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Being emotionally unavailable

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sleepingpancake
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14 May 2016, 3:34 am

smiling practically hurts my entire face....


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0_equals_true
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15 May 2016, 4:17 am

I relate to what you said despite being a male. I think it can work both ways. Even if I can't relate to being female.

I call it "hole in the head syndrome" as that is what it feels like. It it is like a kind of void or deadness of emotional response, or at least masked.

I think it is to do with not wanting to expose you self to much, being overwhelmed emotionally, a defense mechanism not treating it as a serious prospect and finally just not getting the non-verbal communication and social queues.

So you end up very neutral or blank.

I do enjoy myself and express myself in friendship, so I know it is possible. I think I can do it. I think I have to build up a kind of momentum gradually, without being too full on.



E V Tooms
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27 May 2016, 5:56 pm

Amity wrote:
It takes a lot of energy to be emotionally available, I dont always recognise what I am feeling, like a time delay until the emotion becomes clearer, but by then the moment has passed and so has the opportunity.
Sometimes negative emotions come out physically as anxiety, or through nightmares and I have to put life on hold to figure out the cause of the nervous energy because I need to know is it a big or a small issue that has led to me feeling this way.


I am experiencing this at the moment with someone I like. I am overwhelmed with emotions that I can't sort out until it's too late. A lot of it is anxiety at the idea of being vulnerable as I have been targeted so persistently by narcissists and psychopaths from my earliest years until recently. At least I think so. It's hard to identify the source of the panic.



Last edited by E V Tooms on 27 May 2016, 9:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Amity
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27 May 2016, 7:15 pm

E V Tooms wrote:
Amity wrote:
It takes a lot of energy to be emotionally available, I dont always recognise what I am feeling, like a time delay until the emotion becomes clearer, but by then the moment has passed and so has the opportunity.
Sometimes negative emotions come out physically as anxiety, or through nightmares and I have to put life on hold to figure out the cause of the nervous energy because I need to know is it a big or a small issue that has led to me feeling this way.


I am experiencing this at the moment with someone I like. I am overwhelmed with emotions that I can't sort out until it's too late. A lot of it is anxiety at the idea of being vulnerable as I have been targeted so persistently by narcissists and psychopaths from my earliest years until recently. At least I think so. It's hard to identify the source of the panic. If he was the type to start conversation it would make me feel more at ease but, alas, I think he's anxious too...


Maybe try written communication, there is a nice time delay to sort out your emotions?



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27 May 2016, 7:16 pm

hurtloam wrote:
I'm putting this in the women's section because I don't think they guys really understand this from a woman's perspective.

It seems to me that I have a way of masking how I feel. It's not deliberate, but I think that I am more blank than other women and I'm not seen to be as warm or affectionate.

People say that I'm lovely and also that I'm quiet. I don't have brusque demeanour. It's not like people don't like me, but I feel like I lack something I'm expected to have.

I never feel close to people. I know people like me. But I'm not sending out the right signals.

It's a bank holiday Monday in the UK this week. And I'm on my own. I don't have anyone to spend time with. I'll bet the people I know don't know I'm lonely and just assume I'm happy on my own or that because I'm nice that I do have friends.

It's worse when I meet a man I'm attracted to and he seems to like me back I think a regular woman would show how she feels more openly, but I feel like I can't come over as available. Like I have an invisible wall. I didn't mean to build the wall, I just don't know any other way to be. My signals are all wrong, like a cat that purrs when it's angry or hisses when it's happy.

I think I've hurt someone recently and I actually do care about him. I just don't show it like other people do. I look fine. But I've got all these emotions going on inside me that I don't know what to do about.

And I think I'm just going to keep on losing people I care about because I can't express myself clearly.



I apologize and dont meant to impose, but being male and reading what the OP had to say about her own experiences rings very true with myself also. So yes there are some males like myself that do understand and can fully relate to not only the op's original thread but thus far all her responses :) and yes it is mighty frustrating when you retreat home and start questioning yourself to why you cant be like others when it comes to this area.. As mentioned it is very much like a closedown, everything being trapped internally only giving the outward signals that you arent interested and dont care, when in fact you care soo very much but just dont know how to portray those feelings in a socially excepted way, or for anyway at all for that matter.



questor
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15 Jul 2016, 8:29 am

I have never been able to bond emotionally to people, even family members. I do feel my own emotions, and I can and do care about people in a general, abstract way, but I am unable to have close emotional bonds to people. For a while I was able to bond emotionally to animals, but this gradually lessened as I grew older.

When I was younger I was also very blank on the outside. People often made comments, taking it for being mad, or not liking them, or being depressed. Although I was usually depressed, that wasn't the cause of the blankness. I just wasn't good at physically showing emotions, except during meltdowns. I've gotten better at letting some of my emotions show over the years, although I still go blank at times. Unfortunately, I don't think I will ever be good at bonding with other people. I am in my mid 50s. If it hasn't happened by now, it's not likely to ever happen. :(


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