Let’s talk emotional numbness

Let’s talk emotional numbness.

Do you ever feel like you feel nothing? You struggle to feel emotions that make you feel good, and you feel almost desensitized to emotions that are heavier. When we experience trauma, anxiety, or chronic stress we tend to enter, fight, flight or freeze mode and our body picks a survival mechanism to keep us safe in the moment. When we numb out our emotions, we enter a freeze mode and feel as if it is safer to dissociate and detach from the pain, than it is to actually feel the pain.

Unfortunately, when we feel nothing we tend to try whatever we can to just feel something. This often leads to self-destructive behaviours, like self-sabotage, impulsivity, isolation and more.

Here are some tips to understand why this is happening.

1. Remove the shame from the detachment and emotional numbness. You developed the freeze response because your body and your mind wanted to keep you safe in the moment. You adapted to your environment & protected yourself in the only way you know how.
2. Try to connect with those around you. Feeling disconnected can make us want to isolate. But when we connect with other people, we slowly build community and start to view ourselves differently.
3. Somatic work. Whenever we experience trauma, somatic work is crucial to help us feel connected to our bodies & safety within ourselves. I will attach some examples in the comments
4. Learn about emotions. Sometimes identifying what emotions were feeling can be challenging when we’re used to feeling nothing at all. If you scroll on my page; you can find a post that indicates where we feel different emotions in our bodies- this can help you identity and learn what you’re feeling and why.

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#mentalhealth #anxiety #trauma #unhealedtrauma #depression #stress #ptsd #complextrauma #cptsd #motivation #procrastination #wellness #therapy #therapist #mentalhealthmatters #socialanxiety #bpd #bipolar #dsm

[virtualemdr]

This is a very insightful and accurate description of emotional numbness. You've effectively captured the connection between trauma, stress, and the freeze response, as well as the potential consequences of this coping mechanism.

[KathiJohnson-kr]

What is qualify for therapy. Are you PhD, or Master prepare your weird Please you are not qualify to preach and lecture. Get HELP YOU NEED IT.