Is it crazy to say I don’t feel? Like, in a legitimate sense. Recently I’ve tried to do some more introspective thinking and I’ve become more and more unsure of how I process feelings, or if I do at all. Most of what I’ve ever been taught by family, friends, and myself, is to internalize everything and not let anything affect me. It’s been like this since a very young age. Now, with a couple exceptions when something may be too overwhelming to even understand let alone control, all of my feelings and thoughts and reactions when anything at all happens seem to be predetermined, like I have a couple scripted responses and don’t actually take the time to feel. I can go many days or weeks without an honest emotional reaction to anything, just moving through social interactions based on how I’ve learned I need to act. I’m not able to express my real personality to friends because I’m not sure how I would genuinely react to things. I’ve gotten good at faking everything, too, and it feels comfortable to be able to not mind social or emotional situations, but at the heart of it I don’t like having a fake personality that disguises near-absolute apathy and the demeanor of a rock. I’ve attempted to go out of my way to overstimulate myself and elicit an honest reaction and done things I’m not proud of in search of any sign that I feel any guilt or sadness or anything, but I’m only hollow. I have talked to a counselor and my partner about it briefly, but in the end it never goes far because it’s impossible to explain the feeling of not having genuine feelings.
I relate to this.
It’s hard to really feel sometimes when you’ve spent so much time being told how to feel, or not to feel at all. Whoever you are inside your head, I promise you that there are people who will love you when you’re honest.
These people may not be your family, your friends, or your peers; but they exist. And once you start being honest about how you’re feeling and how you’re doing, those people will appear and I think you’ll be surprised about who they are and how many there are.
And if you’re looking for people to talk to and be honest and be loved, we are here for you. You are loved eternally, we love you and care about you in this moment; and we want to get to know you.
Hang in there friend,
Jaden