Emotional Numbness

You suddenly feel completely empty. The feelings of happiness, sadness or of any other sort are all gone. You feel like you are dead inside but working physically. It is a common problem that many people face and it is completely reversible. I’ll explain how it happens, why it happens and how to get your normal feelings back.

What is emotional numbness?

It is a loss of both forms of feelings; joy and pain. Your mind shuts of all feelings and you feel empty. This not really a good thing, in fact it could be the exact opposite of good.

Emotional Numbness vs Depression

Depression is the feeling of constant sadness for months. You are extremely sad in depression and you give up on everything. Emotional numbness on the other hand is not sadness, but it is loss of it(and joy too).

Signs of Emotional Numbness

• You feel disconnected from people
• All of your excitement is gone and nothing excites you even a little
• You can’t cry anymore
• You feel completely empty inside
• Your own life starts feeling distant
• There’s a constant feeling of tiredness without a reason
• You react logically but not emotionally

Why it happens?

Emotional overload

When your emotions are overloaded, especially by pain, your mind shuts off all forms of emotions. You don’t even feel pain afterwards. It is a sort of protective mechanism.

Trauma and shock

When you have experienced something that traumatized you emotionally or gave you a big shock, then this can cause emotional numbness too. It doesn’t have to be something big or small, its effects on you matter.

Suppressed emotions

Many people and often men feel ashamed or even embarrassed of showing emotions. This leads to suppression of emotions. They don’t even accept emotions when alone. Years of emotional negligence and suppression leads to numbness

Chronic stress

When you have been in stress for a long period of time, this is called chronic stress. Chronic stress has a list of bad impacts on health. One of these is emotional numbness.

Depression and Burnout

Depression is different from emotional numbness but depression can be the precursor of it. Emotional burnout also leads to this protective mechanism of emotional numbness.

Survival Response

Our brain shuts off and reduces emotional input to prevent collapse. This is protection, not damage. But if it lasts for way too long, then it can cause damage and is problematic in our daily lives too.

Dangers of Emotional Numbness

Loss of identity

Feelings are a big part of our identity. When you lose the ability to feel, you lose your true self along with it.

Inability to form bonds

Real bonds require proper emotions. With lack of such emotions, you can not make deep bonds with people.

Depression

Emotional numbness increases the risk of depression by a big margin.

Risky behaviors

When you are too cut off from emotions, then you try to feel them somehow. Emotions of pain and sadness are felt more, so people try to cause pain to themselves just to feel something.

How do we get back the emotions?

Acceptance

Accept the lack of emotions and numbness without judgment. Don’t blame yourself or anyone. It is normal to get these conditions.

Emotional Triggers

Track your emotional triggers. See what makes you too numb or sad, and what makes you less numb or happy. Follow the happy feelings and triggers.

Reconnect to the body

A sound body has a sound mind. This works for emotions too. Go for a walk. Join gym. Do breathing exercises. Meditation will also help you a lot.

Expressing

Express your emotions and write that down in a journal or a notebook. Or make voice notes or drawings of your internal world. This helps you let the problem out.

Stop avoiding

Don’t try to escape from discomfort through distractions. Face the unhappy feelings. Feel the sufferings of being in uncomfortable places and get used to it. Running away is never a solution.

If the condition becomes worse, then professional help is a good idea. If therapies are expensive, so you can try asking a friend or family for help if possible. Stop locking yourself in and face it.