I touched deeply the sadness I felt as a child today. You would think if I had a sad childhood, I would know it by now. Truthfully, what I remember is normal, but always being a bit emotionally disconnected.
But this is what I realizing about dissociation: the emotions continue. You are not actually suppressing them; you are just suppressing AWARENESS of them. Which means I have an entire emotional history which is foreign to me, some of which came back today.
And what hit me is that sadness hurts more than fear. Fear is unpleasant, yes, but it out there. Sadness is within you, and it is much deeper. It is more absorptive. It touches more of your core self.
And then it hit me that this is the simplest explanation for horror movies: fear pushes sadness away for a while. You are swapping one emotional discomfort for another.
My work continues. I’m watching Zootopia tonight. I don’t feel like dealing with anything serious.