Thank you for starting this subthread, and writing clearly about this. I too find it resonates strongly with my situation.
> in some sessions, I felt ancient grief/pain bubbling up in ways that were overwhelming, but always felt way better afterwards.
For me, the major reason I might have excessively compartmentalized things[0] was that whenever I let myself feel the grief/pain/uncertainty - and early on, I was trying to process them instead of avoiding them - it would be overwhelming, excruciating, and never made anything better. After a year or two of what felt like inexhaustible supply of the same painful emotions, of nothing really changing or looking like it was about to, I finally took the opposite course, and ended up more-less where you and 'munificent are.
Took almost a decade to get to that point, and it's what you and others describe in this subthread. Some kind of emotional detachment. The emotions are there, but mostly weak, and most of the time I feel like I'm just observing them, and occasionally fighting them when they get too strong, too close to me. "Severed connection" seems like a very good analogy. I'm still afraid of revisiting the past, because I can't afford becoming non-functional for a year or two, like it happened the first time around. There's this part of me, that source of motivation, somewhere - but it feels like it's on life support, in a coma, waking up every other year for a few moments.
Meanwhile, when someone asks me what I like, or what I'd like to do, I draw a blank. It's not anhedonia, but something else - something that shuts down my brain whenever this question gets asked (or I ask it myself).
--
[0] - And developed what I feel is like instinctive fight-or-flight response around negative emotions: solve the problem or run away, but get rid of the emotion and do it NOW NOW NOW!
> in some sessions, I felt ancient grief/pain bubbling up in ways that were overwhelming, but always felt way better afterwards.
For me, the major reason I might have excessively compartmentalized things[0] was that whenever I let myself feel the grief/pain/uncertainty - and early on, I was trying to process them instead of avoiding them - it would be overwhelming, excruciating, and never made anything better. After a year or two of what felt like inexhaustible supply of the same painful emotions, of nothing really changing or looking like it was about to, I finally took the opposite course, and ended up more-less where you and 'munificent are.
Took almost a decade to get to that point, and it's what you and others describe in this subthread. Some kind of emotional detachment. The emotions are there, but mostly weak, and most of the time I feel like I'm just observing them, and occasionally fighting them when they get too strong, too close to me. "Severed connection" seems like a very good analogy. I'm still afraid of revisiting the past, because I can't afford becoming non-functional for a year or two, like it happened the first time around. There's this part of me, that source of motivation, somewhere - but it feels like it's on life support, in a coma, waking up every other year for a few moments.
Meanwhile, when someone asks me what I like, or what I'd like to do, I draw a blank. It's not anhedonia, but something else - something that shuts down my brain whenever this question gets asked (or I ask it myself).
--
[0] - And developed what I feel is like instinctive fight-or-flight response around negative emotions: solve the problem or run away, but get rid of the emotion and do it NOW NOW NOW!