What's wrong with me?

[Du Soleil.]

I have a problem, which I've had for as long as I can remember, and it's difficult to explain but if any of you could help me, I'd be so grateful.

Okay, so, let me outline. I think I'm emotionally disconnected. Not completely, but probably near it. The thought that brought this up is that two months ago my partner who was also one of my best friends was killed during Operation Panther's Claw in Afghanistan. Now obviously, I should have felt sad or upset, but it was something different. It was like disbelief, and a painful, wrenching sensation in my chest, but it wasn't sadness. It was more like overwhelming grief but I couldn't really feel it. It was like ghosts of emotion or something, something that I didn't feel, but something my conscience was reminding me of. Reminding me of how it should feel. This is just an example of my problem. I might have to get all poetic to describe this so I'm sorry if I end up sounding cliché'd to shit.

Whenever I feel an emotion, it's not really an emotion, so to speak. It's like a hollow echo somewhere inside me, like a memory of an emotion that causes me to hurt, but in a more physical and psychological way than an emotional way. Sometimes it can be so bad that I can literally feel a faint wrench in my heart, but the emotional back-up isn't there. When I have these experiences, the faint wrench is like a yearning of some sort. A longing for something, but what that 'something' is, I don't know. I know it sounds stupid, but I think it's a yearning for a heart. You see, over the past eleven years, I've had a lot of horrendous experiences that have hardened me, so to speak, but in exchange for being more and more insusceptible to being emotionally hurt, I feel like my entire emotional core has gradually been shut down over the years, worsening with each bad experience I've had. I feel hollow inside, in a way, incapable of really feeling anything past overwhelming grief, but even that overwhelming grief lies a lot.

For example; say if I watch a sad film, I can feel that sadness, but it's like, this hollow takes it and thins it out to fill itself in, and in doing that I feel the emotion ten times than I normally would, but it's like... fake. A fake emotion felt by my head, not my heart. I know it sounds contradictory to fuck but I can't explain it in any other way. My behaviour also indicates some things. I don't give a shit about most people, can't withstand people in general, couldn't care less about certain situations and problems and things that would shock and offend people don't do anything to me. It's like I'm unbiased. Just standing in a world and watching things happen and I don't understand any of it because I don't have the emotional set-up for it.

I know I'm not good at explaining things, and so I thought I'd include a reply in the OP that is a good summary of what I'm trying to say.

Originally Posted by KHFanatic4565

Your emotions have burned out. Over the years, you've probably been through a nightmare. Things that people should not have to experience. Added that from, what I am guessing, is a fragile emotional disposition, and you have emptiness. Incapable of truly feeling anything real. Am I right?

Emotion is wild, like an ocean's currents during a storm. Your feelings are muted, echoes of what was once there.

So, what's wrong with me?

[Noich]

Originally Posted by Du Soleil.

So, what's wrong with me?

you're intelligent, and you know how to act right.

not over-reacting to everything is a good thing. imo.

[Bebop Blues]

Everybody reacts differently to certain things. When my grandma died not too long ago it was the first time I had ever seen my dad cry which for some reason caused me to cry. Once we were at the funeral and I was surrounded my mournful crying family members I felt nothing. There's nothing wrong with you it's just the way you respond to things, I know that empty feeling you're talking about.

[Du Soleil.]

Originally Posted by Key_of_Hearts

Everybody reacts differently to certain things. When my grandma died not too long ago it was the first time I had ever seen my dad cry which for some reason caused me to cry. Once we were at the funeral and I was surrounded my mournful crying family members I felt nothing. There's nothing wrong with you it's just the way you respond to things, I know that empty feeling you're talking about.

This problem doesn't only pertain to my partner's death, though. The events before that, many of them sickening and saddening, have all taken their toll. It's just that when he died, I was almost desensitised to it. His death isn't the problem. It's the whole nature of why I don't feel things properly.

[Noich]

Originally Posted by Du Soleil.

This problem doesn't only pertain to my partner's death, though. The events before that, many of them sickening and saddening, have all taken their toll. It's just that when he died, I was almost desensitised to it. His death isn't the problem. It's the whole nature of why I don't feel things properly.

well that begs the question;
what is the proper reaction to a loved ones death?

really it just depends on how emotionally mature you are are as a person. not everyone has the same reaction to a certain scenario.

[Du Soleil.]

Originally Posted by Noich

well that begs the question;
what is the proper reaction to a loved ones death?

really it just depends on how emotionally mature you are are as a person. not everyone has the same reaction to a certain scenario.

I have friends, close friends, who have experienced the death of a loved one, and from what I've observed, my reaction was nothing like that. I didn't even feel that sadness. It was just grief, but that grief was so psychological. It didn't come from the heart. It wasn't that he had died, it was the concept that I'm never going to see him again.

I'm a fairly emotional person, I remember having been so for as long as I remember, but I think my experiences have hardened me, like I've said, to the point where it affects me as a person and I can come off as uncaring and callous at times. The point I'm trying to make is that this problem doesn't only occurr when bad things happen; it's always there, constantly, like a dull sort of physical ache. It's just that when these emotions come along, it gets worse, but I don't really feel those emotions.

[Bebop Blues]

I know exactly what you mean, but I don't know how to explain it to you. You feel like you should feel a certain emotion, an emotion that anyone would feel if they were in that situation, but you can't and you don't know why. It's like you can only feel the emotion inside of you, but you just don't express it. I completely understand that. Maybe it's because you might have went through so many negative events and felt so many negative emotions that you don't respond as you might use to or think you should.

[Reflection]

crawwwwling in my skiiiiiiiin the oranges willlllllllll not peeeeeeeeell









okay but in all seriousness don't ask a kingdom hearts forum about psychological and/or emotional problems, see a professional.

[Du Soleil.]

Originally Posted by Key_of_Hearts

I know exactly what you mean, but I don't know how to explain it to you. You feel like you should feel a certain emotion, an emotion that anyone would feel if they were in that situation, but you can't and you don't know why. It's like you can only feel the emotion inside of you, but you just don't express it. I completely understand that. Maybe it's because you might have went through so many negative events and felt so many negative emotions that you don't respond as you might use to or think you should.

It's not that I feel I should feel a certain emotion, but more like I feel like I should feel something in general. I know I've described myself to feel overwhelming grief, but it's not really 'feeling' it. It's more like a psychological experience. I express what little emotions I have quite openly, but it's just that I have a difficult time feeling them in general. But yeah, I think I've become desensitised. A subconscious disconnection of some form.

Originally Posted by Reflection

crawwwwling in my skiiiiiiiin the oranges willlllllllll not peeeeeeeeell

okay but in all seriousness don't ask a kingdom hearts forum about psychological and/or emotional problems, see a professional.

Yeah, I have, but I can only get a professional opinion there. I want another opinion, too. A more personal one, so I can view all of this with equal footing.

[♫]

Hey, maybe you think you didn't feel true, overwhelming saddness when your partner died because, deep down, you were steeling yourself for the possibility that s/he may not make it. Sort of like a foreshadow, so when the true moment came, it wouldn't be as intense as it could be.

Like you said, you had been feeling sad weeks before it happened, which may serve as an indication that you have been conserving your fears and feelings.


As for the movies, well, you may be intellegent enough to know that they aren't real. If I know something isn't real, then I don't worry about it.

[Du Soleil.]

Originally Posted by Freedom

Hey, maybe you think you didn't feel true, overwhelming saddness when your partner died because, deep down, you were steeling yourself for the possibility that s/he may not make it. Sort of like a foreshadow, so when the true moment came, it wouldn't be as intense as it could be.

I knew it was going to happen. Sort of like gut instinct. He'd been to Afghanistan before, but this time, he died there. I wasn't preparing myself for it, purely because I didn't want to believe it would happen.

Like you said, you had been feeling sad weeks before it happened, which may serve as an indication that you have been conserving your fears and feelings.

More like years. Ever since I was seven I can remember having these experiences, just not as magnified. As the years went by and as many more bad things happened, the intensity of it grew and grew, sort of like locking down and cutting my emotional response.

As for the movies, well, you may be intellegent enough to know that they aren't real. If I know something isn't real, then I don't worry about it.

Yeah. I was using that as an example since I couldn't find a better one.

[♫]

Originally Posted by Du Soleil.

I knew it was going to happen. Sort of like gut instinct. He'd been to Afghanistan before, but this time, he died there. I wasn't preparing myself for it, purely because I didn't want to believe it would happen.

Well, maybe while you felt sadness... you also felt... relief? After generations of worrying, stress, and tears, you no longer have to go through that, ever again, for him.

[Du Soleil.]

Originally Posted by Freedom

Well, maybe while you felt sadness... you also felt... relief? After generations of worrying, stress, and tears, you no longer have to go through that, ever again, for him.

It wasn't relief, no. It wasn't sadness, either. It was more like disbelief that he was dead and it's still disbelief. I feel grief, but it's like... not real. My 'heart' pangs, or rather the hollow I believe is there pangs, but it's empty. I know I should feel upset and I should mourn, but I can't. I just seem incapable of doing it no matter how much I try.

[♫]

Then, perhaps it's a mix of depression and shock. I know what your going through, though mine wasn't nearly as bad as yours.

To make it short, I caught my girlfreind of nearly 3 years in the hands of some other dude. I was seriously piss'd off, but I was too shocked to do anything. One half of me felt like punching the guy in the face, while the other half wanted me to go to a corner and cry. I was completely frozen. Then, in the weeks following, I was in the depression stage of most relationships. etc, etc.

does that help?

[Du Soleil.]

Originally Posted by Freedom

Then, perhaps it's a mix of depression and shock. I know what your going through, though mine wasn't nearly as bad as yours.

To make it short, I caught my girlfreind of nearly 3 years in the hands of some other dude. I was seriously piss'd off, but I was too shocked to do anything. One half of me felt like punching the guy in the face, while the other half wanted me to go to a corner and cry. I was completely frozen. Then, in the weeks following, I was in the depression stage of most relationships. etc, etc.

does that help?

It's not depression or anything. It's just... emptiness. Emptiness that hurts. My partner dying is just one tiny event. I've had horrendous stuff happen in my life that makes his death pale in comparison. An accumulation of these events has had its impact, and where I've learned to become unresponsive, almost, to stop the pain of it all, it's had an effect on my emotional centre. Over these years, putting up so many blocks and walls, I feel as if I've severed my emotional response and I'm phantom feeling, wanting to feel but I just can't quite reach.

That story is awful, and of course, nobody should ever have to go through that, but you're matching things up wrong. Perhaps I need to explain myself better. My problem isn't about my dead boyfriend, or any of the other events, but rather about how I have a lack of emotional response to pretty much everything.