Are feelings "valid" simply because we have them?

[Spice_Weasel]

Oh man, I totally forgot about this book, Fuck Feelings. I started reading it a while ago and I think it kind of attacks this idea we must always act on our feelings. I’m going to pick it up again because I’m a little bowled over with emotion these days.

[Spice_Weasel]

@Velocity

Maybe instead of ‘valid,’ one could say, ‘Every feeling arises for a reason.’ Which acknowledges the feeling without implying that it’s necessarily a correct or good feeling.

I like that.

[BigT]

@Spice_Weasel

I like that.

Yeah, I like that, too. I mean, I do get that the term is causing confusion. I just don’t think “genuine” fits.

[TokyoBayer]

@Spice_Weasel

(Tokyo, if you haven’t read Trauma and Recovery, I sincerely recommend it. Just be careful. It’s very clinically oriented and it can be a real head trip seeing someone break down your life experience and the entire nature of your psychology so clinically. Try this on for size, see if anything fits.)

Thanks, I’ll look at it.

I’ve had a lot of therapists since (moving a lot) and nothing’s worse than that awkward moment of silence during intake where they don’t know what to say. And then they say something roughly equivalent to, ‘‘Wow, it’s amazing you aren’t a complete fuck-up!’’ I’ve gotten some variation of this so many times I call it the So You’re Not a Crack Whore lecture.

I’m sure you can appreciate the absurdity of my first experience of therapy. I was at college and went to the student therapists who were gaining experience. Looking back, I think it’s unethical for the university to allow that to happen.

The rest of my therapy has been overseas with a very limited number of practitioners to chose from. The best thing that happened to me was to have some very frank discussions with a cousin, a therapist back in Utah, and so someone who I would obviously not see as a client. We were able to discuss the limitations of therapy.

I’m told that people from similar backgrounds do far worse than me, which I find vexing.

Yeah, I know that I fall in middle to better side side, as evidenced by my immediate family. And considering what I’ve been though, that’s fucking scary.

On the one hand, I wish I understood exactly why some people make it and others don’t.

At this stage of the game, it seems obvious that no one knows. My only wish is that people in these fields were more open about their lack of insight.

They say, ‘Oh you’re doing so great’ but they don’t know my mind. Deep inside, that’s where I think my true self is. And I’m not sure many people see it.

I used to wish more people would get me, until I realized that for people to really appreciate what’s going on, it would mean that they would have had to have had a similar experience (with the possible rare exception of some sort of genius therapist) and I’m really happy that there are more of us running around in the world.

@Velocity

Maybe instead of ‘valid,’ one could say, ‘Every feeling arises for a reason.’ Which acknowledges the feeling without implying that it’s necessarily a correct or good feeling.

I also like this.

I often will explain to people what the affects of PTSD are for me.

Imagine that a person has just broken into or ran into the room you are in, with a knife and intends to kill you.

Chances are that you would immediately feel the rush of adrenaline, and pretty much any reaction would be viewed by society as appropriate and understandable. Freezing, fighting back, screaming, throwing things, breaking the window to escape, you name it, people will understand.

Now image that you get the same physical sensation in your head when something seemingly innocuous (to others) occurs. Obviously picking up a chair and beating a person who just happened to be walking would not be looked at charitably, for obvious reasons.

The feeling of fear is real and happens for a reason: a flashback to childhood that fire up the same synapses as a “real” and “present” danger would invoke. That doesn’t mean that it can be acted upon.

The woman who was quoted in the article linked in the OP as saying “feelings are valid” has the luxury of indulging her feelings with the only consequences being credit card debt. Some others of us face far more serious fallout if we were to act on our feelings.

Another problem is that many people only understand their emotions through their actions. This is where I used to be. This further blurs the distinction between emotions, thoughts and actions.