Topic: Devalue my feelings

Hi everyone,

I feel like I'm this whirlpool and I keep coming around to the very same point every time. I don't know if anyone else has ever felt this way but I'll be honest it's seriously messing with me. I have days where I'm really down, I feel worthless and I hate myself but then I'll have other days where I'm happy and laughing and enjoying myself. So then I feel like what I was feeling on those down days is meaningless, but I know in the back of my head those thoughts are always there but maybe in a range of severity? It makes me feel like those feelings of hatred that really played on my mind were just stupid, attention seeking? But then I'm not telling anyone about how I'm feeling so maybe it's not attention seeking, so what is it??

I went to a couple of counselling sessions, the first was intense I cried and let a lot of my stress out but then in the second I did the thing where I was "happy" I wasn't crying during the week or the thoughts weren't all I was thinking about so then the session ended somewhat there. I left the session feeling a bit confused about myself. What am I doing? Am I using my thoughts as an excuse?

I feel that I devalue my feelings because I'm not always sad. That my feelings aren't as valid or as important. I say I'm ok because at that moment I guess I kind of am. It makes me worried that I'm lying to myself or to other people. To be honest I don't know what I feel anymore. But then my self hatred comes back in full force and I'm at another low point and I repeat the cycle over and over again.

Sorry for this stream of consciousness!

Rigby2000 welcome to the forum and well done for starting this thread.

You write very clearly and I and others reading your post will relate to what you have said.

I think we value our happy and positive emotions and tend to disregard our low and depressed feelings.

I find writing don how I am really feeling and see if there is a pattern. I am not sure if that ill help.

Can you show your counsellor what you wrote here, as it makes a lot of sense.

Thanks again for explain how you feel.

Quirky

Hi Rigby,

I've had ongoing issues for a while and I've found that I get that feeling allot. When I'm down, I can't comprehend at all what kind of person I am when I'm happy, and when I'm happy I don't quite understand all the negative feelings I've had. So I think being confused about how you feel doesn't mean you're lying to yourself about it.

As Quirky mentioned, I find writing down my thoughts or feelings at the time is helpful. Because not knowing/remembering all my feelings makes counseling and therapy tricky, sometimes I use a diary specifically for that. At the start of a session, I can just show them a few diary entries and it helps to give context to an issue if I can't describe it at that moment, and keep my sessions on track when I've been seeing someone.

Best of luck with any future sessions, and take care.

Eddie

Thanks for responding Quirky and Eddie!

It's always comforting to know that others feel the same way as you and that you're not alone, so thank you for reaching out it means a lot.

I've never thought of writing things down like that but it makes a lot of sense and I think I'll give it a try. I think it'll be comforting to have a physical documentation of what I've been feeling. To be able to "see" my down periods will perhaps in my mind solidify that what I'm feeling is genuine and not just something I remembered feeling a few days ago.

Best of luck to both of you and thank you.

Rigby