May 02, 2025

#184 What if we actually felt the feelings? An honest conversation about trauma, hoarding, and allowing yourself to feel

26 minutes

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This week, I talk about what happens when I actually let myself feel the tough emotions instead of shutting them down - a pattern that's shaped my life and my struggles with hoarding, self-harm, and eating disorders. After a thought-provoking conversation with Anna Sale on Death, Sex & Money last year, I started questioning whether avoiding feelings has helped or hurt me in the long run and have been trying to process that ever since! I share what it’s like to sit with big emotions, experiment with messy ways to cope, and why feeling the feelings might just be a way forward.

Avoiding Feelings

Realisation that I tend to do anything rather than feel difficult emotions.

Recent personal reflection and processing feelings over the past few months.

Impact of mental health and a PTSD flare-up on my ability to manage feelings.

Connecting Coping Mechanisms to Avoidance

Experience with PTSD, self-harm, anorexia, and bulimia as different forms of not feeling or avoiding emotions.

Insights from an interview with Anna Sale on Death, Sex & Money that linked these coping together as forms of avoidance.

Acknowledgment that these strategies were more than just avoidance - also punitive, protective, and multifaceted.

The Cost and Pattern of Emotional Avoidance

Compartmentalising as a lifelong coping skill and its negative long-term consequences.

Difficulty breaking the habit of not feeling and the impact on my sense of identity.

Recognition that suppressing feelings can be as damaging as (or more damaging than) the feelings themselves.

Actively Facing and Processing Feelings

Engaging in therapy, journaling (both resentful and creative/collage style), and reading poetry to access emotions.

Talking more openly with friends as a supportive measure.

Forcing myself to do enjoyable activities (like getting outside), which helps counteract avoidance.

Community, Connection, and Support

Impact of Trauma and Suppression on Daily Life

How PTSD and unprocessed sadness began affecting sleep, revealing that suppressing feelings is no longer effective.

Discusses the challenge of letting oneself feel emotions, both by choice and when overcome involuntarily.

The risks of being overwhelmed and the delicate balance between feeling and avoidance.

Learning and Conversations About Emotional Acceptance

Revisiting lessons from previous podcast guests about the counterproductivity of suppressing or over-intellectualising feelings.

The concept that suppressed emotions may “come out sideways” through other behaviours, like self-harm or hoarding.

Nuanced view of coping mechanisms - not labeling them as purely negative since they served protective purposes.

Vulnerability, Shame, and Deepening Relationships

Gradual willingness to share deeper, more distressing moments with friends.

Examining the reasons behind the instinct to hide intense distress.

How vulnerability leads to stronger, more meaningful connections.

Positive Effects of Feeling the Hard Stuff

Discovering that feeling hard emotions increases the capacity to feel positive emotions more deeply.

Finding deeper love, joy, and beauty in everyday experiences.

Recognising the importance of support systems when exploring difficult emotions.

Reflection and Encouragement for Listeners

Encourages listeners to be curious about their own patterns of avoidance and coping.

Cautions that intentionally feeling emotions is difficult and requires support.

The hopeful observation that allowing feelings can be cathartic, gratifying, and healing—even if it’s uncomfortable.

Links

My interview on Death, Sex & Money

Podcast ep 182: What are “towards and away moves” and what on earth do they have to do with hoarding recovery? With Dr Jan Eppingstall

Podcast ep 169: Compassion-focused therapy for grief and hoarding with Dr Chia-Ying Chou

Podcast ep 172: Harriet Impey on clearing out her parents’ very full home, through family belongings and personal growth, in the film Where Dragons Live

Declutter Hub podcast

Come to a Dehoarding Accountability Zoom session: Accountability Booking Form

Website: Overcome Compulsive Hoarding

Become a Dehoarding Darling

Submit a topic for the podcast to cover

Questions to ask when dehoarding: https://www.overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.uk/podquestions

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