In the first month of therapy, I started to open up about what I was experiencing.

With each new story I shared, my therapist would always ask the same question:

“And how did you feel?”

⚠️ I never knew how to reply. I would give more facts and details, hoping that would be enough.

The, she’d gently encourage me to move away from overthinking and toward recognizing my feelings, but no emotions seemed to surface.

Whenever I tried to explore my feelings, the answer always felt the same:

Emptiness

💔 I knew I should be feeling something, but I couldn’t quite grasp what it was or even put a name to it. It was such a distressing experience!

How could

someone

lose

the ability

to

feel?

It seemed to me I was divided, split in half:

On one side,

there was the part

that felt

deeply

and

despaired.

On the other,

the part

that

thought

and

acted

with

cold

detachment.

⚠️ For a number of reasons, I mistakenly thought that feeling my emotions was too risky; I’d be better off freezing them and rationalizing everything.

But if that was true, why did I feel so unhappy and lost?

Rather than feeling secure and satisfied, my restless mind was driving me crazy.

I felt like a prisoner within myself, trapped in a suffocating straitjacket, unable to voice even my basic emotions.

⛔ Over time, I began to notice when these two parts of me were in conflict.

When something intense happened, I would go numb almost instantly.

From that point on, I lived in a state of apathy, silently struggling with the two of them.

The feeling part wanted to emerge, while the thinking part bombarded me with relentless rationalizations to ensure my emotions stayed suppressed.

The more intense

the

emotion,

the

more

obssessive

my

mind

became.

And there I was,

caught in the middle:

Feeling divided, confused, and alienated.

🛑 Because I didn’t allow myself to feel, every thought felt meaningless or alien to me.

So, I sought meaning in the next round of thoughts, which
never got me anywhere. Eventually, I’d grow so tired that I didn’t even want to think anymore.

💔 Sometimes, it felt like it would be easier to not exist at all, just to find some peace.

What I truly longed for was to feel whole again.

I wanted to fully experience my feelings and reflect on them, freely navigating between feeling and thinking.

🎯 And for that, my therapist was essential. She guided me on this journey of reconciliation with kindness and support.

It wasn’t a quick process though.

• 🚫 First, I had to confront my fear of feeling and learn how to embrace intense emotions as they came.

• 📝 Then, I discovered how to identify and accept each feeling, even when they were contradictory— fear and enthusiasm, affection and anger, contempt and longing.

• ⭐ Finally, I had to relearn how to feel in real time—without dissociating and retreating into my mind when something intense affected me.

🧭 Though this last ability isn’t fully developed yet, I’ve gained tools that allow me to reconnect with my feelings within a few hours, even if my first instinct is often to suppress them.

🔊 After a while on this journey, I discovered something surprising:

It wasn’t

feeling

that

weakened

me.

It was my struggle

to navigate

those

feelings

that made

the experience unbearable.

That fear of being unable to handle my emotions still shows up from time to time, and that’s OK.

Now I know I can manage it!

🌿 FEELING IS POWERFULLY HUMAN

Above all, we were made to feel, just as we were made to breathe, see, touch, and think.

So, more than just thinking, I want to fully experience every moment in my skin and bones, using

silence as a bridge to explore the deeper layers of my feelings.

It is in this state of genuine presence and surrender that life feels truly worthwhile.