1. EachPod

#184 What if we actually felt the feelings? An honest conversation about trauma, hoarding, and allowing yourself to feel

Author
That Hoarder
Published
Fri 02 May 2025
Episode Link
https://infouidd.podbean.com/e/184-what-if-we-actually-felt-the-feelings-an-honest-conversation-about-trauma-hoarding-and-allowing-yourself-to-feel/


This week, I talk about what happens when I actually let myself feel the tough emotions instead of shutting them down - a pattern that's shaped my life and my struggles with hoarding, self-harm, and eating disorders. After a thought-provoking conversation with Anna Sale on Death, Sex & Money last year, I started questioning whether avoiding feelings has helped or hurt me in the long run and have been trying to process that ever since! I share what it’s like to sit with big emotions, experiment with messy ways to cope, and why feeling the feelings might just be a way forward.



  • Avoiding Feelings

  • Realisation that I tend to do anything rather than feel difficult emotions.

  • Recent personal reflection and processing feelings over the past few months.

  • Impact of mental health and a PTSD flare-up on my ability to manage feelings.

  • Connecting Coping Mechanisms to Avoidance

  • Experience with PTSD, self-harm, anorexia, and bulimia as different forms of not feeling or avoiding emotions.

  • Insights from an interview with Anna Sale on Death, Sex & Money that linked these coping together as forms of avoidance.

  • Acknowledgment that these strategies were more than just avoidance - also punitive, protective, and multifaceted.

  • The Cost and Pattern of Emotional Avoidance

  • Compartmentalising as a lifelong coping skill and its negative long-term consequences.

  • Difficulty breaking the habit of not feeling and the impact on my sense of identity.

  • Recognition that suppressing feelings can be as damaging as (or more damaging than) the feelings themselves.

  • Actively Facing and Processing Feelings

  • Engaging in therapy, journaling (both resentful and creative/collage style), and reading poetry to access emotions.

  • Talking more openly with friends as a supportive measure.

  • Forcing myself to do enjoyable activities (like getting outside), which helps counteract avoidance.

  • Community, Connection, and Support

  • Impact of Trauma and Suppression on Daily Life

  • How PTSD and unprocessed sadness began affecting sleep, revealing that suppressing feelings is no longer effective.

  • Discusses the challenge of letting oneself feel emotions, both by choice and when overcome involuntarily.

  • The risks of being overwhelmed and the delicate balance between feeling and avoidance.

  • Learning and Conversations About Emotional Acceptance

  • Revisiting lessons from previous podcast guests about the counterproductivity of suppressing or over-intellectualising feelings.

  • The concept that suppressed emotions may “come out sideways” through other behaviours, like self-harm or hoarding.

  • Nuanced view of coping mechanisms - not labeling them as purely negative since they served protective purposes.

  • Vulnerability, Shame, and Deepening Relationships

  • Gradual willingness to share deeper, more distressing moments with friends.

  • Examining the reasons behind the instinct to hide intense distress.

  • How vulnerability leads to stronger, more meaningful connections.

  • Positive Effects of Feeling the Hard Stuff

  • Discovering that feeling hard emotions increases the capacity to feel positive emotions more deeply.

  • Finding deeper love, joy, and beauty in everyday experiences.

  • Recognising the importance of support systems when exploring difficult emotions.

  • Reflection and Encouragement for Listeners

  • Encourages listeners to be curious about their own patterns of avoidance and coping.

  • Cautions that intentionally feeling emotions is difficult and requires support.

  • The hopeful observation that allowing feelings can be cathartic, gratifying, and healing—even if it’s uncomfortable.


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