Feel the feelings

In my earlier blog I shared about the workshop session for children of divorced parents which I was assisting in.  In the third and final session, a 11 year old hyper active boy was really a handful refusing to sit at his place and distracting the other kids.

A lot of emphasis is in getting the children to acknowledge their feelings. Activities were designed to normalize the fear, sadness, anger and worry the children are feeling when their parents decide to end their marriage.

The hyper active boy declared loudly he does not feel anything and refused to complete his worksheet. I have to pull him to a corner as he was starting a playful fight with a younger boy. I tried to have a quiet one to one talk with him about his feelings but he again told me in exasperation "I really don't feel anything". The children were also asked to think of a message to their parents expressing feelings and wishes when forced to act as a go between  (I hope you will tell daddy yourself given as an example). The boy filled the sentence starting with "I hope....." as "I hope you will never talk to me forever". This shows there is anger although he declares he has no feelings, a clear denial.

I did a bit of research on why some people do not reveal their feelings or are unable to feel.  Below are a few factors I found which may relate to this boy:

1) The fear that revealing their feelings may make them not only appear weak but may actually make them feel weak and powerless. They avoid dialogue which may end up making them feel worse.

 2) They don't trust that others will respond in caring and supportive ways and fear giving others the opportunity to make them feel worse

3) While some will become withdrawn with an inherent subconscious message "I'm not going to risk your hurting me", there are others who will on the contrary become restless or hyper. This type of people are trying to distract themselves from the hurt inside.

The mind certainly can come up with defensive mechanisms to protect a person from hurting. I certainly hope the boy is just concealing his feelings and has not actually turned numb to stop his pain.