When You Can't Feel Anything at All

Have you ever suddenly felt as though you had lost all your emotions — unable to feel joy, grief or anger, with an overwhelming emptiness inside, the distance between yourself and the world stretching far away, unable to throw yourself into anything at all? This is the feeling of numbness (Numbness). Numbness is a natural response when a person faces intense emotion. It protects our minds, sparing us from being affected by still more negative feelings, but at the same time it shuts off our capacity to feel positive ones.

The Causes of Numbness

Do you remember the last time you felt numb? Was it because someone close to you passed away? A break-up? Being rejected? A failure at work or in your studies? These are all reasons a person can turn numb, and they share one thing in common: each brings us emotions that are hard to bear, along with stress. When we feel intense pain, our brain automatically dials down how much we feel, so that we are no longer wounded psychologically. After that we no longer feel defeated or heartbroken by life's blows, but at the same time we no longer feel joy either, unable to sense any of the world's small delights — because the mind's defence system has switched off our capacity to feel emotion. On the one hand it has indeed protected us from pain, yet at the same time it has drained the pleasure from our lives.

When we go through stress, the adrenal cortex (Adrenal Cortex) releases cortisol (Cortisol), which affects the workings of the brain's limbic system (Limbic System). The limbic system includes the amygdala (Amygdala), the cingulate cortex (Cingulate Cortex) and the hypothalamus (Hypothalamus) — all of them areas that matter greatly for feeling and expressing emotion. The effect of stress on the limbic system can alter how we feel our emotions, and this becomes one possible cause of numbness.

In a state of numbness, we gain a brief and false sense of calm. Numbness keeps our lives from being disrupted by pain, so we can carry on with the daily routine of work (even if it sometimes feels like going through the motions). But over time, numbness itself can become a psychological problem.

The Problem with Numbness

When we become aware of our own numbness, it may mean the numbness has already caused a certain amount of harm. We might suddenly notice that we cannot throw ourselves into social activities, that nothing can rouse our interest, that our mood has no real highs or lows at any point.

If you have lived through a spell of numbness, you may have found yourself wishing you could feel pain rather than live under it — at least grief makes you feel like a creature of flesh and blood, whereas in a state of numbness it is as though you have lost your very soul. The first harm of numbness, then, is that it leaves you unable to feel any pleasure in life; compared with grief, this sense of detachment may be even harder to bear.

What is more, in a state of numbness emotions are only continually being suppressed, building up inside. When those emotions reach a tipping point, we may become sensitive and irritable — outwardly calm, yet inwardly churning. Emotions all stand for some thought or need of ours, and ignoring their existence leaves us unable to sense our own inner world and our true needs, making it hard to care for ourselves properly.

If We Can Recover from Numbness

In the face of numbness and its effects, we can make a series of shifts in how we think about this natural response.

First, we need to recognise that there is no need to feel ashamed of our own state. If we keep blaming ourselves for the problems that numbness brings in its wake, we only add further weight to our burden and make the numbness more severe.

We can explore this response of numbness slowly. We need to become consciously aware of how numbness affects us emotionally, and we can also tune in to the way numbness has been affecting us all along. Rather than simply resisting numbness, we should take the initiative to understand the relationship between this response and ourselves.

Finally, we can reflect on what the numbness response means for us. We need to recognise that numbness is not merely a response that brings trouble; it once protected our minds, but now that we no longer need numbness, what we need is the drive to set out afresh.

Numbness is a response that arises from emotional stress. To lessen its effect on us, we can cultivate good lifestyle habits in everyday life; moderate exercise and enough sleep both matter greatly for our mental health. We should also widen our social support network (Social Support Network), so that when we are troubled by our emotions, or going through one of life's hard passages, we have someone to lean on and a safe space in which to let our feelings out.

If the numbness persists and begins to affect daily life, you may want to consider seeking help from a professional, such as a counsellor. TreeholeHK now offers psychological services tailored to your individual needs, giving you space to talk things through freely, providing appropriate guidance and emotional support, helping you make sense of past experiences and come to know yourself, and draw on your inner resources to face life.

References

Lo, I. (2018). Depersonalisation: Why do I feel empty and numb? Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/living-emotional-intensity/201810/depersonalisation-why-do-i-feel-empty-and-numb