I have been suppressing my feelings for so long in fear when I was coming to terms with being gay. I always was self conscious about the way i spoke and what I said or even thought in fear i would be outed so I shut it all down. I would turn of my emotions and feel nothing. I would feel no sadness or happiness but now that has starting to scar me. I came out to my mom a couple months ago and I have tried my best to explain what I have gone through so far. The other day I received some very good news and I should have reacted very positively when my parents told me but I just kind of acknowledged it and moved on with a smile but my mom noticed. She spoke to me today about it and I explained how I suppressed my emotions so I would feel no sadness or pain for so long that sometimes I don't feel happiness either. She is very concerned about me and frankly I am a little too. She asked if i wanted to speak to someone but I really don't have the time with school. I don't even know if it is normal to be like this and be able to turn off my emotions but when I do it takes a while for them to come back. God I know how crazy I sound.
You should trust your mom and talk to someone I didn't have that convenience and honestly even now I'm in a place where my emotions almost feel completely foreign to me. I can laugh and have a good time, and I can get mad or upset, but it's only in the moment and always brief. Most of my life is just a daze of events that blur right past me as I transition from one day to the next. I've been dealing with that for years, and I'm honestly at the point I don't even know how to actively express myself emotionally at all. It's like my emotions are some foreign entity instead of a part of me.
That is me 100%, I do think that the emotions are there but I am unable to react to them. I am in the closet and not planning to come out but what scared me the other day is my mother telling me that, as time goes by, im a much colder and inapproachable person. From what im reading, you are starting to come out and hopefully when you are out in the clear you will get your "emotion" back because you will have nothing to hide!
Hi I would like to offer my advice, however in doing so please understand that my advice nor anyone from EC for that matter can substitute for that of a competent and licensed Psychiatrist. It is BEST as your mother had offered that you seek Psychiatric advice for this. The inability to experience emotions or lack of reactivity to emotional cues can be indicative that an individual may have an underlying Psychiatric condition or a side effect of certain medications such as Antipsychotics. This inability to experience emotions in itself is only a symptom and not the clinical condition itself. The Psychiatrist would have to assess you for supporting criterion to diagnose you if indeed you have an underlying condition. The Psychiatrist would also decide as to what degree of inability to experience emotions or lack of reactivity to emotional cues you are experiencing and would categorize it accordingly. You will also be assess if you only have this lack of reactivity or if you do not experience emotions (sadness, happiness) altogether. This would put it into a whole other class of symptom which may warrant consideration of other conditions. Yes studies are important, but your health and wellbeing are top priority. Also consider how much stress, anxiety and worry this may cause your Mother, seeing you like this. Ultimately the choice is yours. I do hope you make the RIGHT decision.
I feel you. I'm the same. And it does feel... weird. Very isolated. So isolated... BlueBunny's advice was good. And you know what? I haven't talked about this very much in therapy myself. So now you reminded me. And a good thing came out of talking about it here on OC. I think more good things can come out of it too. <3
I guess i should try and make time for this. It's good to know I'm not the only one that feels like this.
