Being addicted to feelings related to trauma and pain.

[BlueOak]

Being addicted to trauma and pain. Do you find naturally living is the only way this goes away?

It has done over time. I no longer need to write out traumas as much, when I have spoken about them and got feedback or help I don't need to shape my reality, conversations or experience around the emotions that I am used to anymore. Integrating powerlessness, hate and shame were tough ones. Shame or humiliation isn't done yet fully. 

I haven't for a long time but now I am listening to music that makes me feel sadness or just intensely on repeat. Do you experience that yourself? The deep moving songs that bring it out of you so you can relieve the emotion. Its still addictive, and its hard to let go of what defined your identity for so long. The welling emotion and full bodied feelings that come out of the knots in the stomach or pressure on the chest.

It makes you feel alive, when otherwise you can be apathetic, disconnected or dead inside. 

Thoughts?

[BlueOak]

The flip side being we need to have that kind of pull toward the parts of ourselves we push away.

[puporing]

4 hours ago, BlueOak said:

I haven't for a long time but now I am listening to music that makes me feel sadness or just intensely on repeat. Do you experience that yourself? The deep moving songs that bring it out of you so you can relieve the emotion. Its still addictive, and its hard to let go of what defined your identity for so long. The welling emotion and full bodied feelings that come out of the knots in the stomach or pressure on the chest.

It makes you feel alive, when otherwise you can be apathetic, disconnected or dead inside. 

I have found tremendous solace and healing in sad/heavy/sacred kind of music, it has probably saved me from possibly going down a self-destructive path. If it feels addictive it probably just means you have more to move through/grieve and that it's a language that speaks to you. Classical music in particular was so great at leading me from utter grief to transcendence and love.

I do not know if music alone would've been enough to be where I am now which is a level of peace I haven't experienced before. Writing, reading and understanding, spirituality all played important roles. Therapy - having my shadow sides seen and loved unconditionally with a healer was what completed the circle for me.

Sounds like you're very in touch with where you are at right now and this is a healthy thing to totally let your feelings come up and be 'seen'. To me, it's the only way to move through it.

[BlueOak]

Thank you @puporing I had an emotional peak yesterday where I had to go through a few things. Usually I do this quietly to myself, not sure why I felt like sharing perhaps its as you say to be seen, vocalize. Its a balance of not doing this for its own sake or overindulging in it but still being with yourself or those difficult emotions when you are having a night of it.

I never have been able to afford a healer or professional so its been a long process. Posts like yours are what helped and do help, videos where someone else said what I was feeling or thinking. I used to crave and manipulate for acceptance, argue for it, fight for it in an unhealthy way. Then I realised just by being honest and accepting yourself its often enough. Seeing it reflect in others because you are not pushing it away anymore and its accepted in you.

Thanks again  Take care of yourself.

[Grateful Dead]

13 hours ago, BlueOak said:

Do you experience that yourself?

Yes, I can definitely relate to what you have wrote. 

I think the problem with trauma is that it works in our subconscious and is unconscious to us until we open up to a higher consciousness. I wasn't able to fully let go of my trauma until I found God.

[Mu_]

1 hour ago, acidgoofy said:

Yes, I can definitely relate to what you have wrote. 

I think the problem with trauma is that it works in our subconscious and is unconscious to us until we open up to a higher consciousness. I wasn't able to fully let go of my trauma until I found God.

Ya same.

14 hours ago, BlueOak said:

Being addicted to trauma and pain. Do you find naturally living is the only way this goes away?

It has done over time. I no longer need to write out traumas as much, when I have spoken about them and got feedback or help I don't need to shape my reality, conversations or experience around the emotions that I am used to anymore. Integrating powerlessness, hate and shame were tough ones. Shame or humiliation isn't done yet fully. 

I haven't for a long time but now I am listening to music that makes me feel sadness or just intensely on repeat. Do you experience that yourself? The deep moving songs that bring it out of you so you can relieve the emotion. Its still addictive, and its hard to let go of what defined your identity for so long. The welling emotion and full bodied feelings that come out of the knots in the stomach or pressure on the chest.

It makes you feel alive, when otherwise you can be apathetic, disconnected or dead inside. 

Thoughts?

I can relate for sure.  Enjoy it while its there, if it effects your practical life in such ways that you can't show up for work and relationships, then maybe call it a addiction, otherwise, just let it be what it is, I don't see any harm in feeling what your describing in your process.  Maybe in time your naturally just move onto something else.

[puporing]

@BlueOak Yeah it's important to be seen. Perhaps you have gotten so little of it before that this feels like 'indulging'.

Yes, financial barrier is a problem and keeps a lot of us stuck for longer than it might otherwise have... one day I hope we can all do a bit of this for each other, have the emotional maturity and capacity to reflect the other without judgment and with care. 

Thank you, you as well.  

 

[Javfly33]

I've been there. Its hell.

[BlueOak]

First off thanks  to everyone that posted.

I resisted coming back to read because I thought after working through much of it my trauma was resolved. I find a level of shame when I lose my head to my heart and the message ends up especially messy or muddled. Shame and Humilation are not yet integrated in me. So I tried to with some success after this but not entirely. 

@acidgoofy

On 2/22/2022 at 0:38 PM, acidgoofy said:

Yes, I can definitely relate to what you have wrote. 

I think the problem with trauma is that it works in our subconscious and is unconscious to us until we open up to a higher consciousness. I wasn't able to fully let go of my trauma until I found God.

I did. I felt god, as god, I experienced a white light reality and what I will call divine love. I experienced large consciousness and small consciousness. I realised there was nothing but [                  ] this, life and sensation. All that persists is perception and that was all that was permanent. Then I argued, fought and my ego came back stronger than ever. Unresolved things move very painfully and fast in that state to hit you in the face. I could seek again, I know all it takes is to be in a state to recieve. Thank you

@Mu_
Enjoy it while its there. Flip the perspective. I like that
Thank you.

Apathy/Acceptance is where I get stuck mostly. Emotions do sometimes cost me my job or relationship. Feelings of shame mostly I would say. I felt it was betrayal last time, going above me to my boss before anyone told me. I think deep down it was that a few people commented on a behavior and my supervisor blindsided me by going straight to the manager. They did not want me to leave but I felt enough shame that I cloaked it as feeling betrayed. I need to work on shame and humilation still. I tried after this post but I was only partially successful integrating and accepting it.

@puporing

It happens naturally as each of us learns more, we can't help but pass it on.

@Loba
Lot of material, thanks for taking the time. My family has a lot of addiction in it. My brother does drugs, my father drinks, I exercise and/or eat, or play games, my mother does codependency. So I always appreciate greater insight. Gratitude for the material I will review it again tomorrow.

@Javfly33
Yes, but feeling something is better than nothing.  I was wondering if i'd made a backstep coming back to this way of being.

Again I didn't expect this many replies. Thanks again all of you, good luck with you life and your day.

Edited February 25, 2022 by BlueOak

[puporing]

@BlueOak