Where does all the emotion go?

Sometimes when I read a post back in therapy (and a lot of my posts take the form of reflections that I bring to therapy to explore) I get completely overcome with emotion. Today it was the overwhelm of feelings I felt when my father died that completely overtook me. It was impossible to keep breathing and I was very deeply internalised to the point I felt my father’s spirit drawing close to me with words of love. We had been exploring the emptiness of the huge cold house under construction that Mum and Dad and I moved to when I was about 7 or 8. In the middle of winter I was sleeping on a little stretcher bed at the foot of Mum and Dad’s bed in a house in the middle of winter with no floor covering only concrete, my sister went to stay at my Nana’s cosier house so she was removed. We moved from a cosier small house where I used to play with the next door neighbours so it was a lonely move for me and a few years ago when Mum and I spoke about this time she told me how stressful it was, the builder went bankrupt in the process of building our house and my father and brother had to take over some of the construction.

It occurred to me that later in life I sought my warmth and comfort through alcohol but food also plays a part, I didn’t get a lot of that close, cuddly comfort time with my parents, they were more likely to punish us than touch us or comfort us and I was left alone a lot, so its probably not a mistake that I can still tend to shy away from relationships at time. I see couples arm in arm talking comfortably or just watch people in small family groups and it seems strange to me and then I feel sad for the way I struggle in connecting to living members of my family (more so my living siblings and their children as my older sister who died was the warmer one and her children are the same).

As my therapist pointed out today I did take the risk to contact someone when I was feeling low and confused yesterday and I do keep trying to reach out but I know in friendships others are far more likely to reach out to and invite me than I am and it makes me sad and I feel scared I can be narcissistic myself at times in fearing my own feelings of vulnerability in relationship. My default setting is most probably to take myself off alone.

Anyway I was rather surprised by the overflow of feelings today in regard to my Dad. Kat doesn’t think it an accident that I have chosen a partner who is very far away and gone a lot of the time as that is what I experienced in childhood. Part of the upset I went through on Saturday is that I told Scott a year of waiting is feeling too much and I want to reach out for other connections, but then I feel sad about that as Scott and I have already made a bond.

As anyone else who has lost their Dad knows the feelings of sadness probably never go away fully, I feel sadder at times for the struggle we had to connect too while he was alive in my early 20s and even as a child. Sometimes I wonder if dredging all of this up in therapy is actually any good for me, my friend suggested yesterday it may be good if I found a good massage therapist because living alone I never get touched most days. I do cuddle Jasper but because he is a dog I don’t want to overwhelm him with human needs, he isn’t my cuddle toy, sometimes I get a little ‘grrr’ from him if I hold him too close at other times it can be me trying to get my own space. Anyway I am going to pick up the phone and call another friend right now, I don’t allow myself to listen to all the times my heart wants to connect, I often shut these impulses down, something we discussed in therapy today has to do with feelings of not always feeling safe reaching out. That is a pattern that I would very much like to change.