nonames wrote:
TemporalSeries wrote:
I find the whole language of 'bottling up' emotions not useful. Emotions are not like water that goes under pressure when contained and compressed but flows freely when not contained. Unlike water, emotions do not find their own level. The whole metaphor doesn't work very well.
It use to be that I felt emotions very deeply but expressed then not at all. Starting in my late teens, that all got flipped on its head and I couldn't keep from expressing negative emotions, especially anger or frustration. I've only recently learned that this shift could have been due to changes in my brain structure that happen around that time of life.
Expression of emotion, it seems to me, has more to do with the organization and function of my brain than anything else.
On a different subject, I've noticed over the years that a lot of psychologists and other mental health workers, especially inexperienced ones, bring their own unresolved ego needs into their practice. The ones that want to help the worst, in fact, help the worst.
Do you have a better metaphor?
What I don't get is, what does expressing and emotion even mean? do people constantly put on an emotions's face? they constantly lash out if they're angry? or what?
I mean for brief emotions, I smile, laugh, everything naturally, but longer emotions, nothing happens, whatever they are. Even if I've been happy the entire week, the only difference is I do more stuff. If I'm angry and sad, I do less. But my face is the same and I don't resist the urge to lash out.
I've even tried to look sad while sad to get someone to talk to me without asking and I failed completely. I can't do voluntary emotions unless I think of it as acting, have a character set up I can relate to , etc, and even then I can only keep this up long enough to pass a drama class.
Emotions are more like a physical sense, say like tasting something. An emotion, like a taste, is there in just that moment. In the next moment it may be there but changed, like an after-taste or it may be gone and another one may have taken its place.
I notice a lot that my emotions trigger thoughts which then generate another emotion. The thoughts are like the food, and the emotion like the taste of the food.
None of this says anything about expressing emotion. Expression is a behaviour while emotion is an internal experience. Sometimes I express emotion, sometimes I don't. I try to not pretend, as you say 'put on a face', when expressing an emotion. I've tried putting on a face in the past, but I've concluded that doing so is insincere and that sincerity is valuable in communication through emotional expression. So if I experience an emotion and find myself expressing it, I go with that. If I find myself not expressing the emotion, then I go with that.
I don't judge myself harshly if I don't express. The only time I judge myself harshly is if I do express particular emotions, anger or rage, in such a way that I've lost my composure. I think that losing my composure to anger is a bad thing. My behaviour becomes abusive to the people I'm angry with because they suffer emotional violence from being near someone emotionally out of control and aiming his rage at them.
07 Dec 2012, 5:43 pm
