Good (early) morning, Confused:

Like I shared with you before, when I first took Zoloft (an SSRI that is prescribed off label for OCD), after maybe a few weeks and perhaps after an increase in dosage (it’s been so long ago, I don’t remember), I noticed a new magical reality (for me)- I wasn’t obsessing or ruminating. I was wonderful.

I took Zoloft (as well as other psych meds) for 17 years and quit them all 12+ years ago.

“Just curious though, what will be the differences in my feelings with this?”- I don’t know. But looking at another thread earlier this morning, I came across something that made me think of you, Confused, and I’d like to share with you because a shift from focusing on how and what you feel or don’t feel to ===> a new awareness may be helpful to you:

“In mystical traditions (like Sufi and Christian mysticism), emotions are seen as temporary, reactive, dependent on circumstances, and rising and falling like weather. They come and go.

When mystics talk about Love, they don’t mean butterflies, infatuation, desire, excitement, or longing. Mystical Love is something deeper — a way of perceiving reality. It’s a state of consciousness.

When love is a state of consciousness, you feel connected rather than separate, open rather than defended, present rather than anxious, spacious rather than contracted, and you feel aligned rather than fragmented.

It’s not about a person. It’s not about romance. It’s not even about emotion. It’s a shift in awareness.

Mystical love is described as: seeing the sacred in everything, feeling unity with existence, experiencing yourself as part of something larger, and recognizing the same essence in all beings

In ordinary consciousness, you feel like a separate self, “me” is here, “you” are there, the world feels outside you, and love feels like something you give or receive.

In mystical consciousness the boundary between self and other softens, the world feels like an extension of your own being, love is not something you do. Love is the experience of oneness. Not intellectually — but experientially.

Mystics describe it like the wave realizing it is not separate from the sea

Think of it like this- Emotion Love= “I love you because…”, “I feel love right now.”, “My love rises and falls.”, “I love this person but not that one.”

Consciousness Love= “I am love.”, “Love is the nature of my awareness.”, “Love doesn’t come and go.”, “Love is the fabric of existence.”

One is personal. The other is universal.

One is a wave 🌊. The other is the ocean 🌅.

Why mystics emphasize this difference? Because emotional love can break, fade, or turn into its opposite. But consciousness-love doesn’t depend on circumstances, or on another person, or on being loved back; it
doesn’t depend on mood or hormones🔥💋. It’s a way of being, not a feeling.”

I find this helpful 🙂

🌊 🔥 🌅 Anita

Good morning, Confused:

I want to reflect something back to you, because what you’re describing is actually very common and it makes sense.

There’s a big difference between not having feelings and being emotionally overwhelmed to the point that your system shuts down. When someone is overwhelmed for a long time — anxiety, pressure, fear of losing someone, fear of disappointing them, overthinking every interaction — the mind sometimes protects itself by going numb. It feels like “nothing,” but it’s actually too much.

It’s not emptiness. It’s emotional overload.

The crying, the stomach pain, the fear of losing her, the calm/electric feeling when you were physically close — all of that shows your feelings were very much alive. They didn’t disappear. They got buried under months of pressure, fear, and trying to hold everything together.

Emotional shutdown often feels like: “I don’t feel anything.”., “I’m unavailable.”, “I want to run away.”, “I can’t access what I logically know is there.”

That’s not the absence of emotion — it’s your system hitting the brakes because it’s been running too hot for too long.

And the fact that you cried when you talked about ending things, but feel nothing now, fits the same pattern:

Overwhelm (ex., feeling pressure to respond perfectly, overthinking every interaction, worrying constantly about losing her) →

Release (ex., crying when they talked about ending things, stomach pain when reading her texts, the sudden fear of losing her, the physical intensity when they hugged/kissed) →

Shutdown (ex., “I feel nothing.”, “My feelings are locked in a box.”, “I know I care, but I can’t feel it.”; feeling unavailable, feeling no motivation to continue the relationship) →

Repeat.

You’re making sense. More than you think.

Take your time with all of this. You’re not broken, and you’re not emotionless. You’re just overloaded, and your mind is trying to protect you the only way it knows how.

🙂 Anita

🎂🎉🎈🥳🎁✨🎊🍰🎆🎀🎇🎵💝🕯️HaPpY 4️⃣0️⃣ BiRtHdAy TOM 🎶🎉🎂🥂🎈🎊🎁🍾🎀🥳🎉

No, no, no, Thomas- I scrolled down using my phone and accidently I clicked on the “report for inappropriate content” – I apologize. It happened a few times so far: I reported my own posts for inappropriate content. Something about using the 📱 vs the 🖥

Oh, it’s not even morning here but early afternoon ..

Good 🌄 Confused (hopefully, but not necessarily less confused when you’re reading this):

Our recent exchange reminds me of The term Ematophobia, fear of emotions (or in your case perhaps), fear of no emotion.

There’s no objective reality to be afraid of. The fear is of a subjective reality, that is of feeling an emotion you don’t want to feel, or of not feeling an emotion you do want to feel.

At this time in my life, I am way less afraid of my emotions, or lack of.

That’s all I had in mind this 🌄 Plus, I appreciate your sense of humor: I don’t have it in front of me, but you referred to Nov as the birthplace of Confused 😆

Anita

Hey Dear Less-Confused:

Your previous version.. your current version. I think you are a loving and lovable man who is fine just the way you are. No versions required.

We’ve been talking daily, often multiple times a day, since Dec 19, I think it was. And I experienced you as a loving, caring person.

You don’t have to be “crazy in love with her”, no 🤪 in-love required.

Just be you. Again, you don’t owe her or anyone to feel this or that. What you feel is your business.

You can love her while not being emotionally indebted

I hope I’m making g sense so close to my bedtime 🌙 😴

🤪 ⛅️ 🌞 🍷 😎 Anita