TRAUMA

@willingPal4403 It can feel this way because opening up suppressed childhood trauma without proper grounding,  can flood your nervous system. It makes your brain to perceive the memory as an active, present-day threat instead of a past event. Think of it like a psychological tug-of-war. Your mind wants to process the pain, but your survival system is saying that it's unsafe, making you feel like you are working against yourself.

@MendedHeart073 I am here if you want to chat with a listener about your childhood trauma 

Similar to what twistedsoul said, there is a difference between reexperiencing those childhood trauma triggers versus learning to cope with them in a grounded and attentive state. The hope is, the more you open up about it in a safe environment, the more you will desensitize yourself to it and eventually are not triggered by it. You're left with painful memories but memories that no longer carry the truamatizing punch they once did. Personally I am still trying to get the memories to the desensitized state. Nonetheless, this is what I've talked about with peers and counselors and it's the understanding I've come to so I wanted to share. :)