emotional heaviness

[Anonymous]

Do you experience "emotional heaviness" at times when confronted with new issues with your child?

Pre-kids, I think I was cut off from a lot of my emotions...or somehow I developed a system where my anger or emotions would just not get in my way. I'd let myself feel something and then breathe through and quickly recover and feel "light" once again.

Now, certain times I feel this "emotional heaviness" when tackling various parenting issues with my kid. DH seems to deal with things swiftly and then move on with minimal emotions.

[Anonymous]

Nope guess I'm like your DH.

[Anonymous]

Yes, absolutely. And it's getting worse as they get older.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I think I have anxiety? I am so deeply sad when even minor things are going wrong for my kid. They are just so sweet and kind and innocent and it is hard to watch negative events unfold in their life without being able to do anything about it.

[Anonymous]

What are some examples? When you get irritated that things aren't going as you expected?

[Anonymous]

Hmm. I am someone who has always had "emotional heaviness" and actually only had a kid after years of therapy because I didn't want to carry that into parenthood. I had to learn strategies for dealing with strong emotions and ways to work through them without becoming depressed. I did a lot of CBT and it helped.

As a parent, I find myself using those same strategies in helping my kid through emotionally weighty moments and I'm really glad for that education.

I wonder, OP, if you might have a tendency to be avoidant around emotions and you are just finding that harder to do with children, who require so much real connection, especially when the are young. If so, you might need to develop your skill set on actually working through feelings instead of just "getting over" them quickly.

I also wouldn't compare yourself to your DH. Men are socialized to process (or no process) emotions very differently than women. My DH has definitely been on his own journey with this. He started becoming much more emotional as he approached 50, after being a "stoic" his whole life. Turns out suppressing most feelings for 45+ years doesn't actually get rid of them, they still eventually surface. It's been... interesting. Bu the point is that "minimal emotions" is not always better. Sometimes it's worse, but there's just a delay before you find out how much worse.