Something that helped was re-connecting with the past version of myself by going through some truly ancient computer backups. To some extent it put me back into my prior mindset, and so now at least I’m doing things explicitly because I want to and find doing them enjoyable.
I can only theorize on what might finish returning me back to how I used to be, but I think probably the most beneficial thing would be a hard break from most of my responsibilities for an extended period of time which I can then dedicate to myself, probably somewhere between 6 months and 2+ years. That’s not exactly practical though because I have a mortgage and bills to pay.
I've been rehabbing from a severely broken ankle the past nine months and in physical therapy the other day, my therapist said, "You'll be in a better headspace if we come up with a concrete goal to work towards. What's something you'd like to be able to do with your body that we can work towards that would be fun?"
And I just, like, stared ahead blankly for a while without having an answer.
> Something that helped was re-connecting with the past version of myself by going through some truly ancient computer backups.
That's a good idea. I do feel like part of my internal disconnection also has to do with being disconnected from my past self as well. It's like I sort of forgot who I am.
And this is my anonymous online diary.
Oof, yeah, I know that feeling.
> I have talked to a therapist about it, but didn't get anyway.
My understanding is that variance in therapists is very high. Given that it's one of the most intimate relationships you can have, it really requires finding the right one that fits your specific needs. It may be worth trying to find another.
Heh, this is so poignant for me, but for me, it's going back and reading old journals/writings - I write a lot, so much that most people don't want to read it all, so a lot of it when I was younger went into journals. One entry in particular was after I had just lost my father, in front of my eyes, in kind of a violent/traumatic way - I was in my early early 20's and had no idea what I had been experiencing was some kind of PTSD, but knew enough to know something weird was happening to me, so I wrote everything down in a little journal by hand.
Recently, in a fit of frustration, I picked it up (this is now 15 or so years ago) and I found an entry I had forgotten about - a wildly delusional (at that time, if you had known me, you would have considered it delusional) passage where I aspired to lift myself out of my situation and said I wanted to study CS, or as I put it that time, "something with computers," and even named my dream university I ended up transferring to in the end. This was many years before any of it ended up becoming reality, and I became proud of my past self, and I felt that connection a little bit of what you are describing. Until I read that I had no idea that where I ended up was exactly where I intended, I had lost sight of that.
You know, actually, I think this is what it is too. I had a terrible therapist for ~7 years that always tried to get me to avoid/mitigate uncomfortable emotions but I always felt it was making the issue worse. When I broke away from therapy in favor of things like meditation/philosophy, in some sessions, I felt ancient grief/pain bubbling up in ways that were overwhelming, but always felt way better afterwards. This isn't easy to do though and is taxing in itself. Some people need substances to do it, or hypnosis. I do think it's something to do with this though.
> in some sessions, I felt ancient grief/pain bubbling up in ways that were overwhelming, but always felt way better afterwards.
For me, the major reason I might have excessively compartmentalized things[0] was that whenever I let myself feel the grief/pain/uncertainty - and early on, I was trying to process them instead of avoiding them - it would be overwhelming, excruciating, and never made anything better. After a year or two of what felt like inexhaustible supply of the same painful emotions, of nothing really changing or looking like it was about to, I finally took the opposite course, and ended up more-less where you and 'munificent are.
Took almost a decade to get to that point, and it's what you and others describe in this subthread. Some kind of emotional detachment. The emotions are there, but mostly weak, and most of the time I feel like I'm just observing them, and occasionally fighting them when they get too strong, too close to me. "Severed connection" seems like a very good analogy. I'm still afraid of revisiting the past, because I can't afford becoming non-functional for a year or two, like it happened the first time around. There's this part of me, that source of motivation, somewhere - but it feels like it's on life support, in a coma, waking up every other year for a few moments.
Meanwhile, when someone asks me what I like, or what I'd like to do, I draw a blank. It's not anhedonia, but something else - something that shuts down my brain whenever this question gets asked (or I ask it myself).
--
[0] - And developed what I feel is like instinctive fight-or-flight response around negative emotions: solve the problem or run away, but get rid of the emotion and do it NOW NOW NOW!
One of the many wise things my therapist said to me once: "The thing you're supposed to do with feelings is feel them."
It sounds so dumb, but for people like me who have spent their lives training themselves to compartmentalize and analyze their feelings, it was an essential reminder that I was denying myself the critical experience of actually sitting there and feeling them.
But you aren't supposed to put those feelings in the box forever, just until there's a better time to take them out and process them.
as for your second, that’s often, if not always, an unconscious action
I'm saying that mature people are able to compartmentalize at least some of them in their day to day life. Losing a child or some other insurmountable horror is excluded.
What I'm talking about is if you have a bad day at work, you don't yell at the poor cashier working the fast food drive through window when you're picking up dinner on the way home.
Thankfully I had the resources to self-fund an extended sabbatical, and I left my job. In many ways this has been incredible and has helped immensely. But in many ways, it made the grief even more central in my life because I was no longer spending my days solving other people's problems.
Therapy has been immensely helpful, but I've struggled with integration. To this end, I'm about to experiment with psychedelic-assisted therapy. I've tried a lot of things up to this point, but I'm actually pretty optimistic about this. We'll see.
I'm now in this weird middle place where I recognize a growing need to do something useful and to work on big problems. But I'm also depressed and struggling to imagine returning back to what I was doing. I think the 2nd half of my career may be simpler and more focused.
You might find it interesting. Anyway best of luck healing! You’ve been through a lot.
If you mean writing the book, then I'm glad I worked on it while going through all that stuff. And, in many ways, adding the book on top of that stress actually helped because it was a thing I could control and feel mastery over while surrounded by other things I had no control over me.
If you mean all of the other bad stuff that happened, well, no I would prefer it if none of that had happened but the universe doesn't seem to care.
If you mean how I psychologically compartmentalized things and the long-term consequences of that... I think I probably did about the best I could have in the situation. There are definitely psychological tools I wish I had had before that stuff happened to me that would have helped (like giving myself actual time to process feelings when I could). But given what I had going in, I think I did OK.
About seven years ago, I was working full-time at an amazing but consuming job, raising a family, and surviving the pandemic. I was also writing every single day on a large textbook. Then within the span of about six months, my dog got sick and died, my mom got cancer, and a few friends and family members died unexpectedly. I kept writing every day while dealing with all of that. I literally wrote in the waiting room while my mom was getting CT scanned. I kept working on the book as the pandemic reared its head and politics went insane.
I got through it all and finished the book, but I haven't felt the same since. It's like some nerve in my soul got burned to a cinder and is no longer able to fire.
I've spent a lot of time in therapy which has been amazing, but I'm still not what I'd call all better.
My hypothesis is that I spent so much time compartmentalizing emotions like anxiety, grief, sorrow, and hurt in order to keep moving forward that I got too good at stuffing them in a box. The only way to avoid being overwhelmed by them was to sever my connection to all of my feelings, which meant I lost access to joy, humor, whimsy, and passion too.
I'm working to rebuild that connection, but it doesn't come back easily.