Topic: Do you have a hard time determining if an emotion is valid?

For 1) You need to just practice to try and tune in to your feeling state more often. No other way around this one. It will take a long time to improve a bit...
For 2) Same.
For 3), I don't know what you mean, do you mean you don't get to feel it in the body, or not strongly much at all? If you have a feeling state however, then you do feel by definition.
For 4), that's a great question, for this you need to spend more time with it again, spend time working out what's ethical in general, for people, for yourself, learn about basic emotional needs of people, including yourself again, try to get in touch with your desires in terms of that too and in general too. Again, expect it to take a long time. Also, it's not the best idea to do it all alone. You will want to possibly read books on this but you should also find someone who you can talk with about these things. Also, working on 1) and 2) will be prerequisites to all this.

I hope that helps some.

i had to sign up to this forum ASAP as soon as i saw your post because it seemed as though i was reading my own damn words, the only difference is that i'm 23 and have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. i've often told psychiatrist and therapists that it feels as though on a general basis i can only feel negative or sentimental motions cognitively or emotionally/physically but hardly both, and when i do it's so damn intense and that's where the depressive or manic episodes come in i guess?

i have a hard time validating my emotions as well because i don't always "feel" what i'm feeling, y'know?
and in regards to number one, i've been trying to connect with negative, sentimental and as well and i think it's doing some good but i still get pretty overwhelmed. the disconnect i feel between my heart and mind is sooo frustrating :(

I had to answer when I saw this post. I'm 23 btw and I also got a score of 122. We have similar thoughts. I also find it hard to understand if what I'm feeling is what I actually feel-or something. Like if I'm sad. I don't really know if I'm actually sad or if it's just a whim or its because I watched a sad movie earlier. It's confusing me.

Honestly I couldn’t care less about emotions, wondering why your sad is a bit of problem or any other sensation that’s possibly connected to emotion I just try to repress and prune off.

I never fallen in love in the conventional sense, I enjoy your company and would like to have you as a partner in life, I say partner because we need to work together to get what be both want in life, it’s wrong if I or her has to give up an important ambition.

Maybe not having the emotional response, we could critical assess what’s happened and if it’s worth giving x amount of time on the subject, I saw a girl breakdown in tears over a strand of hair not being in place, oh come on can’t you just get a mirror and correct it and move on, another girl in her late teens said the printer was broken and the class antagoniser took the opportunity to make fun of and blame her, she’s sensitive but if she thought critically she would of remembered he’s known to infuriate and offend people at any opportunity.

1 ) I'm not aware of what I'm feeling at most moments. This is because I'm not feeling anything. I don't think.

2) for this one, if my "feeling" doesnt register on a conscious level, i couldn't be aware of it and thus i couldn't respond or interpret what you mean by #2

3) I have a hard time understanding what you mean by cognitive and emotional levels. But if I understand you correctly I can say I also experience this.

4) I have so much experience with this one. I don't know if when I feel stuff, if it's truly justifiable or if I'm just feeling the emotions for my own pretentious, subconscious reasons that I can't consciously be aware of no matter how hard I try. That's also why I'm uncertain all the time I think.

For a 16y/o girl you really have your stuff figured out, at least, you're closer to figuring out yourself than I am, I think. I can relate to what it's like to be in high-school and going through this though.

@coldpizza i have a hard time validating my emotions as well because i don't always "feel" what i'm feeling, y'know?

This but... I'm not sure what feeling what I'm feeling is really like, since I encounter it so rarely. I also have Asperger's so that doesn't really help. Sometimes it makes me think I'm just not made to communicate with people.