I once had a wonderful brother-in-law—a neurosurgeon in Tehran– who liked to point out interesting articles in his medical journals.  Like the case study of an Iranian boy who’d bitten his tongue off, broken his bones, burned off 80% of his skin, all because he couldn’t perceive pain.  I became obsessed with that case.  I thought about it all the time.  All those years ago, long before I had much insight into my self, I realized that, like that child, I tended to walk the planet totally insensate. Not physically, but emotionally.

As a rule, I had a hard time identifying which emotion I was experiencing at any given moment.

The problem wasn’t differentiating between the rather broad categories of bad and good; I was pretty clear on that front.  I realized that, if my stomach was sour or if I had accidentally eaten an entire cherry cheesecake, it was safe to assume that I wasn’t real happy.  What I needed, I figured, was one of those little smiley-face menus the hospital emergency rooms tack up on their walls—the ones designed to assist kindergartners in defining their level of pain for the nice nurse with the ten-inch needle—because I had a one-size-fits-all lack of reaction to rage, sadness, and fear.

It wasn’t until my father died that I had the chance to see what a dissociative mess I was.  My brother had called with the news.  My father had drifted off for a mid-morning nap (at the grand old age of 62), and  forgotten to wake up.  I was on my way to the gym.  I had my running shoes on.  My towel was in the bag. So I decided that I’d think about what this all meant AFTER I took my 5-mile run.  Half way up the stairs my legs gave out and refused to do what I wanted them to do. I lay on the stairs weeping because, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t run away from my grief.  I’d lost all control.

See, I’d always considered negative feelings—like pain, rage, sadness, disappointment, grief, anger—somewhat  inconvenient. As the child of an alcoholic, I was trained to keep unpleasantness to myself.  I believed that, if I could pretend everything was hunky dorey, if I could slap on that  shit-eating grin even when things got gnarly, my dad wouldn’t drink.  Or rant about “one more fucking problem” he was supposed to solve. (And God knows into what chaos the ranting would lead.) People would love me for my positive spirit.  And for being soooo undemanding.  After a while, I didn’t have time to deal with that stuff.  Emotions were for sissies. I had IMPORTANT things to do. I was busy, busy, busy.

But there are a few sticky issues that arise when you bury your feelings six feet under.

1. If you can’t experience pain, you can’t experience pleasure either.  Numb isn’t selective.  It robs you of your ability to laugh, to experience sexual pleasure, to yearn, to relax, to jump up and down with excitement.  What you become is a zombie with a baffled look.
2. You destroy any chance of true intimacy.  I’m not just talking sexual (numb people just aren’t  juicy). I’m talking about the ability to connect with another human being on a deep and meaningful level. To have them know you, and love you despite your flaws, which is all any of us really want. If you can’t identify your emotions. If you can’t cop to feeling crappy, or jealous, or angry because someone’s gone and eaten your peanut butter sandwich, then you are, in essence, a liar. You are unknowable. And you’re dangerous.  Because stagnant stuff like that ALWAYS blossoms into  resentment.  After one missing peanut butter sandwiches too many, you’re out the door, and the guilty party is left scratching his or her head.
3. Trapped emotions come out sideways.  Back burner unpleasant feelings and your legs will give out on you.  Or you’ll develop migraine headaches.  Or you’ll shoplift.  Or drink.  Or start an affair with a high-schooler.  Just because you’re ignoring all those messy feelings doesn’t mean they’re not there.  They’ll make themselves known—to you AND the police—one way or another.

I love what Martha Beck, in her book The Joy Diet, says about denial:

Without exception, denial is a tool we haul out when the truth would rock the various social boats in which we live our lives.  The things we hide from ourselves are realities that, if we actually experienced them, would threaten our status quo, bring us into conflict with the systems we depend on, and fling us into the unknown.  The truth threatens everything about us that is not authentic:  every habit, every relationship, every financial arrangement, every belief.

Fine. Got it. All well and good.  But what do you do to change this, if this way of being in the world is all you know?

Martha’s suggestion is to create a daily dose of nothing.  Take 15 minutes each day to hide out and get quiet. Shoo the screeching squirrels you have running around in your head by focusing on your breath, a flowing body of water, or through simple, repetitive motion.  Because it is in this space–and that’s why you avoid it like the plague– that you are brought to confront those hideous feelings you’re working so hard to tamp down.

Then, in a nutshell, you are to ask yourself the following questions:

1. What am I feeling?
2. What hurts?
3. What is the painful story I’m telling?
4. Can I be sure my painful story is true?
5. Is my painful story working?
6. Can I think of another story that might work better?

Now, thankfully, I have a husband who asks me these types of questions when he senses I’m not fessing up to crap I’ve got swirling around. He’s a nag.  A real nag.  But he understands the impact my “I’m fine, fine, fine, fine, fine” has on our relationship.

Would it make sense for you, my dissociative little friend, to work with someone who will hold your feet to the fire until you can identify your answers?  There may be tons of gravel you have to dig through. And we both know it will always be easier to dump the shovel and walk away. Working with a coach might help.  Or, if you just know you have SOMETHING HUGE AND AWFUL lurking under there, you’ll want the assistance of a highly-trained therapist.

Besides being able to enjoy sex, and to have someone truly know and love you.  Besides being able to feel the flip side of pain: joy.  Besides being free from addictions, and inexplicable impulses that land us in jail, there is another benefit, according to Martha Beck, of telling the truth about how you feel:

It is the truth that offers us this freedom, the freedom to test what we are taught, to accept what we feel in our hearts, to believe what we know in our bones, and to love ourselves—including the worst aspect of ourselves—until we see through enough of our illusions to discover who we were really meant to be.  At that point, we will have dismantled the biggest lie, the most profound denial of all:  the denial of our own inestimable power and value.

What are you lying to yourself and others about?  What’s it costing you? Are you ready to free yourself?