Self-destructive behaviour is usually in reality a survival mechanism. It is often seen as the voice of the silenced or hidden self - a way of demonstrating in a physical way feelings which cannot be expressed emotionally. Sufferers often keep their self-inflicted injuries secret in the same way as they keep their feelings hidden - this demonstrates how wrong it is to label eating disorders, self-harm or abuse of drugs or alcohol ‘attention seeking’.
+ eating disorder + anorexia + bulimia + hidden + secretive + addiction + survival mechanism + voice + unexpressed + supressed + feelings + emotions + suffer
I am overwhelmed with things I ought to have written about and never found the proper words.
+ writing + expression + emotions + writer + proper + words + language + restricted + limited + inept + overwhelm + frustrated + virginia woolf + creative block
Most people are upset by feeling too out of control; many never take risks voluntarily. Their lives are devoted to maintaining the safety of the status quo. This adherence to the familiar is often a reaction to a tumultuous or unpredictable early life, perhaps from an emotionally unstable family. Chaos is terrifying for children, so they respond by trying to control whatever they can their own emotions, their bodies, their surroundings
+ control + eating disorders + childhood + past + emotions + feeling + familiar + safe + life + unpredictable + tumultuous + risk + body + respond + terrified
You can never return to the place of not knowing, to the unconsciousness of earlier days. Sometimes you may wish you could return, because the journey gets painful and the old days seem simpler in your memory. But you can’t go back, and even if you could, ultimately you wouldn’t choose to. It’s like having been blind all your life, and suddenly you’re able to see….movement, colors, and shapes…more than you ever imagined. And, even if you cover your eyes, you can never forget what you’ve seen.
Depression can be understood as a sign of the loss of self, and consists of a denial of one’s own emotional reactions and feelings. The denial begins in the service of an absolutely essential adaptation during childhood, to avoid losing love.
+ Alice Miller + drama of the gifted child + depression + loss + self + identity + denial + emotions + needs + feelings + reactions + supression + avoid + love + parents
Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness,” “joy,” or “regret.” Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster.” Or: “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy.” I’d like to show how “intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.” I’d like to have a word for “the sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as for “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.” I’ve never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I’ve entered my story, I need them more than ever.
If you hold back on the emotions—if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your heard even, you experience them fully and completely.
We don’t even ask for happiness, just a little less pain.
+ charles bukowski + pain + happiness + less + survive + struggle + painful + content + okay + fine + emotions + ask
I am more sensitive than other people. Things that other people would not notice awaken a distinct echo in me, and in such moments of lucidity, when I look at myself, I see that I am alone, all alone, all alone.
When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You’d be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside—walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a Mack truck to come along and finish the job. It’s the saddest thing I know.
+ express + expression + die + depression + creativity + create + dead inside + death + sad + depressing + empty + passion + emotions
Describing early childhood experiences in words is difficult because memories are stored in the amygdala as rough, wordless blueprints for emotional life. Like children who are born deaf and blind, children of borderlines have no way of organizing their emotional life. They do not realize they are different, that other children are born into a world of sound and light. The lack of consistency in their emotional world creates a sense of meaningless, as if life itself is nonsense.
+ emotions + childhood + borderline + mother + different + damaged + past + feelings + fear
Emotions are regarded as troublesome or frightening. Anger is to be avoided, sadness eliminated as soon as possible. In order to survive in this world, she must deny or downplay them. She quickly learns that in order to please others around her, she must present a pleasant, happy face and hide any other feelings. She feels like she is just going through the motions. There is a certain emptiness in her life an emptiness she tries to fill with food.
+ eating in the light of the moon + eating disorder + please + people + emotions + feelings + deny + suppress + happy + hide + empty + food + anger + sadness
I spend all this time taking everything I am and hiding it away. I never show who I am to anyone. I hide my writings, my thoughts, my interests, my emotions. I hide all that I value in this world. I never let anyone in. Not once.
+ hide + private + alone + share + thoughts + emotions + people + relationships
