When Positive Feelings are Unsafe

I feel like the weirdest freak in the world when happy times with friends, filled with positive feelings, leave me flooded with sadness, hurt, and despair. You would think I just had a big fight with my husband instead of a coffee date with my favorite people! How the hell do happy times and sad or angry times leave me feeling the same!?!? Am I just wired wrong?

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I recently became aware of this area of my life where I struggle. Not that the struggle is anything new, but the awareness of it is brand new! Like so many other areas, I had no idea the tension and hurt that I held inside — not until I learned how to be in touch with my body. I have spent decades ignoring any cues within my body. I was numb, but to me, this felt like a strength. By ignoring my body, I could tolerate physical pain, emotional pain, and whatever was necessary to move through life with only logic and reason. I was proud of being this way!

disconnecting from the body is an unconscious strategy

Unfortunately, the ability to ignore my body, this coping strategy that kept me successful for decades, came to a screeching halt a few years ago. Chronic fatigue hit me like a brick wall and I suddenly spent more days in bed than out of bed. My digestive system couldn’t handle most foods, headaches, my joints and bones ached, and my legs felt like they were hundreds of pounds each. I felt awful and I couldn’t push through it any longer. I had to ask my husband and kids to do almost everything.

All of this is changing now with EMDR and somatic therapy. I have learned to go within myself and recognize the cues in my body telling me when there is distress.

positive feelings can cause distress

I love spending time with my closest friends. Introverts crave deep meaningful connections too, maybe even more than extroverts. And I crave time with my good friends.

For as long as I can remember, I would look forward to spending time with a friend, or a group of friends….the anticipation keeping me in a good mood for days. I am happy, confident, and secure as I walk into the room. I join the conversation, listen to the stories others share, and totally enjoy my time for a while…sometimes an hour or more. And then with no warning, I feel the urge to run and hide. It’s not usually evident on the outside (I hope!), but my insides are met with an intense feeling of overwhelm and sadness. Not always…but plenty often.

labels

Maybe this overlaps with what would be labeled social anxiety. There are many times that I dread social activities as much as I am excited about them. I want to go. I’m too nervous to go. I need to be with my friends. I need to be alone. The tension and anxiety increase and I seek ways to back out. I force myself to go because friendships have played an integral part in my healing. I feel crazy…and in the end, the labels are not helpful. They can put words to the symptoms but they don’t explain why I have the paradoxes within me.

I handle it

I have never understood why this happens, but I have become incredibly good at navigating it. This involves faking smiles and hugs and continuing the pleasant conversation. I bite my tongue until it bleeds at times because that helps stop the emotion.

Desperately wanting to leave, I use all my energy to not think about that and push through so that I don’t lose these friends. But that involves looking for every opportunity to go use the bathroom or step outside for fresh air. I find any place that can offer solitude to catch my breath. Sometimes I pretend to get a phone call so that it looks normal to walk away as I fake a conversation. Once out of sight, I put my phone away and fight the tears. I look in a mirror and tell myself I can make it just a little longer.

I beat myself up for being so different, so freaking weird, never even attempting to find an explanation for my reactions…until now.

healthy friendships are a new experience

After the marriage ended, I still did not seek out friends. I was suffering from PTSD although I was not aware of this. Whenever a friendship began to form I was faced with this paradox of wanting to be with the person and wanting to run from her at the same time. Freaking weird. That was the only explanation I ever found. I’m just freaking weird!

safe enough now to be curious

15 years later…I’ve come a long way. I have better relationships and healthy friendships now. But the problem has not disappeared. I have several groups of friends now that I see often. We have meaningful conversations…the genuine interest and openness with each other as we learn and grow together…the support of other women within our small community…the love and understanding we can provide…it is a wonderful.

So why am I still getting this rush of sadness and despair after time with my good friends!? Please tell me what is wrong with me! Sometimes these feelings hit strongest after I leave, and other times it is while I am still with the friends I was excited to see. I get disoriented and anxious. It takes all of my energy to look normal, blend in, and have a conversation. Because I know the night will (more often than not) end with these feelings, I dread going almost as much as I am excited to see everyone (AKA the social anxiety label).

it’s a trauma thing

This has been the case for as long as I can remember, but the intensity and complexity have increased over time. And I am simply more aware of it now. My therapy has taught me to recognize the shifts in my own body.

Feelings are what I cannot handle. Feelings activate my nervous system. It’s easy to understand how negative emotions and stressors are triggers. But it is so hard to wrap my damn head around why happy time with friends can leave me triggered and depressed for f*#@ing days at a time!

Clearly, I cannot explain what is happening to my friends! I cannot even explain it to myself. How do I say to my lovely friends, “Please forgive me but this fun evening is making me want to crawl under your table, bury my face in my knees, and sob for a while. Can you just pretend I’m not here for a bit?“!?!? I feel like an idiot! I crave connection with people and then when I am given the connection, it scares the shit out of me!

Positive emotions are just as much a trigger for me as any negative emotions. The positive feelings activate my nervous system in the same way, leaving me dysregulated. This feels confusing, yet this is not an uncommon trauma response.

vulnerability

I suppose it is the vulnerability of these real connections that scares me, shakes me. I feel insecure, unsafe and unprotected.

There is much vulnerability in true friendship, deep conversations and divulging personal stories. In the past, this would have left me punished for revealing secrets about my ex’s abuse. Even suspicion of divulging personal information was grounds to be punished.

I feel defective, broken, ashamed, and in real danger of being abandoned. I feel childish. When your body itself feels unsafe, which is part of complex trauma, trusting another person to be next to you, being vulnerable and allowing the connection is not an easy task.

Bodily Cues

My body was never an anchor, but now I am teaching myself to let it be my anchor. Through therapy and the support of others, I am re-tuning my nervous system. This work is not fast by any means.

too much to lose

For the first time in my life, I have a friend with whom I feel incredibly safe. I can connect, be vulnerable, share secrets and listen to hers, and be left with feelings of happiness. It is exhilarating to have found I can experience a connection so differently. Joyfully. But there are still times I am hit with the same struggle.

It happens with my husband as well. My loving husband who cares about my emotions. He cares enough to make changes so that my world feels safe. Sometimes it happens after really good sex…the kind that leaves you feeling deeply connected…that you are one. How do you explain a rush of tears and needing to turn away or bury your face in a pillow to hide tears after great sex?

Because these relationships mean the world to me, I have found the ability to finally become curious about this struggle.

I have too much to lose now to NOT be curious. How beautiful that I have so much in my life, I cannot risk losing it! But I know all too well now that becoming curious about bodily cues means tolerating great distress to look inward. So I struggle for any sort of explanation. Why do I have this intense need to isolate…to hide even when life is happy?

searching for meaning

I cannot always explain why my body reacts as it does, but I am making the connections. Sometimes it’s easier to make connections to my past. Like when my husband is yelling with such anger and intensity, I am always triggered, feeling like I am with my ex-husband again. The connections help me accept myself. I can find compassion for the way I react (or overreact), knowing that my mind and body created strategies in the past to keep me functioning. I learn to accept and be compassionate for my body’s strategies.

But these other triggers, like being with a group of wonderful friends and being hit with a wave of sadness…or getting so hot I want to rip my clothes off…or my hands shaking and I cannot hold the fork to finish my meal…I can’t explain those so well. But I care about my healing enough now to try.

my mom was ashamed of our childish joyful expressions

Maybe the distress in me is connected to my childhood and the lack of any true connection, vulnerability, or freedom to have emotions. My parents did their best but they could not safely handle such a connection, even with their children. I learned early to not feel or express emotions – negative or positive. It wasn’t only sadness and anger that was too much for them, they never showed any display of joy – especially my mother.

Those quiet, simple comments were intended to teach through shame and they were more than sufficient for my highly-sensitive nervous system to learn how to behave differently. An internal processor, I have a brain that attacks me without mercy, training my body to behave differently, to please, and to hide what brings shame to my mother.

tolerating the distress of self-reflection and stillness

This understanding of my childhood came to me only after walking away from this post for 2 days. I was frustrated because I knew there must be more to this embarrassing paradox of mine, but I couldn’t come up with anything! Once I finally tolerated the stillness and allowed the self-reflection, I was hit with the shame I carried whenever I expressed happiness as a child. I’d see my mother shaking her head, unable to look at me as if I was shaming the entire family with my outward display of childish joy. She’d comment on how silly of a girl I was. My dad too.

Then I’d spend days trying to make up for it to please them by acting more serious and mature, being productive and helpful, accomplishing all that I could, convinced in my core that if I could change my silly, ridiculous ways they would love and accept me. One day they would be proud. One day they would like me and connect with me because I would be self-sufficient with no emotional needs.

We develop these strategies to not only function but to thrive and be successful — at least a success that is perceived through someone else’s eyes.

Obviously others’ roots of distress from positive feelings will be quite different from mine. But the path to self-awareness will be similar. It only comes with tolerating distress; tolerating the calm and stillness required for the mind to go inward and listen to the body’s language. It requires self-compassion toward that version of yourself or those parts of yourself that had to create unique strategies that worked for you!

And mostly, it requires safety – knowing we are loved and supported by another human – that there is someone that will connect with us without judgment. That safety piece doesn’t come easy with complex trauma, it can take years of self-work.

The strategies our bodies created, like finding escape in isolation over feeling joy in social connection, will be used for a lifetime despite the pain they may now cause in our adult lives…UNLESS we find a way to allow for silent stillness, navigate the self-reflection, tolerate the distress, and listen to our bodies.

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