Dislike of emotions

[inkfingers]

I dislike having negative emotions, not necessarily because they are negative, but because they don't make any sense. Feelings like depression, anxiety, and fear don't make much sense, and it annoys me greatly. Why on earth do I get these irrational emotions? It is so annoying. They just end up wasting my time and energy. Sometimes when I'm depressed I'll try to reason with myself and tell myself that there is no reason to be depressed, but it doesn't make the sadness go away.

So I am basically annoyed because emotions in general don't make sense. I don't always like getting worked up about something. Why can't I go about it in a cool and logical manner?

Does anyone else feel this way? Like life would be easier without emotions?

 

[Nauti]

No, we need emotions. Life involves suffering, if you are a sentient creature. It's how we build compassion, resiliance, endurance, wisdom and understanding of other's. It's unpleasant by it's very nature to feel these things, but suffering is a universal human, shared experience. Are you familar with Buddhist philosophy? It can be helpful in coming to terms with suffering as, unfortunately, evidence suggests that it's unavoidable for all humans.

In my experience it's part of the duality of this realm. The flip side of suffering is transcendance of suffering. It's like the weather, we need storms and rain and miserable weather and then, when the sun comes out, it's even more glorious! We appreciate the sunny, perfect weather days so much more, after gloomy, grey and cold weather. Moods are the same. The relief we feel after some dark inner weather is sooooo wonderful, it makes life much richer and the fleeting happenstance of happiness so much more sweet and enjoyable.

Remember when you had a cold or some other ill health or injury? Remember how great it was just to be free of that pain and discomfort? Dis-ease makes us appreciate ease. Without it we would take too much for granted and life would be very dreary and humdrum. Two sides of the same coin, are unhappiness and happiness, neither could exist without each other, at least that's how it works, here on earth, maybe the heavenly planes are different, but here on earth, we have changeable weather, both internally and externally. It keeps life interesting.

 

[Fino]

Do you think you would be okay with having no positive emotions? Anhedonia 24/7?

 

[SusanLR]

This is reminding me of another thread tonight on non-attachment.
The desire for positive emotions are part of human nature.
It is like an addiction to desire nothing but happiness.
That is where I disagree that we need the negative to make the good feel more appreciated.
If we knew nothing of negative emotions, would we miss them?

If you never felt the desire for having children for example, how do you relate?
Do you miss not having a child if you never felt the desire?

The words weary and humdrum are emotions that do not feel good.
Would happiness have been less for never having known them?
I've had a lot of pain and felt the negative side to life and for myself personally I did not feel
happier for having experienced them and made it through. I would have preferred to just
kept going on feeling the good emotions. The bad things dampened my spirit for life even
after they were over.
Maybe the duality is needed for most people. I just never found it useful for me.

No emotions at all? If that is all we knew, I guess it would seem natural.

 

[Nauti]

To me, relief is a highly underated state. One that we would never experience were is not for the state preceeding it.

 

[Progster]

Emotions are never really irrational, they are there for a reason. Basic emotions are formed deep in the brain in the amygdala and are hard-wired into us, an instinctual response to danger or some sort. Reasoning takes place in a different part of the brain, the frontal cortex, and they don't always process or communicate. It's possible to pick up subconsciously on small changes, things not being right, but without the ability to reason or understand exactly what is triggering it, and get a fear response. This supposedly protects you from potential harm, as if you are anxious you are less likely to expose yourself to danger. Imagine if no one ever felt anxiety or a sense of danger - people would have a lot of accidents all of the time The feeling of anxiety doesn't just protect from physical danger, but also from mental trauma - if I don't want to go to a shop or a certain person's house, it's because I have had a bad experience with that person and the anxiety will protect me from repeating the same bad experience.

Clinical depression is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, but I think this is not what you mean here - feeling down or having low mood is part of the spectrum of human emotions that make us human. I think that they help us process and cope with life events in some way - if I feel sad at a loss, I am reflective and think about it more and may overcome the loss a lot more easily than if I didn't feel this emotion. I don't cry often, I don't always have the emotions I'm supposed to when I'm supposed to if you know what |I mean, but when I do, after a melt down for example, I feel better, calmer afterwards. I got it out of my system.The outburst of emotion was necessary to process the emotion and the events that caused the emotion.

 

[GrownupGirl]

I've seen the movie Inside Out by Pixar, and even before then I knew we need to have emotions, good or bad, and keeping your negative emotions to yourself can really mess you up.

But when people tell me I need to control my emotions, I always think they're saying don't have emotions at all because they're bad everyone should be like Mr. Spock. I don't know if this is my aspie tendency to think black-and-white even if I have the intelligence to think of the proverbial grey.

 

[Tom]

I agree with what some have said in that emotions must serve some purposes, or else they wouldn't be there, both in individual and social interactions.