Why Am I Afraid to Feel My Feelings?

For some, potential, negative experiences, like harm or death, carry the weight of their biggest fears. For others, their own, everyday, emotions do.

They live in terror of their own anger, anxiety, sadness, and even joy. Each of these emotions do little more than forebode. Anxiety indicates the worst case scenarios. Anger indicates loss. Sadness indicates hopelessness. And joy indicates disappointment. To these individuals, emotions aren’t to be managed, and they certainty aren’t helpful; abstractly, they’re mere insights into the relentless tragedy of life. What is bad is bad and what is good is bad. Nothing is, therefore, tolerable.

People often say that anger is solely rooted in self-respect, as you aren’t tolerating bad behavior, but, in reality, it’s rooted in shame as well because you blame the other for making you feel it. At once, you’re both ashamed and offended, a tension you desperately try to resolve through rage. For if you are convincing, the other, in turn, relents, and their new perspective becomes yours. But, for the individual who fears anger, there’s no hope for a positive resolution. She chronically believes that her rebellion will be thwarted, leaving her feeling completely broken and even isolated once her self-defense is shattered. Rage is, thus, both uncomfortable and feeble, serving no discernible purpose.

For the person who fears anxiety, anxiety is always right. There’s always something awful waiting for them and no one is to be trusted. Through mental-filtering, or cherry-picking data, you’ll only recall the times when your fears came to pass, conveniently forgetting when they didn’t. This individual will tell you that people should always trust their guts. Yet, their guts are always gurgling. Could it possibly be that only, or mostly, bad things happen to them? They’ll tell you, “My gut is always right.”

In deep despair, the individual terrified of sadness believes that it will never cease. Many of us consider our emotions to be transient, which is especially true for individuals diagnosed with a disorder marked by the cyclical nature of one’s emotions. But, those who chronically experience bouts of depression, even in the bipolar disorders, often believe that they’ve become permanently scarred. When the darkness is so intense and everything feels so bleak, all that is good or potentially good becomes submerged. They’ll never be happy or successful, nor recover self-esteem. Depression is a reinforcing feeling, meaning the more you feel it, the more you find reasons to.

And, finally, ecstasy falters in the throes of one’s cognitions. A little bit of joy, or pride in one’s self or accomplishments, is met with ridicule and censure. She’s reminded of where she stands in comparison to her ideal and to those who will always outshine her. She’s scalded for making others feel bad for what she has and who she is. At once, she’s told: You’re nothing, but you aren’t allowed to feel proud of being good. So, joy, or the prospect of it, inevitably leads to anxiety.

Many of our patients believe they come to therapy to feel better, but, in reality, they enter treatment because feeling anything is painful. Their preference, more often than not, is to cultivate a life without emotions, as though something like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can ever help them become fully logical. Fundamentally, they seek to rid themselves of their shame, which permeates through all of the other emotions. They feel ashamed for being happy. They don’t believe they’ll ever overcome their shame when feeling sad. Anxieties are mere signs of embarrassment or public shaming. And anger is a last ditch effort to overcome it.

Psychoanalyst Nancy McWilliams wrote that “feelings have their own kind of wisdom.” And, when functional, feelings make life worth living while protecting us from harm. But, when not, feelings supersede experience, becoming the boogeymen tormenting us.