On strength. Am I stronger or weaker than I think?

Sometimes I get reminded of things, as we all do, that are upsetting.  Upsetting even after I've categorized it, dissected it, stomped all over it and filed it away as far back in the recesses of my brain as possible. Something will trigger a wave of emotions, or my stomach will drop. It's a very physical emotional response.

It sucks.  I hate it.

I was talking to Karrigan about it, and he thinks it's sort of a fight or flight response, a bit like a PTSD thing. I'm reluctant to say that I have any kind of PTSD given what people who really have it have been through, but the principle is the same, just at a far milder level. Life isn't black and white, and there are many shades of experiences, and they are all relative to what one has experienced before.

It's probably fair to say that I've had some traumatic experiences, relative to someone who has never been diagnosed with a disease, lost a sibling, or had traumatic relationships (friendships or otherwise). But to think that things so far in the past can still bring up feelings that dwell in my subconscious is depressing. I want to be free and easy!! I want to not ever have bad thoughts!  I want to be calm and cool and collected! I want to never have self-doubt!

Karrigan suggests to take a meditative approach, and observe that it isn't a real feeling and let it go.  However I find this a bit depressing as well, because then I'm admitting that I have feelings that aren't "real", or aren't really applying to anything in the here and now. Just ghosts of emotions in the past. I know that's a defeatist way to approach it, and that he's right. Somehow it just trivializes something that is so real. I have to try to reconcile the two realities: the reality of the past and what happened and the reality of what the present is. Because they are inseparable, and trying to categorize or make something either this or that is not working for me. It's a very simple way to look at life, but it's not operationally useful...you don't really get anywhere with that paradigm. Time for a shift.