I dont have to hope anymore, I have finally made progress in the direction of feeling the way I want. :)

[wasteandvoid]

I want to make this as like a checkpoint for myself, but also maybe someone will see and think there is a possibility for them to also heal.

I was going to make a big writing thing explaining myself but I dont think thats nessecary. I will say this though.

Since I was 12-13 (I am early 20s now) my feelings got sort of corrupted. I was very dissociated (still am but a little better) but I didnt know and I was mistaking it for depression. I tried explaining this to many people over my life and even therapists told me "those good feelings you used to have are in the past, youre this person now let it go."

I never let it go I always knew it was wrong. I never accepted the idea that life is that painful.

I have those feelings back now. Not all the way, and not all the time but they are there. Completley undisturbed in thier pure form from back then.

If you are highly dissociated and in your head all the time like I am, try being vulnerable. Try to figure out where you feel unsafe and you are guarding yourself. Start by making yourself feel safe in your room or alone, and adress your emotions gently. Invite emotions to come to be there, instead of pushing them down with judgements or with fear allow them to come. Drop control and let yourself honestly express yourself with whats present within you. For dissociation instead of being connected to your body and aware of it and sensations around you, you go up into your head and overthinking starts instead of being present. This is because your body detects danger and unsaftey so it wants to do risk management for you. Ask yourself questions and explore in your own mind why things feel a certain way, or why you think something. Discover what makes you feel unsafe, discover why you shut out feelings and dont listen to them and dont feel them. Thats my best advice and I hope it can help someone in a similar situstion.


I am feeling a lot better thank you so much to this website and all of its users. I hope anyone reading this gets whatever they are wishing for, longing for, and that your deep pain is resolved so you can feel more aligned with what you wish to really be experiencing

 

[Sad_Autistic_boy_101]

Thank you so much for this. I have a dissociative disorder called DPDR. I used to get dissociated in episodes but it's reached a point where it has been constant for 2 years. I have lost all hope of experiencing emotions again or even the ability to cry. So reading this and seeing that even after those amount of years your feelings have come back gives me some hope. I experience exactly what you describe. I feel so trapped in my head all the time and like i'm floating away from my body. A lost soul unable to reach its owner again. The difficulty is being vulnerable. I'm not good at this and have masked my way through life to the point of burnout. Is there a way to start letting emotions in? as I would like to address my emotions gently but I just can't seem to feel anything.

 

[wasteandvoid]

Thank you so much for this. I have a dissociative disorder called DPDR. I used to get dissociated in episodes but it's reached a point where it has been constant for 2 years. I have lost all hope of experiencing emotions again or even the ability to cry. So reading this and seeing that even after those amount of years your feelings have come back gives me some hope. I experience exactly what you describe. I feel so trapped in my head all the time and like i'm floating away from my body. A lost soul unable to reach its owner again. The difficulty is being vulnerable. I'm not good at this and have masked my way through life to the point of burnout. Is there a way to start letting emotions in? as I would like to address my emotions gently but I just can't seem to feel anything.

I am autistic too and I know its really hard to put a name to or understand what feelings even are a lot of the time. Try to feel the sludge of mixed emotions that feel like a confusing mess probably, and ask what is this? What is happening right now that is making me feel this way? Even if its a static like a nothing, like dissociation feels like, try to examine it from the outside as you feel it. Why is it here? Does it feel like supression of emotions? Is it fear? Am I sad? Am I upset? When did this begin? What do I remember from my past about this emotion? What in the enviornment brings this here for me more? Be with it like dont go on technology or anything be silent with it to see if it can help you notice something more clearly about it. If nothing comes up thats ok. Try to calm yourself and know what calm is, know what saftey is for yourself so those walls and tension thags been there for so long that everything else is foreign to you but that, can finally come down. Treat yourself like your caring for a child or a hurt animal because somewhere the dissociation is probably caused by a trauma.

Dissociation is like the side effect of not feeling safe* enough to be able to be vulnerable and honest about how you feel. You might have been this way for so long that you forgot how to even do that or that its even an option. I hope this struck somewhere in you that youll be able to remember what im talking about.






(Side tangent may be helpful for you)
I dont know if this is a issue for you, but a problem I had was looking for my emotions inside my head and my own thinking, rather than understanding that they are already here but I am unable to sense and feel them due to me being in my head.

To solve this I tried to question what I am feeling right now, what am I sensing in my actual enviornment not what my mind says I should feel, or expect to feel but what I am feeling. And it often is very simple nothing complicated, I had big expectations that it was going to be something amazing that when I get my feelings back itll feel just as amazing as my memories. It can but now is a different time than in the past, new feelings come from this moment.


If you have more questions or want more help please ask i want to give as much info as I can from my experience. Sorry I am quite disorganized in how I think also but i hope it helps you

 

[HopingOnaMiracle]

OP your post resonated with me. I think what you're describing is similar or the same as mindfulness. Letting emotions be instead of fighting. That helps me sometimes. I do meditation too. Thanks