Emotions – do you still love me?
Written by Julie Taylor
Emotions - Do You Still Love Me?
The emotions take a beating during any kind of trauma? Everyone has a slightly different story, but the fact remains that the emotions are definitely affected. Crying bouts are not uncommon at all and are an expected result of trauma. We become so very sensitive – I wonder if part of this is because we are suddenly unsure of who we are? We are so full of questions: What we can do? Where do we fit in the world? What does our future hold? Everything we knew and took for granted is in question – and this is equally true whatever the loss we have suffered, physical or emotional.
In brain injury the effects are often extreme and may be more obvious – either very hair-trigger or even flat. This is often the case with many kinds of trauma. I think the brain, which is in charge of managing the whole body and our actions, may decide to protect us from further hurt by blocking the connection to our feelings?
Flat affect is the name given to dulled emotions and seems to be more worrying initially, especially for caregivers. I think because it’s not expected? Eventually flat affect is less troublesome than extreme emotions and so it is neglected. Survivors may learn to ‘fake’ emotion too so we underestimate the problem.
I’ve not heard of a medication that claims to deal with this – I’m grateful for that! As someone who suffered from ‘flat’ feelings for years I worry that so many prescriptions are handed out and I probably have ended up having even more. I’m not sure how effective they are and sometimes we end up taking more pills to counter the effects of the others we take! I really encourage people to find a non-medicine answer.
Several people I have talked to have spoken about a loss of motivation to do just about anything. One girl said “I don't get sad, or happy, I am just here waiting for something to heal where I can feel again. It has been 7 years, I'm still waiting...”
So many of us would benefit from having a knowledgeable caregiver (with the time) or a therapists able to steer us toward a knowledgeable psychotherapist or counsellor. It’s so sad to be just sitting, waiting…
When I first came home from hospital I felt very little. And what immediately struck me was how we rely on our feelings to guide us in what we do – and I missed mine. There was so much to deal with though that I quickly forgot about such a quiet detail. I was a single mom with 3 young sons and in order to be allowed home the doctors wanted to see that I had a partner and support…
Not long before my injury I had fallen in love with a wonderful man – although I did know that he didn’t particularly want children… I realized that I didn’t have my feelings to guide me and so I decided to think it through instead. Of course, I didn’t realize that my logic had also taken a beating…
I decided that if I was in love with him before, it was very likely that I would be again when I came out of this awful numbness. Particularly as I tend to be a dependable sort of person anyway. I knew that he didn’t want children but I remember discounting that and thinking “Don’t be silly, he’ll realize how wonderful they are and be delighted…” No red flags at all were raised for me. I had no-one that I could talk with about these things and without feelings to guide me I made huge life decisions blindly. Of course at the time I had no idea of how scary this was – after all, scary is a feeling…
I felt as if my feelings were all safely in a balloon, floating just out of reach. Panic is another feeling, so I wasn’t upset that these feelings weren’t inside of me. I was OK – although I did wonder what ‘real delight’ would be like instead of the ‘motions’ I would go through to please others…
Years later a massive emotional shock burst this balloon. Suddenly I became a blubbering, full of love, anxious, fearful person - too sensitive to function at all. Everything was so bright that it hurt. On the one hand it was amazing to really see and focus on the precious, soft skin on my new granddaughter’s hand; the incredible beauty and veins in every leaf; the wonderful deep, dark, sparkling blue of my son’s eyes. On the other, everything hurt more than I can express and my beloved husband – who I had grown to love very deeply, despite, perhaps, not showing it – had just walked out.
I haven’t talked here about the louder ‘over-emotions’ because I want to concentrate on these very sad ‘under-emotions’ in this article. I will address anger and the other more-difficult-to-handle emotions at another time. The squeaky wheel gets the grease! And, as I said, flat affect is very quiet...
When you are the survivor and your emotions are flat you’re unable to fully realize the loss yourself. You just can’t quite grasp it… You may just have an occasional hint of how invaluable a guide our emotions are to us: then it’s gone. We desperately need someone to gently coax and help us back into the feeling world. We need to know it’s safe for us to feel again. Safety is a very big issue… Because it is less trouble to society if we sit quietly and wait ‘to feel’ it’s easy to be overlooked. However, the fallout can be considerable… Personally. Society also loses – and has to pay, financially, for the results…
My sons grew up feeling unloved – and I want to talk about the effect of trauma on our children later. I made some choices that were not smart – which were layered on top of some very un-smart choices I had made as a teenager. If I had been helped to feel appropriately so many lives might have been richer. In my own case though I learned to disguise the fact that I wasn’t truly feeling, so it really wasn’t anyone’s ‘fault’. Although at the beginning, when I had almost no rehabilitation offered to me, my lack of feeling would have been discovered…
Deep inside, sometimes I would cry. Or feel joy. Some part of my brain though would steer me away from it. Trying to protect ‘me’, I believe. Scared for me that I would not be able to deal with ‘any more’. Mistaken kindness?
The other thing you do sometimes (after brain injury) – without choice or control – is show an emotion that you don’t feel. One woman said “ I had my head injury in 1995. When I first had it I cried for no reason all the time, that or laughed for the same reason (none). At the drop of the hat I even got irrationally angry! I didnt even cry at my son's funeral, but I sure cried in my heart (and still do)”.
Perhaps one of the saddest things is that we are even more alone because other people can’t tell what we’re feeling? The last thing we need is to be more alone… I would also laugh when the feeling it was mirroring inside was very different – and then because I felt stupid and ‘head injured’ I would pretend it was ‘nothing’ and just what I meant. It was somehow easier to be thought of as callous than as brain injured…
For example I was once standing in our new office with my husband, who I loved above all else. A large piece of drywall ceiling fell down and, because he was taller, hit his head and avoided mine. It was terrifying, potentially dangerous and for him, quite painful. My reaction? I laughed… He was upset – and shocked that I seemed not to care about him at all. On reflection it was very serious – and at some level I did know that at the time. I never did have the chance to explain that it was so not what was going on inside of me.
Medications have an effect on our emotions too. To prevent seizures I was given medication that artificially makes you tranquil and happy. I wonder how ‘real’ the changes made by medications can be? I feel so sure that it is possible to work through our experiences – past and present – and that, very gently our feelings can be coaxed out of hiding.
