“I feel like I don't have feelings anymore” is a common experience for people who are developing psychosis or depression or who are recovering from a traumatic experience. It can be unnerving to lose the ability to feel or show your emotions.
Being emotionally numb means your emotional experience is lower than expected, dampened, or completely missing. In situations where you might be expected to experience joy or sadness, you may feel empty or detached instead. This feeling isn't positive or negative; instead, it's absent of emotion.
Feeling numb can be an indicator that something deeper is going on. It could actually be a symptom of a mental health condition. It's not healthy to feel emotionally numb or despondent. What you're feeling might be a common symptom of anxiety disorder, depression, grief, stress, abuse, or something else.
Anxiety involves extreme and persistent fear and worries about everyday life. One of the many symptoms that can be experienced in an anxiety disorder is numbness. There are a few types of numbness that can be associated with anxiety: physical, emotional, and dissociative.
If you recognize that you struggle with emotional numbness in your own life, there is still hope. Emotional numbness can be treated both through lifestyle changes that you can make on your own and getting help from a mental health professional.
Why People Emotionally Shut Down. Trauma, prolonged stress, anxiety, depression and grief all contribute to feeling emotionally shut down.
When you can't feel your emotions, you're likely to be in a dissociative state. This frequently occurs when people are overwhelmed, and the body switches to survival mode, resulting in numbness or blankness. “Not feeling” is also a protective psychic defense during a time of crisis.
Past abuse, neglect, and trauma can contribute to emotional detachment. 1 Children who grow up in abusive situations may use this detachment as a way to cope.
Feeling emotionally detached can be a symptom of another mental health condition, including: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): According to the National Institute of Mental Health , feeling emotionally numb can occur with PTSD. Depression: People can experience depression differently.
If someone has been through such a traumatic event that their body tips into shutdown response, any event that reminds the person of that life-threatening occurrence can trigger them into disconnection or dissociation again. People can even live in a state of disconnection or shutdown for days or months at a time.
“Emotional unavailability” describes a person who's evasive, avoids meeting up, or simply doesn't like to talk about their feelings or relationships. That person might also have difficulties with the following: trusting people. bursts of anger.
When someone has emotionally shut down, they certainly look like they don't care. Their facial expression is usually neutral, with little to no expression of emotion, and their voice tone becomes monotonous. Answers to questions are short. You begin to interpret all of this as indifference.
Causes of Selective Mutism
Anxiety disorders or being too anxious because of stress. Poor home and family relationships. Early psychological problems that were not addressed properly. Low self-esteem issues.
Alexithymia is when a person has difficulty experiencing, identifying, and expressing emotions.
What does it mean when a person is numb? Feeling emotionally numb is associated with a number of mental health disorders, including anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. Emotional numbness can also be a sign of schizophrenia, depersonalization/derealization disorder, or dissociative identity disorder.
Experiencing too much stress can take a toll on your mental health in ways that are hard for many to imagine. Often, those that experience anxiety attacks frequently, or profound stress for a long period of time, are left feeling very drained; and that feeling of being drained can resemble emotional numbness at times.
Anxiety numbness can last a few moments to minutes if it is caused by anxiety and an active stress response, hypo or hyperventilation, or other temporary cause. Or it could persist for days or months if it is caused by hyperstimulation (chronic stress), medication, sleep deprivation, and other long-term cause.
Trauma is not physically held in the muscles or bones — instead, the need to protect oneself from perceived threats is stored in the memory and emotional centers of the brain, such as the hippocampus and amygdala. This activates the body whenever a situation reminds the person of the traumatic event(s).
Result: The experience of trauma produces very intense emotions such as overwhelming fear, horror, and anxiety, and these reactions can linger for a lifetime. Many trauma survivors also report restrictions in their emotional experience - a phenomenon most commonly referred to as emotional numbing.