Quote Originally Posted by lucky#13 View Post
however mentally i do not deal well .. and have learned to bottle up ALL MY EMOTIONS.. perhaps this would better be explained by this... i have cried probably 3 or 4 times within the past yr.. and only 1 of those times was in front of someone else.. until this week where i have cried probably 2 or 3 times and twice while on the phone with him... i have learned to numb myself to feeling
About 5 months ago I had a health scare that turned out to be nothing, I didn't tell anyone, I didn't let anyone see my fear, I didn't let myself feel, I shut down again. The day I got my test results back the relief was almost overwhelming, I sat on the couch with a box of tissues and tried to cry....it was then that I discovered that I couldn't, I had become so adept at shutting down that I couldn't turn my emotions back on. Very embarrassed and frustrated I told my Master about this, he listened to me and told me that when the time comes when I'm ready he hoped that he would be here for me (we live 3 hours apart). As it turned out he was here when that time came...I was a mess of emotions, tried to hide it, fought the tears with everything I had but when he put his arms around me they came flooding out, I didn't think it would ever stop and it scared the crap out of me to feel that again, but he held me until I was calm and then for a while longer. It was horrible and wonderful all wrapped together but I'm glad it happened, I'm still pretty good at shutting down and it seems that this is my first reaction when something isn't right but I did make one step forward, I just had to do it when the time was right for me, now my Master and I laugh about how happy he is that he made me cry like that LOL

This is part of what I wrote on another forum, when I read about you bottling up your emotions it reminded me of this, before this day I hadn’t let myself cry in almost 4 years. It’s good to hear that you are making progress and good to hear that you have found someone to support you while you travel this leg of your journey.

It’s not unusual for us to shut down to avoid hurting but for anyone who reads this, please don’t let yourself get so good at shutting down you can’t open up again. I have done a lot of damage to myself this way and I expect it will take years, if ever, for my emotions to flow like they once did.