There is one repeated pattern among people in recovery from trauma, addictions, and related mental health issues which stands out as most peculiar. Despite the tremendous pain we’ve been through, the effort we’ve put forth in our recovery, and the emphasis we’ve been given about how important it is to feel our feelings, we still fight to control our feelings. We know from first-hand experience how relieving the moment is when we stop fighting our feelings and allow them to flow naturally. We’ve witnessed the before and the after, then observed with great astonishment how life changes for the better when we give up our control mechanisms in exchange for living with our feelings. Yet time after time we return to our old patterns of behavior to compress, suppress, and oppress our emotions.
How we avoid our feelings is different for each of us. We might keep ourselves unrelentingly busy, taking comfort in the lack of white space on the sheets of our planners. Being busy means not having any time to sit still or be silent with ourselves where our feelings might show up. Instead of feeling our feelings naturally, we might have explosive emotional reactions. For example, when we are feeling sad or fearful, we might turn to their very close cousin anger and explode in rage. Isolating, sabotaging relationships, and keeping a general distance from others can help us maintain a sense of denial by pointing blame toward others as opposed to taking emotional responsibility for ourselves.
Eventually, our feelings manifest in other ways. We can’t sleep, we can’t eat, our stomachs are upset, our backs are in pain, we are ill, we develop disease or disorder, we become depressed or anxious in a way which demands a reconciliation with our emotional selves. Unfortunately, feelings don’t just disappear when we try to make them do so. Our feelings live inside of us as energy, chemical reactions, and memories. When we fight to control our feelings, we fight to control our lives in a way that prevents life from flowing naturally. Especially when we have lived through trauma, fighting is our natural flow.
We fight to control our feelings when we feel that our feelings are out of control. Oftentimes, trauma is a life event which is completely out of our control. Feeling the feelings which may be associated with our trauma can feel like allowing that lack of control to take place again. We, as trauma survivors, are not imperfect people who need to find perfection or bad people who need to find a path to goodness. As humans, we are people who are hurt who need to be healed, people who are wounded who need to find recovery.
Find recovery from trauma at The Guest House Ocala. Call us today for information on our residential treatment programs for trauma, addictions, and related mental health issues: 1-855-483-7800