No, I am not. Like you, there weren't any good feelings when I was a child, only bad, mostly hate and anger. I was not allowed to get mad, or even stand up for myself. I wasn't allowed to be happy, either. Really, I think any expression of emotion was squashed as fast as it came up. I can remember crying so hard after being beaten with a belt (I used to say spanked, but I know better now) that I could not stop, but my breath would hitch, and hitch, and hitch. Like hiccups, maybe? Then he would beat me again until I stopped crying. And I did, eventually. Every time. See, I guess I WAS doing it on purpose . . . because I was able to stop. Or so his thinking went, perhaps.
I think when you aren't allowed to have feelings when you're growing up, then you become like somebody who's colorblind, who can't find the red dot in a sea of green dots. You really can't tell the difference. Many years after I grew up, I wound up in a women's shelter and we played this game where you look at cards with facial expressions on them and identify what they are. I missed most of them. Until then I did not know I was missing anything. I was 38.
I can usually tell whether my feelings are good or bad. Sometimes that's as far as I get.

Growing up feelings weren't expressed unless we shouted them. If happy we were whipped to feel sad. I, too, was beaten up and then beaten up again for crying. Happiness was never found as a child or young adult and even into later adulthood. I was "made to feel" a certain way. Its taken me many years to learn to identify my feelings. Now I feel sad, angry, glad, happy, content, lonely, depressed, sorrowful, empty, peaceful, calm, serene, elated, loved, forgiven, numb and flat. Now that I know that I can feel more than what I was raised to believe, I am learning how to cope with these emotions that were stifled for so long. Its nice to feel. Feeling flat or numb is a horrible way to live. I now have that freedom to feel as I choose.

When I began to feel at last, I was not able to cope with it. I felt like I had suddenly developed a multiple personality disorder because I felt and thought so radically different with the different emotions. I would change my mind one hundred and eighty degrees. Then it would swing back the other way. It was an insane roller coaster ride for a long, long time (and I'm fooling myself if I think it's over now). I would even undo what I was doing and do it differently, multiple times (and get so frustrated I'd give up eventually). I still have a hard time dealing with emotions, mine or anybody else's.

Is there any way to make that better? How exactly does one learn to identify emotions?

Begin. Look at the emotion pictures, gads, there are a lot, and "feel" them or look for ways that day to "feel" them for the first time. There are soooo many positive pictures that I was not allowed to know about.

It is our right to feel our feelings. Out of all the abuse I suffered, I think having to stop crying on cue was the worst possible action anyone could do to another. My throat hurt so bad from stuffing the emotions back down for fear of letting the sound out, which would have sounded like someone who was being skinned alive. Is THAT what they wanted to stifle? The accountable of pain they were causing. Yes, I believe so, and that is why I feel my feelings now no matter what and make the sounds that are rightfully mine to make. I absolutely refuse to be in a setting that doesn't require its people to feel feelings. And I've been in many churches which have done just that. That's one of the reasons I have chronic PTSD, the secondary cause is church culture. The primary cause is child abuse.

I'm no longer that kid who didn't know any better than to knuckle under.

I learned alot in aa about pity pot ,, feel my feelings but not wallowing in them God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference

I LOVE self-pity for 30 minutes. I like licking my wounds, blaming THEM, and self-soothing like I did as a kid. But if I keep on licking my wounds, I end up chewing off my foot, so have learned to do the beginning part and then ask myself, What is that they aren't doing? Once I identify the need THEY aren't providing, then I turn the blame into owning and get busy on filling my own need without expecting someone else to do so. That eliminates placing everyday people in the parental role from long ago that was solely lacking.

So for me, the pity pot, like the regular pot, needs to take a "dump" when the urges strike. ha

Someone in this group - forgive me, I've forgotten who, said, "There's no such thing as a wrong feeling." Any and all feelings are fine, as long as we don't use them as an excuse to harm others.

I don't think I can identify alot of what I'm feeling...I'm often overcome with very intense emotion, but I have no idea how to handle it, or even...exactly what it is i'm feeling. It's extremely confusing and frustrating...

Yea! Contrast. Lots of in between emotions. Embrace them all. Let meds help you with the intensity if need be and then let intensity serve you artistically, like it has millions of others who "feel."

"Are you able to identify all of your feelings, what they are called, what they mean, and how to deal with them?" I'm in the process of learning. I'm particularly trapped in feelings of loneliness. I'd written another post some days ago about my feelings being hurt by room mates; the event bumped old wounds (which they couldn't possibly have known about) that I have which revolves around loneliness and rejection. Dealing with the feelings has been externally successful but internally it's been miserable. So much was triggered in me that I was in excruciating pain - eventually found a private place and just cried. It was/is a lot of work. The trick is to acknowledge the old pain, the current circumstances in the present, and respond in healthy ways.

For me, it's becoming increasingly difficult. Like I've taken on more than I should have in this retreat.

Thank you, Dynamical, for the link to the diagrams. They're immensely helpful. I made a thing something like that once, long ago, but it was like groping in the dark trying to understand, and it was kind of pretty (colorcoded like I do about everything) but not very useful.

I can't identify my feels, when I went to therapy they kept asking how did I feel about what ever. I said I felt sad, bad, mad, hurt. Had a bug hole in my stomach a void, my stomach hurt it was sucking me into the void of nothiness, just dead and nothing no feelings switched off.
I couldn't own the feels and they said I was too resistant. So high n dry. I need to learn....

Alijo, I felt with my intellect for years if others wanted to know how I felt. But privately, I felt with my emotions and was so defeated and ashamed because my intellect could not come up with the answers. Eventually I had a breakdown and when I got into therapy for OCD tied to my mother's mental illness in trying to survive and chronic PTSD.

My therapist specialized in traumatized children and adults and she asked if she could take me through a play session and in it I couldn't fake it any longer. I simply did not know how to play like a normal child, so I went back in time and remembered what it was like back then and then played it out. She led me "out" of the pain as if I were the traumatized child as she gave me the healing words while I was "in my hurt" that I didn't hear back then. Powerful session. I finally began feeling with my emotions with her that I had masked with numbness with every previous counselor.

That breakdown was actually a breakthrough: my resistance melted away when I found the good fit therapist who had kind eyes AND lots of credentials. Before that I was too scared of trusting other intellects with my emotions because what I wanted to see first was their empathy--and then I could let my guard down to "feel."