Feeling emotionally numb can be a perplexing and unsettling experience. You might find yourself going through the motions of daily life, yet feeling detached, empty, or as if your emotions are muted. This sensation, often described as “feeling dead inside,” is more common than you might think. It’s a state where you struggle to connect with your feelings, even towards things you once cared deeply about.
While everyone experiences fluctuations in their emotional engagement, persistent emotional numbness lasting for weeks and impacting your daily life and relationships could signal an underlying mental health concern.
Key Insights into Emotional Numbness
- Emotional numbness often acts as an unconscious defense mechanism against overwhelming emotions stemming from anxiety, stress, or trauma.
- Both acute and chronic trauma can overwhelm your system, leading to a state of emotional shutdown, including numbness.
- Suppressing difficult emotions can inadvertently block all feelings, hindering emotional processing and healing.
- Mental health support can be instrumental in understanding the roots of emotional numbness and addressing the underlying causes of this protective response.
Decoding Emotional Blunting
Have you ever asked yourself, “Why do I feel nothing? Is something wrong with me?” This question encapsulates the core of emotional numbness, often experienced during periods of depression or when languishing. Emotional blunting manifests in various ways, including:
- Diminished emotional reactivity to events.
- Reduced empathy and response to others’ emotions.
- A sense of disconnection from people, fostering indifference, loneliness, and isolation.
- Feeling detached from your own body, operating on autopilot.
- Memory lapses and concentration difficulties.
- Persistent fatigue.
- Feelings of hopelessness.
- Shame or guilt about the inability to feel emotions.
- Engagement in self-harm or risky behaviors as a desperate attempt to feel something.
- Substance misuse (alcohol or drugs) to further escape or alter feelings.
Unpacking the Causes of Feeling Numb
So, why do you feel numb? Emotional numbness frequently arises as an unconscious coping strategy to shield oneself from difficult emotions, whether triggered by anxiety, stress, or traumatic experiences. Experts in psychology view this as a form of dissociation, a psychological process that unconsciously protects us from emotional pain.
However, suppressing emotions, while offering temporary relief, prevents us from processing and ultimately healing the root causes of these feelings. Moreover, pushing away negative emotions can create a generalized emotional block, making it difficult to experience the full spectrum of human emotions—including joy, love, surprise, and even simple interest. Over time, this emotional detachment can negatively impact our sense of self, interpersonal relationships, and even our physical health.
We cannot selectively numb emotion. If we numb the dark, we numb the light. If we take the edge off pain and discomfort, we are, by default, taking the edge off joy, love, belonging, and the other emotions that give meaning to our lives.
Brené Brown research professor at the University of Houston and author of “The Gifts of Imperfection: Your Guide to a Wholehearted Life”
Person sitting in shadow, illustrating emotional numbness and detachment
The Evolutionary Role of Emotions and the Stress Response
Researchers propose that emotions evolved to help us adapt to our environment. From an evolutionary standpoint, positive emotions encourage behaviors essential for survival, such as social connection and reproduction. Conversely, negative emotions motivate us to avoid or escape potentially dangerous situations.
Our emotional responses are designed to fluctuate as part of our natural stress response system. Ideally, we experience an emotional surge when action is required and a return to baseline once the threat subsides. Difficulties arise when we lose this emotional flexibility. Both heightened emotional reactivity and emotional blunting are linked to various mental health conditions, including anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder.
Emotional numbness can also be a symptom of more complex conditions like schizophrenia, depersonalization/derealization disorder, or dissociative identity disorder. Genetic predispositions and individual life experiences can contribute to the development of these disorders as a way of responding to stress and trauma.
The Link Between Stress, Trauma, and Emotional Numbness
The body’s stress response system is a survival mechanism developed to protect us from life-threatening situations. When functioning optimally, it releases hormones and triggers physiological responses that help us navigate challenging moments, returning to a balanced state afterward.
However, chronic or overwhelming stress can overload this system, leading to a state of collapse, which includes emotional numbness. This state can be triggered by specific stressful events, such as academic pressures, relationship endings, or serious illnesses. It can also be a result of ongoing stressors like discrimination, community violence, or financial instability.
Acute trauma, such as accidents, assaults, or natural disasters, can also initiate an intense stress response. Emotional numbness becomes problematic when this protective reflex persists long after the traumatic event has passed, often manifesting as a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Childhood trauma is significantly linked to long-term dissociative patterns, including emotional numbness, in adulthood. Children, lacking the ability to effectively protect themselves, may unconsciously shut down emotionally as a defense against pain and fear.
Furthermore, children who learn that expressing emotions provokes anger or negative reactions from caregivers may develop a generalized fear of feelings, sometimes termed “affect phobia.” Similarly, emotional neglect, where a child’s emotional needs are consistently ignored, dismissed, or unacknowledged, can be equally damaging.
Other Contributing Factors to Emotional Numbness
Beyond stress and trauma, several other factors can contribute to the sensation of emotional numbness:
- Grief: The profound loss of a loved one can trigger intense sadness, but paradoxically, it can also manifest as emotional numbness. This numbness can be seen as an instinctive defense against overwhelming grief or the loss of a crucial emotional support figure.
- Medication Side Effects: Certain antidepressant medications, particularly SSRIs and SNRIs, are known to cause emotional numbness as a side effect. Studies indicate that nearly half of individuals with depression taking antidepressants report emotional blunting, frequently leading them to discontinue medication.
- Substance Use Disorders: Many experts recognize unresolved trauma or grief as underlying factors in substance abuse. Individuals may turn to substances to suppress painful emotions or to seek a sense of feeling when numb. The emotional numbness associated with traumatic experiences can be exacerbated by the neurotoxic effects of prolonged drug and alcohol use.
- Hitting Rock Bottom: Emotional numbness can sometimes be a sign that you’ve hit rock bottom. This term describes reaching a point in life where one feels they have nothing left to lose, often accompanied by a sense of profound emotional emptiness.
The Prevalence of Emotional Numbness
A 2023 survey revealed that a concerning 50% of young adults reported feeling so stressed that they experience emotional numbness. This statistic underscores the widespread impact of stress on emotional well-being in today’s world.
Reconnecting with Your Emotions
The human capacity for resilience, especially in young adulthood, is significant. Our natural inclination is to experience and process the full spectrum of emotions. The journey back to emotional engagement begins with gradually allowing yourself to feel both difficult and positive emotions. Seeking support from a mental health professional is crucial in this process. Therapy or participation in a treatment program can provide young adults with the tools to understand the origins of their emotional numbness and to begin healing the underlying issues that triggered this protective mechanism.
Here are some strategies to help you gently move towards feeling your emotions again, while prioritizing your overall health and well-being:
Start with Gentle Emotional Exploration
If your emotional system has been working hard to shield you from intense feelings, re-engagement should be gradual and gentle. Engaging with music, books, and films can be a safe way to experience emotions vicariously as you become ready to confront your own. Explore resources that list different emotional vocabulary (like this chart by Brené Brown) and practice identifying emotions evoked by these artistic mediums. Pay attention to the physical sensations these vicarious emotions trigger in your body—this will enhance your ability to recognize emotions as they arise in your own life. Be mindful of “glimmers”—fleeting moments of positive emotion that, while brief, are still meaningful.
Prioritize Physical Well-being
Ensuring adequate sleep, balanced nutrition, and regular exercise is fundamental. When your body’s basic needs are met, you enhance your resilience to emotional challenges. Neglecting these pillars of mental health can deplete your reserves and make everyday stressors feel overwhelming. Focusing on the three pillars of mental health will make your system less likely to remain trapped in an emotion-numbing stress response cycle.
Cultivate Healthy Social Connections
Spend quality time with people (and animals!) who create a safe space for you to be authentic and vulnerable. Learn to recognize what Brené Brown refers to as “empathy misses“—responses that, while sometimes well-intentioned, hinder genuine emotional connection. These can include judgment, blame, minimization of your feelings, or premature problem-solving. Recognizing these patterns will help you avoid internalizing negative messages that invalidate your emotions, making them seem unimportant or too daunting to face.
Gradually Increase Comfort with Discomfort
Practices like yoga and mindfulness are effective in soothing the nervous system, promoting both physical and mental flexibility. You may experience improvements in sleep, digestion, and other areas that enhance emotional resilience. Crucially, these disciplines cultivate a “witness consciousness,” fostering a healthy awareness of emotions without becoming overwhelmed by them. While seemingly simple, these practices require patience and self-compassion. Seek out instructors who emphasize self-compassion and gentle progress.
Seeking Support for the Roots of Emotional Numbness
Addressing the underlying causes of emotional numbness is often challenging to do alone. By the time emotional numbness sets in, your system has likely been working hard to suppress feelings for some time. A mental health professional specializing in trauma-informed care can provide a safe environment to explore the triggers of your emotional numbness and address the root trauma or stress.
At Newport Institute, we offer tailored treatment programs designed to meet the unique needs and experiences of young adults. Our approach focuses on healing the underlying causes of emotional numbness while empowering young people with self-awareness, self-care strategies, and essential life skills. Reach out today to learn more about how to rediscover a life filled with feeling.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it feel like when you don’t feel anything?
Emotional numbness is commonly described as feeling empty, detached, or dead inside. Individuals often report a lack of care or concern, even for previously important aspects of their lives, and a sense of disconnection from themselves and others.
What are common reasons for feeling numb?
Feeling emotionally numb often arises as an unconscious protective response to intense or difficult emotions, such as those caused by anxiety, stress, or trauma. It’s considered a form of dissociation, a psychological mechanism for self-protection from emotional pain.
What does it indicate when a person feels numb?
Emotional numbness is associated with various mental health conditions, including anxiety disorders, depression, and bipolar disorder. It can also be a symptom of schizophrenia, depersonalization/derealization disorder, or dissociative identity disorder.
How can emotional numbness be addressed?
Therapy and other forms of mental health treatment are highly effective in helping individuals understand why they developed emotional numbness as a protective mechanism. These interventions facilitate healing from underlying stress, trauma, or other mental health disorders contributing to the numbness.
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Mental Health / March 5, 2023
