Posted by ralphrost2 on July 17, 2010, at 17:03:46
In reply to Re: Is there life after psychoanalysis? (trigger) » ralphrost2, posted by violette on July 14, 2010, at 14:44:26
> About the loss of self-esteem--Maybe you are coming out of 'denial' and having shame-based feelings?
I think that the self-esteem issue has more to do with seeing that I lived most of my life creating coping strategies to avoid the pain. Like fantasies... and I didn't really face reality. So now there is a huge gap between people and me. I've been living very distant from people (in an emotional sense).
> Eventually, all the emotional garbage couldn't be repressed anymore. When I started to 'feel' how terrible my childhood actually was, and this was prior to seeing my current T, I got emotional flooding. It was awful. Flashbacks, nightmares, semi-hallucinations..panic attacks, etc. Well, this was when the loss of my self esteem-similar to how you described-was very apparent to me. It's basically, imo, formerly repressed shame-based feelings emerging from your unconsciousness, as opposed to what is 'depression' and alleviated with meds. Because growing up with abuse or neglect-whether overt or covert-causes toxic shame-an internalization of how parents related to us. And although we cover it up with various defense mechanisms, it is always there--knawing at your consciousness--until we work through it. That's also what I think leads to spiraling into a full depression sometimes...So maybe you are sort of in the middle right now....
I think you're right, violette. It's like each time I let feelings emerge (when I'm talking to someone for example) I feel mostly sad. How can we socialize being so negative and melancolic? And I'm often afraid of releasing feelings because I fear entering into a depression spiral, like you said. Maybe this has to be a very gradual process. And if you chose to face reality (as opposed to use meds) I guess there is no easy way.
Thank you. Have a nice weekend :)
Ralph
poster:ralphrost2
thread:954254
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20100706/msgs/954805.html