Swept Up In Feelings.

Chessie

Chessie

Community Member
MBTI
INfJ
I'm a naturally fairly emotional person. Due to personal difficulties lately (the end of a long relationship) I've been fighting to keep myself busy so my emotions don't over-whelm me. I've spent a lot of time with my friends and gaming and doing the things that most often work.

None of it seems to be. A psychologist is completely out of the question. I'd rather get shot than set foot in a therapist's office. Still, I feel like there is something I am missing here in dealing with my emotions. I've tried everything I know and in the end what I keep being pushed towards is talking to people about it and that's a thing I've never been inclined to do. I don't like it when people just spray their feelings all over me. It's draining.

Equally, I don't feel like I'm really doing all that well. I am worried about permanent scarring and about damaging my outlook on life. I am not a pessimistic or cynical person. I like being alive. Lately though, in quiet moments I keep finding my eyes full of tears that show up completely unbidden. How do you stop this? It feels like these emotions are out of control and I don't like it at all. I want to be myself again. I want to be free to be myself.
 
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Chessie said:
I'm a naturally fairly emotional person. Due to personal difficulties lately (the end of a long relationship) I've been fighting to keep myself busy so my emotions don't over-whelm me. I've spent a lot of time with my friends and gaming and doing the things that most often work.

None of it seems to be. A psychologist is completely out of the question. I'd rather get shot than set foot in a therapist's office. Still, I feel like there is something I am missing here in dealing with my emotions. I've tried everything I know and in the end what I keep being pushed towards is talking to people about it and that's a thing I've never been inclined to do. I don't like it when people just spray their feelings all over me. It's draining.

Equally, I don't feel like I'm really doing all that well. I am worried about permanent scarring and about damaging my outlook on life. I am not a pessimistic or cynical person. I like being alive. Lately though, in quiet moments I keep finding my eyes full of tears that show up completely unbidden. How do you stop this? It feels like these emotions are out of control and I don't like it at all. I want to be myself again. I want to be free to be myself.
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Sorry, but it seems like you've already found your answer.

It takes a lot for an INFJ to ask for help, as its we who tend to want to put our problems aside to help others. However, venting really does help, and talking really helps you sort out your thoughts and feelings.

Also, you find yourself crying unbidden. Let it happen. Except in some cases of severe depression, crying really does help get the pain out, so just let the tears flow.
 
i'm sorry to hear about your relationship. i identify with the experience you describe. i have found that it has been ok to feel my emotions, to allow them to happen and wash over me, while keeping in mind that it is not necessary to take any further action on a feeling apart from just feeling it. doing this has not hurt me. by allowing myself to feel my emotions this has released them somehow and they have subsided and felt less overwhelming over time. my experiences have changed me and damaged me but i have remained true to my core self and the things i have been through have also made me stronger and i think in a way more pared down, stripped back, or focused somehow. the most important thing in that respect has not been the emotional aftermath but in just being true to myself, my ideas of what is fair and right and things like that, throughout difficult interactions interactions with loved ones.

sometimes this allowing myself to feel emotions was inconvenient as the emotions overcame me and i cried in public places, but usually people didn't notice, and if any stranger did happen to notice they simply looked concerned for me. it was ok in the end.

hugg!! Chessie. flowers.
 
Chessie said:
I'm a naturally fairly emotional person. Due to personal difficulties lately (the end of a long relationship) I've been fighting to keep myself busy so my emotions don't over-whelm me. I've spent a lot of time with my friends and gaming and doing the things that most often work.

None of it seems to be. A psychologist is completely out of the question. I'd rather get shot than set foot in a therapist's office. Still, I feel like there is something I am missing here in dealing with my emotions. I've tried everything I know and in the end what I keep being pushed towards is talking to people about it and that's a thing I've never been inclined to do. I don't like it when people just spray their feelings all over me. It's draining.

Equally, I don't feel like I'm really doing all that well. I am worried about permanent scarring and about damaging my outlook on life. I am not a pessimistic or cynical person. I like being alive. Lately though, in quiet moments I keep finding my eyes full of tears that show up completely unbidden. How do you stop this? It feels like these emotions are out of control and I don't like it at all. I want to be myself again. I want to be free to be myself.
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not alone. not easy but talk with someone - it will help.
 
Chessie said:
I'm a naturally fairly emotional person. Due to personal difficulties lately (the end of a long relationship) I've been fighting to keep myself busy so my emotions don't over-whelm me. I've spent a lot of time with my friends and gaming and doing the things that most often work.

None of it seems to be. A psychologist is completely out of the question. I'd rather get shot than set foot in a therapist's office. Still, I feel like there is something I am missing here in dealing with my emotions. I've tried everything I know and in the end what I keep being pushed towards is talking to people about it and that's a thing I've never been inclined to do. I don't like it when people just spray their feelings all over me. It's draining.

Equally, I don't feel like I'm really doing all that well. I am worried about permanent scarring and about damaging my outlook on life. I am not a pessimistic or cynical person. I like being alive. Lately though, in quiet moments I keep finding my eyes full of tears that show up completely unbidden. How do you stop this? It feels like these emotions are out of control and I don't like it at all. I want to be myself again. I want to be free to be myself.
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I've been there, and I hated it, but the only way I could deal with it, in the end, was allow it and embrace it. Really let it out and wallow. Purge the sad like poison.
 
I don't think you can stop it. You must simply decide to survive....that's all and that's enough. Somehow surviving is the only thing needed because this alone allows those new inner connections to be formed over time. Why? Because the frayed ends will in some ways be frayed forever, and yet from it something new comes. The past heals over, and the new becomes our present. This is how it has worked for me anyway.

There is no overstating how awkward and painful life can be at times. Still, if we survive we see things we might never have imagined and in some weird way even may become (in hindsight) grateful for the pain because of the odd fruit it yeilds.

Let your very breath be your prayer. That is enough.
 
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Praefect said:
I've been there, and I hated it, but the only way I could deal with it, in the end, was allow it and embrace it. Really let it out and wallow. Purge the sad like poison.
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[MENTION=3252]Praefect[/MENTION] said it well.

According to this author, Judith Orloff:

" Typically, after crying, our breathing and heart rate decrease, and we enter into a calmer biological and emotional state.

Emotional tears have special health benefits. Biochemist and "tear expert" Dr. William Frey at the Ramsey Medical Center in Minneapolis discovered that reflex tears are 98 percent water, whereas emotional tears also contain stress hormones which get excreted from the body through crying. After studying the composition of tears, Dr. Frey found that emotional tears shed these hormones and other toxins which accumulate during stress. Additional studies also suggest that crying stimulates the production of endorphins, our body's natural pain killer and "feel-good" hormones."

When I went through my 28 days of no contact with a lover I was totally addicted to, I wrote myself an email each and every day on how I felt and how I cried. I totally embraced my pain and anguish and rage and wrote it down while tears poured down my face.

Like Praefect says, wallow in it and embrace it. Be sure and cry all the way through to the end EACH time you do. I found that to be most important for me. By the 21st day or so, I found myself able to think about my love without my heart going into spasms or my gut wrenching and my tears didn't flow. On the 27th day I declared myself 'cured'. I've had a few days of turmoil since then but am going weeks and weeks without even dwelling on him now.

You have to let your body cry. It's the path to healing. :hug:
 
Gaming sounds like something to be done for fun. In other words, spend time with friends to enjoy it. If the other feelings come around, embrace them and keep having fun.

My life right now is filled with too much drama, which basically unnerves me to no end. The big picture doesn't bother me; it's the little things people are saying, doing, and/or not doing that have no place in the situation
that I have to listen to over and over again with some new drama every other day that is taking a toll on my nerves.

However much it bothers me, I know someone else has it much worse. Told a young lady in an elevator we had been dealing with a loved one in the hospital for going on six weeks(seven now). She had her pillows with her and I thought she was going home for the morning after spending the night with a loved one. I felt terrible when she told me she was having her husband sent to Hospice from an accident he was not recovering from. That gave me a different perspective on my own situation.

Hang in there; you can do it!! "Don't let it bring you down; it's only castles burning." Neil Young
 
About a year ago, in the midst of divorce, a good friend (also an INFJ) told me this in an email after we had a long talk about failed relationships, including one of mine in my 20s: "In my experience, time does seem to heal all things (emotionally, that is), if you let it. Holding onto and stuffing the feelings doesn't seem to be a good idea, because all the stuffing eventually explodes."

I don't expect you to believe me, or her, but you'd do well to take note when the people you trust tell you things like this. You are concerned that you can't control your emotions and that you want to be yourself. I would say (and a head shrink would try to figure out how to make you tell youself) that your emotions are part of you, and you need to feel them in order to move forward. They will help you, although they hurt, and it sounds like you can control them enough to get by at the store and the office, etc. Much of the middle 40 years of life are about learning to trust people with your vulnerability, so I would encourage you to try out the waters on sharing emotions with your friends before the harder work of being intimate in sharing your own feelings with a future partner.
 
If you don't let it out and keep it stored away in some part of the body, it will eat you from the inside.
 
I'll do my best to express all of this in some sane way. The worst of powerful emotions is always the feeling that I'm crazy for having them. I value my sanity above all other things and to let it get swept away because someone I loved is making trouble or because I am lonely feels like wasting life. Life is a precious commodity.

My room mate and I sat and played about with Write Or Die (you can find it through Google.) last night. It's rather brilliant. A silly little program but lots of fun. It helped to just spill words for twenty minutes. I occaisionally find myself needing a boot in the tail to keep going.

Thank you. Everyone here, for your support.

It's nice to have somewhere to go that's low drama.
 
It is a sign of sanity, not illness, that you bitterly grieve a loss. It is an indicator that you see life and love as precious. Loneliness is one of my biggest demons as well, but everyone you see on the street has a few just as bad.

From Khalil Gibran ("On Joy and Sorrow" from The Prophet):

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater thar sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
 
On Joy and Sorrow" from The Prophet

Forest Dweller said:
It is a sign of sanity, not illness, that you bitterly grieve a loss. It is an indicator that you see life and love as precious. Loneliness is one of my biggest demons as well, but everyone you see on the street has a few just as bad.

From Khalil Gibran ("On Joy and Sorrow" from The Prophet):

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater thar sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
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Oh - so beautifully said. Oh so true.

Thank you for sharing this.
 
I agree this is a beautiful saying, and looking deep into oneself can show past experiences leading up to the present.

I marked a trail I have been wanting to take this afternoon through a deep swamp. In the weaning hours of evening sunlight, there was no light to be found among the beautiful scenery. After going quite a way into the swamp, I noticed sunlight. I was taken by its sudden presence beyond where I stood. I figured at first it to be some type of clearing, but gathered my thoughts enough to quickly pick up the pace and get to what I figured it to be: the river with its white sandy banks and clear, darkish waters drifting through the shallows and around the dead trees half submerged that had fallen from time's wearing away at the root structures along its banks.

I could find no sorrow in the moment while pondering this afterwards. I did find great joy being where most people do not go, as I had to drag a small boat to cross a creek to get to where I was. I left my sorrows back at the truck when I started dragging the boat. Now that I am back at home, the sorrows are not as bad as they were. The new found joy did help to ease my sorrows, but I have had no sorrows in the swamp I was in.

Sorrow and joy may live together in me, but I can leave the one behind to grasp the other. I think it may have a lot to do with my frame of mind. I know I may have to deal with sorrow tomorrow, but I was in a place this evening where sorrow had no invitation and was not welcome. It did not knock on the door because it knew it was not allowed. As a matter of fact, tomorrow's sorrow will be affected by today's joy.

We all need places to go where we can escape sorrow a bit, though it does have its place.
 
I agree with FDs comment too. Great verse to choose. I know how you feel about "dragging people down", but the fact is that although it feels like this, it's not the case at all. Most good friends actually value your confiding in them. They like to feel that the friendship is an equal one, and that you need them like they need you. Although personally I don't feel like I do need my friends, in times of hardship it's a good chance to strengthen that bond, and appreciate that actually, for infjs particularly, human contact is a warming and vital part of life.

Hang in there, keep busy, keep allowing yourself to heal through letting some emotions seep out. You sound like you're doing just great :)
 
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