Hi Stilloutthere
My heart goes out to you so much as you experience one of the most challenging times of your life, in so many ways.
While I faced long term depression for only 15 or so years (compared to how long you've been managing), I can relate to how long term depression comes with its own challenges. I can say there's nothing quite like the relief that comes with much shorter periods in depression. No relief for years seriously wears a person down in so many ways. Finding a number of questionable ways to manage is something else I can relate to, being an ex emotional drinker.
There can definitely be a lot of questions when it comes to feeling or not being able to feel for some reason. Some of the questions can be
- Do I want to be able to feel again or is it going to be too much for me to cope with? How will I cope, based on the circumstances I'd be feeling myself in?
- Why can't I feel? What's getting in the way of that? Did I stop feeling at some point as a coping mechanism and found I just couldn't return to being able to feel?
- Was I born with a brain that doesn't allow me to experience feeling or has my brain reformed over time, under a variety of circumstances or influences?
- Was I a highly sensitive kid who was led to shut down my ability to sense so much and so easily?
- Have I developed a lifestyle that accommodates not being able to feel or one that allows me to only feel what I want to?
- What have my belief systems about myself and the world around me got to do with how I feel?
It's a kind of never ending list, so I won't go on.
When it comes to the 'belief systems' factor. I used to fully believe that if I could feel anger, stress, resentment, self hatred, depressing factors in life etc, there was something wrong with that or something wrong with me. All I wanted to do was feel 'happy', what happy feels like. I used to think it was 'normal' to feel happiness most of the time, therefor I was not normal. It was a handful of years back when I hit on the revelation 'There's nothing wrong with the way I feel if I have the ability to sense my emotions and what they're trying to tell me'. Feeling anger tells me there's something angering going on. Feeling stress tells me there's something stressful going on. Being able to feel resentment, self hatred and depression also tells me something. Figuring out exactly what these things are trying to tell me is a whole other story. An exact sense is very different from a general sense. A general sense can be depressing, with no answers.
Whether what we're feeling relates to the way we're ticking physically/chemically, mentally/psychologically or naturally/soulfully, it pays to wonder. It can definitely get confusing. 'Am I feeling an energy zapping depressing lack of dopamine or B12, a depressing level of inner dialogue or does it have a 'dark night of the soul' vibe about it where there's some sort of depressing inventory going on in the lead up to a lot of stuff that's about to come to light, while I'm on the verge of change?'.
