One of the most important things I’ve learned in therapy

One of the most important things I’ve learned in therapy is that when you’ve experienced prolonged trauma in your childhood, pleasure feels uncomfortable. Like, not that you don’t feel it, but that when you do feel it there’s an impulse to make it stop, because it’s extremely unfamiliar. And pleasure can mean many things, as simple as feeling cozy, and as complex as feeling loved. The neural pathways for feeling good have not had a chance to develop, and the neural pathways for feeling bad are quite practiced.  Feeling good, too, takes conscious practice.

—horreurscopes