As a victim of some sort of traumatic event in your past, you probably struggle with the fact that there are many times during the course of your day when you experience feelings of all kinds, but you lack the words to be able to express them. This is very common for trauma victims, and it actually has a term associated with it.
Alexithymia is a Greek word that means not having words for feelings. When you experience this sensation, you find it impossible to put what you’re feeling into words because you’re not able to identify what those feelings mean to you. People who deal with this on a regular basis can easily grow frustrated by it because they long to be able to express what’s really happening inside of them. It is physically and mentally impossible for them to do it.
In his book, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk talks about how this condition can affect trauma victims. He discusses an aunt who used to frequently visit his family when his children were young. She was a widow and she would always spend her visits with his family doing various projects. One moment she would be making curtains for their kitchen and the next moment she would be sewing his children’s clothes. She always seemed to want to be busy and she was completely focused on pleasing others.
When it came time for him to say his goodbyes to her, she would always cry, but she would make excuses for the tears. More than once she would complain that the cold air was causing her to cry, without ever once indicating that she was feeling sad because it was time to go. His aunt was not able to verbalize her feelings. She was struggling with Alexithymia.
In trauma victims, this condition can become quite dangerous because it indicates that the individual does not have the ability to identify his own needs. He may have difficulty taking care of himself in a variety of ways and it’s normal for certain things to fall by the wayside, such as getting enough food to eat.
Quite often, people who struggle with this tend to translate their emotions into physical problems. For example, instead of getting angry with a co-worker for something that happened at work, they will begin to experience some type of physical pain.
It’s notable to understand that many people who have lived through a traumatic event in their lives are actually very successful at their jobs. Because they’re able to lead without their emotions dictating the way, they find it easy to make the difficult decisions that often need to be made to get ahead in the business world. Their success is very real, but it comes with a price.
Perhaps you can relate to these types of experience. You live your life as if you’re in a fog, and it seems as though you’re constantly trying to find a way out of it, but you don’t know how. You feel numb and it’s often as though your body and your mind are no longer connected. Maybe they never were.
I can help you overcome the pain of trauma and begin to heal. Please contact me for an appointment.
