I just need to share some meandering thoughts, please bear with me.
The way I think and feel emotions is strange to me. I’ve spent so much time in my own head conceptualizing things I can’t always process my own thoughts.
I feel like there’s this veil over all my perception that I can just barely catch a sense is there. I especially get it when listening to music with certain ethereal sounds. Sleep is another avenue where I try to press on this boundary, but I’ve never felt like I’ve broken through. I have a vague spiritual sense about it and I feel like realizing my trans identity was the biggest turn towards understanding it. I’m also neurodivergent with ADHD and a good bit of trauma, when I started my stimulant meds it made all these things more manageable, but there’s still this uncomfortable disquiet always on my mind. Anyone else feel this way or something akin to it?
I’m not sure if this is similar, but I just didn’t feel emotions before E. I got angry sometimes. I think I cried twice in my life, I didn’t even cry when my step-mom passed (I wanted to but the tears just wouldn’t come).
After hrt, it was like how I saw without glasses to having them on the first time. My whole emotional world was in HD now, I had names for feelings. They were also way more powerful, I was crying in front of people and in public and I just was NOT prepared for it at all and found it very embarrassing. My endo doc said to take it easy on myself and that “women cry in public, that’s okay.”
Growing up, my mom was very busy. She had school and then a job and two kids besides me. The other two were much more demanding than I was in terms of their own mental health, so I did my best by repressing and keeping things in and seeming steady and like I didn’t need anything. Recently, there was a tornado warning and she mentioned it, I said I had a phobia of tornados and chuckled and she was surprised, she didn’t know - I’ve had a phobia of tornados since I was like 3 years old. She didn’t know because to her I never reacted, but I was terrified of them anytime I though there were funnel clouds or whenever I heard there’d be a really bad sudden thunderstorm.
So, I’ve basically been training myself to not feel my feelings since I was a toddler. Also, I’m trans and that comes with it’s own heapings of ignoring feelings. So Ive had something similar, like a big dull weight and veil covering everything - mine might’ve been different than yours though!