I'm currently dealing with this, as well. I had frozen away all the emotions of being hurt when I was a child and also losing my mother at a young age. Now, I'm trying to learn how to deal with those emotions that are surfacing. I wish I had a good answer on how to deal with it, but I haven't found it either! Just wanted you to know that you're not alone! I'm here if you need to talk!

My Grandma, my favorite one, passed away in 2005 also. I am still grieving her...if I start talking or thinking about her, I will cry.

WHY is this happening 2-3 years later? Well, when she passed away, I was dealing with undiagnosed PTSD, supposedly just 'depression and anxiety.'

I was very active in her dying process, it was an expected death, and we had Home Hospice in, and I helped take care of her for awhile towards the end months.

But, after she died...my insomnia started...and of course it wasn't until 2007 that I got my PTSD diagnosis...but it takes longer to grieve a loss when one is going through a depression/PTSD at the same time.

I can talk about my Grandma to my Mom or other family members, and I tear up...but they really don't.

I like the metaphor of the ice melting and all these feelings coming forth. I think it's a normal part of the healing process...and an de-numbing of your emotions. You gotta feel the good and the bad unfortunately.

Keep healing...you are making progress, even though it is hard...I believe it will all be worth it to live a life with some joy back in it.

I am also froze in my emotions...I really wish the good emotions would come about, but I have to work through all the anger and yucky stuff before I can let the light shine in and bring peace and joy to those areas of my soul.

I was in an abusive long term relationship that ended in suicide. I did grieve some at the time, but I was more relieved than sad. I never thought of it as having frozen emotions, but that sounds the same as what I've been dealing with. I was told that I had disassociated the emotions from the event. I can tell you exactly what happened the day Greg killed himself & how I found him w/no emotion at all, as if it were something that happened to someone else.
I've been working on being able to feel emotional about it. As I've been reducing my PTSD symptoms (mainly anxiety attacks & depression) I've been able to feel just a little emotional about what happened ~ it's been 8 yrs now. I think that when I can feel emotional it's a sign that I'm getting better.

Blocking emotions has been a coping mechanism for over 30 years. I've been working on allowing myself to feel the emotions, but it is hard. Back in 2001, I allowed myself to feel and I totally broke down. It took a long time to be able to regain some semblance of control. And that is one of the keys. If I feel, I am not in control, If I'm not in control, I'm not safe. At least that is what my brain tells me.

Baby steps. Small steps to control my emotions is what I am all about now. I have to remember, I am not responsible for my emotions, only for what I do with them.

Finding things in the ice is a constant process for me, and it is exacerbated by a head injury that really shook me up emotionally and mentally. I find myself suddenly fritzing out over seemingly small things, because they are, to me, directly related to something I've refused to deal with for a long time. I find it encouraging each time this happens, because I see it as another stepping stone on my healing journey. It's always ugly and painful, but once I'm through it, it is a little more weight off my shoulders and I can breathe a little deeper. Hang in there, it will end sometime, somewhere...

this happens to me also. When my grandmother died, I wasn't close to her. But, after a few months, I started remembering the days when we did have a closer relationship, and the sadness came. But at her funeral, I was disconnected. It could have been anyone. Now, months later, I am starting to feel it. I guess as kids our feelings were so overwhelming to us that we learned to shut down and block the pain. It might be a good sign that we can feel our pain today even if it is a little late.

I would like to learn more about this. I always feel like I am out of sync. My emotions follow behind me.

dude... totally. this with my grandmother too. long story short: my mom passed when I was 3, and i had a lot of trouble forming attachments because of the household that I lived in-- neglectful, physically abusive etc.

i went to live with some of my mother's relatives when I was 12, including my grandmother. but by that time i was so emotionally shut down and angry that i didn't let anyone in.

she died in 1997. i felt nothing. for years i didn't even think i was affected by my mom's early death; i was just really strong and resiliant. right? right.

wrong. as soon as i started gettting into relationships all of the upset and trauma got triggered. my reactions came out of nowhere. suddenly i had emotions. i started drinking.

only recently, in the past four years, since being in treatment, have i been able to mourn anything properly. part of it included mourning the fact that i never really let my grandmother in. if there was a candidate for anyone for me to allow myself to rely on emotionally, it was her. i'm sad now, over ten years after she died, that i never let her in.

though you function better when frozen in some ways, the good gets all frozen along with the bad. but... better late than never. it's totally natural what you are feeling.

I have been so entrenched other places that I have been away from this board for a while. I decided to come here today to see where everyone is, and this is a topic I have lived with in spades.

About a year and a half ago, I had discovered that I had a LOT of repressed emotion. I actually like your characterization of it being "frozen" and starting to melt, because that is where I have been in the last year. I know what it is like, suddenly being given permission to "feel" things again and have all of the emotions come flooding back. At one point, it was like someone took a blow torch to that block of ice.

Know that what is happening to you is something that is common with people with PTSD. Repressed emotions as well as repressed memories often hamper the diagnosis, becaue we can't express the very things that would pinpoint it. I was fortunate to have a wonderful therapist who helped me control the melt and channel my new-found (or rather RE-found) emotions in ways that were more "adult" and less "adolescent" as they were when the blow torch went off. :0