Posted by Pfinstegg on December 3, 2004, at 12:32:28
In reply to Re: Emotional states- Dinah » Pfinstegg, posted by Dinah on December 2, 2004, at 23:14:41
Dinah, losing your feelings and vital self and your connection to your therapist just won't happen permanently. What you're describing sounds like a stress-based result of the terrible things happening to your parents, and all the fall-out on you, your husband and son. It's too much. It sounds like your whole nervous system is to the point where it has to shut down- the "escape when there is no escape". Our brains do this in catastrophic times if we are vulnerable, as you, and I, and many of us here are. It's probably going to be a while before you can feel the way you did before your parents got so ill, but you will get there. All the changes you have made over the years are there permanently- I believe- (and I've read this a lot also) but right now you are in a real crisis. Alan Schore describes this as a sudden parasympathetic reaction, which happens after our brains have become exhausted by long-term sympathetic over-arousal. When it happens, people feel sort of detached, indifferent and hopeless- a horrible set of feelings. Please don't lessen your visits right now, but don't expect yourself to react as you usually do. Just let yourself be there with him, and let him know what has happened. I hope you'll be really good to yourself- just doing whatever will permit some rest and recovery. You'll find your self again when the stress is less, but I know it's very uncertain when that will be.
poster:Pfinstegg
thread:422774
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041203/msgs/423920.html