Describing your emotions

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Is depressed an emotion? I do get depressed, but if I try to tell someone like my doc, for example, I am depressed and he is so nice and smiling, I seem to copy him. Then I don't know what I am feeling. It is never so apparent to me as when I am asked directly: are you happy? It's like I have a surface function and a deeper disconnect. If I introspect and look around for what I am feeling, it isn't there.

Is irritable an emotion? I get irritable. I know that, but I don't know if there is something underneath it more than sensory, or an unexpected annoyance or whatever.

Is love an emotion? I love my kids because I can feel it in my chest like heart swell. But, as I told a therapist one time to her horror - I can love the green freshness of grass with that heart swell.

Joy - I can feel joy when I get excited because I take off like a rocket.

I think I have seen this described on site, but sometimes I think I am happy but my eyes start crying. I say my body is leaking and I think it is this phrase exactly I have seen here.

Sometimes I think I just have such a delay before I can figure out there is an emotion lurking around. Some incident will happen and I will review it and it brews there - but then I am busy doing something else and WHAM! I'm angry.

I am also very analytical and I intellectualize "emotion". I never understand, and am bothered by, how people will react emotionally to something I say. If they go "aaawwwww", then I am sorry I told them. I'll say "awww" to people (usually females and particularly younger or "mommy" types) in what seems like an "awww" moment, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't because I get: no, not "aaww', then I am thinking: "no?" Sometimes I understand why I am using "aww" because it seems a good match to something that was unfair, sometimes I am just shooting for what is expected of me and that's more hit or miss. "Awww" works for cuteness, and that comes more naturally.

I'm unable to describe my emotions yet, despite the fact that I am almost an adult (I say almost because I'm of age yet not yet independent).

When I'm upset, I always feel the same, like my head is screaming. Wordlessly. I can't express what it is I'm feeling, because my body doesn't appear to be telling me the complete message, only throwing a repeated and intense "SOMETHING IS WRONG" flag at me. Even through heavy concentration, I have a hard time identifying. It doesn't help that I often don't realize I'm upset until I'm on the edge of a meltdown/shutting down.

I've learned that when I start feeling this way, I should probably vacate (move to a different area, thereby removing what was making me upset so I can recover a little). It isn't always possible and doesn't always work, but sometimes I can avoid melting down and shutting down by doing so.

I didn't think it was a problem at all until my assessment last week. "What do you feel when you're" happy/sad/angry, etc. etc. I had a really hard time describing how I felt under any of those circumstances. I don't even think I answered the question properly. I'm kind of embarrassed by how stupid I must have sounded tripping over words.

I find it very hard to describe my emotions and stutter and screw my face up when speaking to my therapist about it. She pointed that out and I never knew I did that. She asked me to describe depression and I said it was too much serotonin being re-uptaken. She said no describe it from your 'heart'. I couldn't. I could never understand all this talk about 'heart'; it pumps blood around the body. Needless to say sessions are difficult but interesting.