The Girl without Emotions

My last night's nightmare was related to this topic of really feeling something.

Most of the dream I saw out of the perspective of an observer. There were 3 or 4 children, siblings at least one girl and one boy. They were 'normal', happy children but whenever they entered a certain house where an old woman lived they automatically got apathetic. They almost stopped reacting to things and when they reacted - I was mostly seeing the girl - it was only a verbal reaction, she showed absolutely no emotion in her face and seemed 'half dead'. I saw the children in this house and how they were when they were not in it. The doorstep was exactly the point where the children changed. I could see it. They stopped walking for a second and the expression in their faces changed, then they went inside. At the end of the dream there was a woman with them going into the house and the old woman didn't like that she came along. The young woman watched the children change at the doorstep and entered the house just after them. They sat down on the couch in the living room and they were offered tea. The young woman sat next to the little girl and as she saw her reacting with an apathetic and quiet 'thank you' to the tea that was given to her, it was suddenly me sitting there next to the girl. I tried to talk to her but she didn't react, so I turned her head towards me and asked her why she was so different when in this house. She didn't react. Then I told her, more with my facial expression than with words, that I wanted her to feel something. Again, no reaction. I felt hopeless and I tried to make her react, telling her to 'wake up' over and over. Then I woke up..

I knew from the second I woke up that this little girl was me. I was apathetic throughout my childhood. I didn't know how it is to really feel something. I think this started very early, because whenever my parents talked about how I was as a baby, they said that I never cryied when I was hungry. What baby doesn't cry when it's hungry? Did I already give up crying, knowing that it wouldn't be heard? I was told that I just sat there, waiting. My parents were really proud of that and thought I was a very easy and 'good' baby. Yeah, congratulations, you've got an apathetic child! Yay..

When I got older nothing changed. I didn't feel anything, sometimes not even hungry or thirsty. There were days I wasn't drínking anything. I got a lot of headaches that then reminded me to drink something. In school I often didn't react to anyone, because I was just somewhere else, without being anywhere. I wasn't daydreaming, I was just staring into space being 'half dead'. Everything felt so senseless. What people talked about, what I was supposed to learn in school (ok might have been right with that one ...), everything was senseless. What was on the news. Earthquakes, floods, vulcanic eruption, murder, abuse.. whatever it was I had no emotions towards it. I was unable to feel empathy. When I was in that apathetic stage I didn't even feel when I hurt myself or I just reacted with an apathetic, quiet 'Ouch' to it as if it didn't really hurt. I also never felt anticipation. Nothing special happening anywhere anyway.. Nothing, absolutely nothing could impress or amaze me. You could have started flying in front of me and I wouldn't have reacted. 'Whatever', and then I would just have gone on with my apathetic day.

Getting older the world got more and more senseless. Life was just me getting through the days without even knowing they went by. I didn't care about what day, month or year it was. I didn't see anything beautiful in the world, or ugly. I was just kind of there. I guess the most frequent thoughts I had were: 'whatever' and 'I don't care'.

I'm glad I turned that around and I don't feel 'half dead' anymore.

Althought there is one situation I still do but yet in another way. I kind of freeze whenever I'm at the gynecologist or have to take my cloths off to be examined at any doctors office. I just can't cope with a 'stranger' touching me, so I zoom out.
Wow, this is the first time I see that I do that. That was an important step right now..
In those moments I am scared and I can't go anywhere or do anything because I go to a doctor when I'm sick and I need help or to a routine exam. And all this has to be done. It feels horrible having to stay there letting them touch me. I feel scared during the exam and like crying afterwards. I don't know if I felt like this in a really dangerous and abusive situation. I try telling myself that I'm at a doctors office being examined and nothing bad is happening, but it doesn't really help. Something has to have happened to me, I was never as sure about it as now. There is just no memory to it. But as I react like this my body seems to have a memory of something my mind doesn't reveal.

I hope I will be able to overcome that one day. But I've come a long way and I'm patient with myself when it comes to that as I don't exactly know if something or what happened to me.