Why Can't I Feel?

I want to say that life with H since April has been pretty good, surprisingly so.   I say that because a huge part of me daily struggles with this current reality.  When H and I got married I had no clue to the secret life H lived.  I started building a home and a life based on what I believed love and marriage to be, based on my experience and values.  I built and built that life for years until suddenly that world I built came crashing down on top of me.  Suddenly what I thought I had was no where near what I once believed it to be.



Suddenly all those gut feelings I was experiencing became my reality.   I didn't have all the evidence yet,  but I knew.

I hurt knowing.  The pain was incredible.

I was a alone in this.  No one to talk to.  Who would you talk to about your husband cheating on you anyway?  

I needed a way to cope.  What I must have come to, all those years ago was numbing.

   

Numbing, is obviously,  not the best technique to employ.  It was all I had.  There wasn't message boards or Facebook where you could interact in an online social setting with those of a like condition.  Back then I didn't even call it "addiction".  I wouldn't have even thought to seek out an addiction recovery group.  Had I,  I would have thought that was just for the addict anyway.   Twenty-five years later we now know the spouse/partner needs a recovery program as well.

That's now.
Back then, I was stuck, alone, and helpless.

Back then, I plastered on the best happy face I could muster under the circumstances and continued to build my home, take care of my little one and put one foot in front of the other every day.

This works -- sometimes...

Other days (or nights) I would cry myself to sleep, watch too much TV, or eat.  If there was money to shop, I might have done that too.

I was still alone.

H wasn't emotionally present in our relationship.  He enjoyed our little S.  Most of our happy times came from what we shared together in our child.  As a couple we lived emotionally distant lives.

Having my little one gave me something to fill my days.  It pointed me in a direction I could follow in spite of much emptiness in my marriage.   I put my heart and soul into that little one.  When my nights were painful and lonely, the days could be brightened by the laugh of the little gift God gave me.  Whatever emotions I could express happened because I was a mother.    Whatever emotions I expected to experience in my marriage remained part of the dream that never fully came true.

As days turn into years and the trauma increased by more betrayal, my numbing increased as well.  Until now years later, try as I might, I feel dead inside and find it difficult to conjure up emotions.    What does it mean when H says he loves me?  He used to say it before.  I came to realized that wasn't true.  Or at least he was able to say he love me and be intimate with other women too.  The incongruence in that dashed what ever faith, truth, or trust I might have believed my marriage held.

Confusion, dashed realities and doubt all combine inside me causing me quite a  challenge to feel emotions I want to feel.

Or to trust what I hear.

I found this little 'ah-ha' here (http://www.onlinecounseling.org/lack_of_emotions.htm) while trying to figure out a path forward to feeling.

The Counseling Response  

Whenever we try to shut off close down or avoid certain emotions, the problem is that everything else can get shut down as well. It’s not like there’s one dial for happiness, another for sadness, and yet another for anger. 

We either feel our emotions or we don’t. If you want your positive emotions back, you will have to open up to the negative ones and work through them. The reasons why we shut down emotions are all based on fear, but with different variations.

As I begin to research solutions, I realize this happened to S in a tragic way as he grew older.  I numbed myself so well that once he was no longer a little boy needing so much love and interaction I shut down pieces of me too -- to avoid potential pain.

As I look back at the memories I realize the damage of numbing has been far reaching.


Usually, PTSD numbing does reduce the positive feelings of joy and love, but not the anxious feelings of fear and dread. So it is common to have high anxiety but low mood. And PTSD, by definition, includes some "emotional anesthesia."  (http://www.giftfromwithin.org/html/FAQ-Professionals-PTSD-Treatment-for-Emotional-Numbing.html)

I can get my mind around this concept of "Emotional anesthesia" because of the length of time I have suffered from betrayal trauma.  Without a place to work through the trauma I needed an anesthesethic for it.  The more the trauma occurred the more anesthesia it took to numb me.

"Healing from the impact of betrayal is not a linear experience that starts out with the pain of discovery and then automatically feels better with time. Instead, it’s a unique journey for each couple based on several factors such as the unfaithful partner’s willingness to tell the truth, previous betrayals, duration of the affair, and other factors." (http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2013/11/07/relationship-connection-how-long-is-too-long-to-struggle-after-my-husbands-affair/#.U5dLIV5hu-g)

I want all these broken,  emotional numb pieces of me..


.....put back together


Betrayal trauma is so very similar to post-traumatic stress disorder which is exhibited with flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, or fear of anything reminiscent of the original trauma it can take years to heal or to fully trust again.

These conditions still exist for me.  They still break me down.  They still cause me to continue to numb and block emotions that may be ok to trust.

I don't know where to go from here.  If I were H, I would want a genuine, and as equally emotionally matched reply to words of affection.  If I were H,  I would probably feel some rejection from a lack of response.

This is all so tricky and complicated for me.  Its exhausting as well.  I work my mind around what I read and study, which gives me all the validation I need.

Just no answers for what to do to fix it.

I'm going to leave it here for now.  I'm heading out the door to counseling with my head full of a lot of stuff I need to process through more.  I don't know where the answers will come from.  I just know I need to find them.  Being emotionally numb right now will likely slow the process of H's recovery.  I don't want that.  Still, I don't want to rush mine either.