When Feelings Hurt, Or Don’t Make Sense at All

Many people come to therapy not because they can clearly name what’s wrong, but because something feels off. You might feel low, anxious, irritable, empty, overwhelmed, or strangely disconnected, without a clear reason. Or you might feel too much all at once: sadness mixed with anger, love tangled with resentment, relief followed by guilt.

These experiences can be deeply unsettling. We’re often taught, implicitly or explicitly, that emotions should be tidy, explainable, and manageable. When they aren’t, it’s easy to conclude that we are the problem.

But painful or confusing feelings are not signs of weakness or failure. They are signals.

Feelings as Signals, Not Faults

Emotions don’t arise randomly. Even when they feel irrational or disproportionate, they are usually responding to something, past or present, internal or relational.

Confusing feelings often emerge when:

• Old experiences are stirred up by current situations

• Parts of us want different (and incompatible) things

• We’ve learned to suppress certain emotions for a long time

• Our nervous system is stuck in survival mode

• We’re carrying unprocessed grief, anger, or shame

In these moments, emotions can feel noisy, contradictory, or overwhelming, as if several inner voices are speaking at once.

Rather than asking “What’s wrong with me?”, a more helpful question might be:“What is this feeling trying to tell me?”

Why We Avoid Difficult Emotions

Most of us didn’t grow up in environments where all emotions were welcomed. Perhaps you learned that:

• Anger was dangerous

• Sadness was a burden

• Fear was embarrassing

• Needing comfort meant being weak

As adults, we may cope by pushing feelings away, intellectualising them, staying busy, or judging ourselves for having them at all. While these strategies often helped us survive earlier in life, they can leave us feeling disconnected from ourselves in the present.

Avoided emotions don’t disappear, they tend to resurface as anxiety, low mood, tension in the body, or a persistent sense of unease.

Sitting With Feelings (Rather Than Fighting Them)

Therapy isn’t about getting rid of feelings or replacing them with “better” ones. It’s about creating enough safety to stay present with what’s already there.

This might involve:

• Slowing down and noticing sensations in the body

• Naming emotions without analysing or justifying them

• Exploring where certain feelings were learned or first experienced

• Understanding how emotions make sense in the context of your life story

• Developing compassion for the parts of you that learned to cope in difficult ways

Often, when feelings are met with curiosity rather than resistance, they begin to shift on their own.

You Don’t Have to Make Sense of Everything Alone

One of the hardest parts of emotional confusion is the loneliness it can create. When you can’t explain what you’re feeling, it’s tempting to withdraw or assume no one would understand.

Therapy offers a space where you don’t need the right words, a clear narrative, or a logical explanation. We can start exactly where you are, with fragments, sensations, contradictions, and questions.

Over time, what once felt chaotic can become more coherent. Not necessarily tidy or painless, but understandable, and therefore more bearable.

A Gentle Invitation

If you’re living with feelings that feel too much, too vague, or too confusing, there is nothing broken about you. Your inner world may simply be asking for attention, patience, and care.

You don’t have to rush clarity. Sometimes the most meaningful change begins by allowing yourself to say:

“I don’t fully understand what I’m feeling — but I’m willing to listen.”

If you’d like support in exploring this, I can offer a steady, compassionate place to begin.

Contact me