I experience it differently through therapy than I used to. I have some... and don't deny it and can be more expressive, while being socially appropriate for the situation. When I'm alone I can be more open with myself also.

I think trust prevents us from expressing a lot, especially in therapy... it takes and took a long time and it's still hard.

In therapy our T helps us with affect, either to increase or decrease or hold steady... but when there are walls there... all you can really work on is slowly slowly slowly breaking them down with trust. I spent probably 3 years of 2-3 sessions per week without really feeling anything.

It's hard for me, too, in therapy as I was ridiculed or dismissed for showing emotion on my face when I was a kid. I grew up despising and fearing emotions, being embarrassed by them. Some of us have heard many times over, that phrase, "Wipe that look off your face, or you'll be sorry".
So, now it's difficult and embarrassing with T even tho I know that's what she works with all day with others. I'm especially embarrassed when something slips out without my knowing it in advance or allowing for it. I know it's a result of the mistreatment in the past and more time with your therapist will get you used to emoting with her.
I know of many people who can't respond to other's emotions because they don't know their own, or don't approve of their own. I've worked different places where an employee might faint, have seizures, or get hurt some way, and everybody stands around, and some giggle from being uncomfortable. They're not actually laughing at the person's hurt, they are just so nervous about it all.

I relate - although thankfully I am able to show some emotions to my T now - but automatically have a 'poker face' if she's done or said something I'm hurt by (I feel the need to protect other people from any feelings I might have that might leave them feeling bad - although I know that is a projection of mine, not reality).

I remember being in a car accident where a car slammed into the front wheel of my car so hard the wheel ended up shunted in a couple of feet. No injuries to me or the other driver (although she was in shock). I remember feeling NOTHING. Not shock, not numb - nothing. I remember being aware I wasn't feeling anything; and that I kinda felt like I had to 'act' how I SHOULD feel; because I was so ashamed by my reaction of feeling NOTHING.

I suppress most of my deep feelings - I can have intense panic attacks in the presence of other people and they'd have NO IDEA. All my panic attacks are internal, never in the outside.

I also dissociate in a way no one would know either.

It's conditioned into me - basically, it wasn't safe enough to have a panic attack as a child, or let on to anyone I was dissociating. So I learnt to suppress those things.

Might be a good thing to bring up with your T, GG. You're certainly not 'odd' or 'different' - I think a lot of people your T has seen will be similar so it shouldn't come as a shock to her or anything.

quote:

I so struggle through sessions to maintain expressionless. I struggle not to smile, not to laugh, not to cry.

ghost girl... when I read this, I just wondered whether you are mirroring your T? Just because you have said things that have left me with that impression of her somehow. I might be wrong.

Ideally therapy should be a place where we dont have to try to not feel - where it is instead safe to learn to express our feelings in any way (verbal, crying, laughing).

sb

SB,
I probably am mirroring T. I have told her talking to her is like talking to a wall. It is like she isn't there.

That kind of T stance is common in some psychodynamic models of therapy. It would totally trigger me and leave me feeling as you do. It's not a question of her caring - it's just not the right thing for all people at all points of their work perhaps?

sb