to the emotion.  I often had to guess at which bodily sensation matched the sensation. I had to learn this language from scratch.

As the emotions slowly revealed themselves to me, the timing of what happened and the emotions were out of sync.  It could be days after the event or after some past event discussed before the emotion came up.   This made it quite difficult to figure out what event went with that emotion. Over time, the reaction time between event and emotion became closer and was down to about a day or so.

Then, eventually the time between event and emotion was hours.  As time went on, I would notice that I could feel multiple emotions at the same time.  The “feelings” were very uncomfortable for me.  However, sometimes I would do a secret cheer for myself that I could feel and name “anger.”  This meant that I was healing and feeling what I was meant to feel.

Then, one day, it happened.  The event and the emotions came together at the same time! I finally achieved the “normal.”  The “normal” is uncomfortable for me.  I will continue to learn this new language.  Many people have a lifetime of this language. For me it is new, but yet exciting!