Emotions

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I'm just kind of "stressed" or "anxious" all of the time, but I'm so used to it, I never think of that as anything I am feeling, I think of it as just the way that I am instead.

I suppose we are supposed to be able to identify these things. My therapist asks me a TON of questions before he gets any sort of descriptive word that might explain how I feel about a particular situation. It takes him forever to get it out of me, and even then it is not definite. He always says "It's interesting how when I ask you how you FEEL about something, you respond with what you THINK about it."

I can only identify 2-3 emotions... frustrated, confused, content. The others I cannot identify I think because there is a variance in what people would say if you asked them how they can tell what they are feeling. No one can ever answer where frustration crosses the line into anger, or when being content crosses over into either numbness or happiness. Things like that, so I don't recognize them as actual emotions. I know when I'm frustrated, but if I'm frustrated and yelling, I still only say I am frustrated. I never say I'm angry, and I don't THINK I actually feel anger, but then again, I really don't know.

Yes, a common experience. I had to develop a vocabulary for feelings first, then I could say to myself, "Do you feel angry? No, no, that doesn't really fit. Do you feel sad? No, that's not it. Frustrated? Now that's a better fit." Odd that my father told me that at a very early age I was able to express my feelings quite well. When those feelings became unflattering to him, I think I learned to repress them. I grew up feeling like my feelings were unimportant and lost touch with them.