Emotions being more than bodily indicators?

[beandelphiki]

Oh, I forgot:

In our last session, when Dr. Y and I were talking about anxiety, she was asking me why I didn't think I was anxious, etc.

I said, "I don't know what stress feels like."

She took off her glasses. "Well, that's a valid question." (Although it wasn't a question.) "Do you ever feel like your stomach is tensed up or tight?"

I thought about that very carefully, and then nodded. Yes, I suppose it does sometimes.

"Do you feel hot? Or cold?"

Hmm. Yes, sometimes. I nodded carefully to that, too.

"Well, that's anxiety!" She put her glasses back on. Topic must be finished.

"But that's physical!" I protested.

She gave me a bunch of lines about the mind and body being connected, but I wasn't exactly convinced.


Anger "feels" like something other than being tense and hot. Sadness "feels" like something other than a pain in my chest or lethargy. Stress doesn't feel like....anything.

Am I bonkers? Doesn't emotion have a "feel" to it, other than what you can see happening in your body?

Comments

[danielray.livejournal.com]

i only ever learned to identify my anxiety by a)recognizing that i had this set of physical symptoms that happened together and b)learning that that set of physical symptoms correlated with "anxiety." if i think about it, i don't think i can really think of some sense of *emotion* that's tied to my anxiety--*and* i can usualy make it chill out by doing purely physical things (exercise, breathing, etc.).

maybe it's not the same kind of thing as sadness or anger?

[beandelphiki.livejournal.com]

Interesting, it may not be just me!

maybe it's not the same kind of thing as sadness or anger?

Even more "primitive" than those, maybe?

[danielray.livejournal.com]

maybe. or maybe it's that calling anxiety an emotion is misclassifying it?

i mean, i get worried or upset or whatever in the usual amount, but they don't correlate with the anxiety... it's more like the anxiety happens when i don't have a productive response to whatever emotions i am having--if i don't recognize the emotions, or if i bottle them up, or if i refuse to deal with them...

[fanelia.livejournal.com]

Technically speaking, if you consider it to be that, it's a very specific philosophical choice if you percieve your emotions to be rooted in something deeper than just physical responces. Med students may or may not be taught about mental connections beyond physical evidences. You might disagree, but there is no 'right or wrong' answer to that question, it's sort of up to interpretation.

[lytheris.livejournal.com]

I think that stress and Anxiety are different than emotions Anxiety to me is seperate from feelings. When I have anxiety attacks my body just melts down and it goes from mental to physical, I get physically sick and I begin to have asthma attacks. I don't get like this with other emotions unless they turn into anxiety attacks. Emotions are mental reactions to your surroundings but I think that when you superpass what is logical and rational and the emotion becomes undeterminable and uncontrolable and beyond comprehention and control thats when you move into the realm of stress and anxiety.
(p.s i'm just sitting down to read my friends thread I"m sorry I havn't looked at any recent posts, or really old posts with in the last month,Yet, I promise I shall post more. Also i'm glad she finally got back to you)

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Anxiety can be an emotion, although as lytheris says, there are also anxiety attacks, which are slightly different. Stress, on the other hand, is a reaction to anxiety, anger, happiness, and other strong emotions. You may not "feel" it, but you will feel the things that *cause* it.

I know that I'm stressed when I see physical effects like insomnia, bowel problems, and migraines. I may not "feel" stressed, but I can see the effects, and that's when I need to examine what may be causing those effects (Oh, yeah, I had a fight with Danny yesterday; my body's reacting now... hmm, I'm worried about the test tomorrow; maybe that's why I'm not sleeping; etc.).

[siegeengine.livejournal.com]

that sounds like a ridiculous representation of emotion, although I admit there is some difference between an emotion, say, and stress or anxiety. Anxiety is practically hardwired into us via the old fight/flight mechanism, whilst anger or sadness are, as I think you said, more.

Stress, though, has a definite physical component to it via the sympathetic nervous system.

this link regarding Stress seems to have a decent layout of it.