In continuation of the post two weeks ago.
There are a few ways in which my emotions effect my health, and why I
had to learn how to control my emotions. When the panic-attacks and fatigue
occurred my body was very vulnerable. As I’ve mentioned I have always been very
emotionally sensitive and with the panic-attacks and fatigue any expression of these
emotions would make my health so much worse. Here are a few examples of this.
With the dry eyes any
crying stings them really bad and leads to very painful headaches. It also adds to the fatigue and lack of energy. I was use to being able to express this without any concern but to stop the physical pain
I had to gain control of this. So very rarely do I cry if I’m sad etc as I’ve
built up the ability not to. It has taken years to gain this level of control, but
as I’ve said, I’ve had to.
Another example of the impacts
of my emotions on my health is after having a panic-attack, or
feeling despair and losing hope, my stomach used to shut down completely. I
would either start being sick and then not able to eat, or lose my appetite
entirely. These were horrible times as if I don’t eat I get dangerously
fatigued and it was very painful. It took every effort to control the sadness,
or hold onto hope and get my appetite back. Over the years this has become less
of a problem as when these things happen it doesn’t have such a dramatic impact because of
the walls I’ve built to stop my body having these effects of my emotions.
In regards to the panic-attacks
these were very irrational and would just kick in at seemingly random times. Some noticeable triggers included feelings of failure, or having too much
responsibility, or when I felt afraid, but often it would be for no reason. I had to explore these reactions and
learn to process them and control them so they didn’t control me. A lot of this
can be done with simple breathing techniques and although doesn’t really stop
them it can help me stay more focused and appear normal when having one. I
still feel the adrenaline and fear and have some physical indicators, but the
complete shut-down I once had has not happened for a long time as I have built
up resistance.
I mentioned it in the
previous post about this subject, but I also think a lot of my inability to
cope with my emotions came from not having the physical outlet I once did. I
couldn’t use physical activity as a way to vent and had to learn inner control.
I did also find other types of outlets that helped and in away gave me
something to hold on to. This is when I discovered my creative side and
occupied a lot of my rest time with drawing and writing.
Looking at the experiences as a whole, over the last five years, I have
managed to slowly change my way of thinking, and build up barriers to stop my emotions from overwhelming me, or be so intense on the outside. I still feel
these emotions to various degrees, but I often get to choose to which degree. It’s like having walls that contain the
emotions within my being, but not effecting my physical, and I get to lower or
raise those walls at will. There are obviously situations that I can't help but show my emotions, but they have to be very extreme cases, like grief, when the depression kicks in, or
thinking too much about the negative things others struggle with in their
lives.
As for the walls I have, it’s
important to note that I certainly don’t want to never feel as that is not
healthy. I am human after all, and one of the greatest parts of being human is
being able to feel. It just comes back to the concept of balance. Letting your
emotions control your every action is not healthy, but showing no emotions is
just as unhealthy.
I think that’s about all the
discussion needed on how my emotions effect me etc and I want to discuss some other
ideas around this topic now.
Emotions and Male/Female Generalisations
For a number of years, especially before all of this and in the initial change to my health, I often wondered what it was about me that made me so much more
sensitive with my emotions, or why they were so intense, or what was it about
me that meant I couldn’t control them the way others could. I often debated if
I was weak because I couldn’t control them. And then at times I wondered if
perhaps I just had a higher capacity to feel. I still don’t know the answer and
it doesn’t really matter as comparing myself to others isn’t the best way to
live. This is who I am and I have to work with it, and choose, to the best of
my abilities, how I wish to govern my life and learn what is the most effective
in achieving my goals to be happy.
One thing that has fascinated
me on this topic is what I mentioned briefly in the previous post about emotions and how male/female
aspects of emotion interest me. In a general sense we as a society have characterised
certain emotions or emotional responses as male or female. We tend to say:
nurturing, caring, open expression, empathetic, and most emotional responses as
feminine. We relate: blunt, dominating, brash, indifference, distant,
unempathetic, aggressive to a masculine way of behaving. In a general sense,
yes, these ways of categorising the traits is often correct and can be seem as the
difference between male and female ways of behaving, but as I’ve mentioned
countless times this is not the reality when you look at individuals and
specific cases, my own included. It is also important to note that human beings
are very complex and to just classify some traits to all men and some to all
women is a very narrow and incorrect way of looking at things.
And I think I’ll stop here for now.
I’ll finish the topic of emotion and male female characteristics in the next
post.
Fun: This quick telling of Star Wars using Lego is both cute, fun and
very clever.
Education: I mentioned the book, Emotional Intelligence, in the last
post about emotions. This is the author, Daniel Goleman, explaining what his
definition of Emotional Intelligence is and why he thinks it’s important. This
video also covers some of what I’ll be discussing in the next post.
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