I have trouble connecting with my emotions sometimes. I am very good at identifying them, but I still find myself trying to hold the negative ones (negative in my opinion), at a distance. So often I end up looking at them from afar. From the other side of the glass , as though I am looking at a beautiful and dangerous animal in a zoo.
I know holding them away like this is detrimental, and I’ve been learning how to let myself experience them. But it is very hard for me. I don’t like them. I don’t trust them. I don’t find them to be logical. I treat them with caution because they feel dangerous to me.
In the past, they have interfered so much. They made it so that I was unable to separate the reality of a situation from the feeling of situation. They kept me from protecting me and mine. Unable to reliably distinguish who was safe and who wasn’t.
So in order to keep myself safe and protect others, I separated myself from my emotions and held them back. I packed them away in boxes and put them in storage until it was safe to take them out and examine them.
And then I locked the closet in that corridor, where that time of my life lives.