Cycle Breaker and Change Maker | Introduction to Emotional Numbness as a Trauma Response

Episode 19 -Introduction to emotional numbness as a trauma response

Have you ever experienced a change in your emotional experience, as if your emotions became something you started to have restricted access to? Or perhaps, have your emotions started to feel  completely inaccessible?  Maybe you have experienced a feeling of distance and detachment from others, and have developed a strong preference for being alone and isolated.  Or are  you struggling to experience positive feelings like happiness and feel generally “flat” emotionally and physically?  If you are experiencing one or more of these symptoms, you could be dealing with emotional numbness as a trauma response.

 So what exactly is emotional numbness?

Emotional numbness is when you are in a state of existence which leaves you unable to feel and express emotions. It is the mental and emotional process of shutting out feelings.  Everyone can experience a day when they feel emotionally numb and it is often temporary.  When experiencing emotional numbness though, this feeling will be present  for many days consecutively and for multiple weeks in a row.  The emotional numbness will begin to impact your day to day life.  Emotional numbness is a strategy to protect oneself from a physical or emotional pain that is in addition to what you have already endured.   

Transcript

Episode 19 -Introduction to Emotional Numbness as a Trauma Response

Have you ever experienced a change in your emotional experience, as if your emotions became something you started to have restricted access to? Or perhaps, have your emotions started to feel  completely inaccessible?  Maybe you have experienced a feeling of distance and detachment from others, and have developed a strong preference for being alone and isolated.  Or are  you struggling to experience positive feelings like happiness and feel generally “flat” emotionally and physically?  If you are experiencing one or more of these symptoms, you could be dealing with emotional numbness as a trauma response.

So what exactly is emotional numbness?

Emotional numbness is when you are in a state of existence which leaves you unable to feel and express emotions. It is the mental and emotional process of shutting out feelings.  Everyone can experience a day when they feel emotionally numb and it is often temporary.  When experiencing emotional numbness though, this feeling will be present  for many days consecutively and for multiple weeks in a row.  The emotional numbness will begin to impact your day to day life.  Emotional numbness is a strategy to protect oneself from a physical or emotional pain that is in addition to what you have already endured.   

Why does emotional numbness happen and, how does it impact the negative cycle?

If you have or are experiencing anything that I have described so far in today's episode please know that it is not your fault and it can be fixed.   When your brain is flooded with big and hard emotions it is no wonder our brain needs to help us navigate through numbing our responses.  This reaction is not a conscious one, it is something your brain does to protect you.  Emotional numbness can actually be a very helpful response to provide you with temporary relief.  When it becomes a long term coping mechanism however, there can be long lasting consequences.  If left untreated emotional numbness can cause apathy, feelings of detachment and lack of interest in once joyful activities.  Emotional numbness can cause damage to your overall emotional and physical well-being over the long term and can cause people to experience substance abuse, avoidance and self-harm.

My story and how emotional numbness has impacted me as an adult:

I will never forget the first time I realized that I was not fully feeling as a young adult.  It was pointed out to me by someone that cared enough to be concerned for my inability to protect myself from being verbally attacked.  I don’t know how long it would have taken for me to realize my lack of feeling otherwise without someone helping me understand that I was showing an absence of emotion at a time when an emotion was really warranted.  If I had access to something like this podcast it would have really helped see this and manage this sooner, which is why I want to help others going through similar experiences.

In reference to witnessing a verbal attack on me which was both inappropriate in content and it its execution - very public in a well regarded corporation - someone said to me: , 

I was waiting for your anger and it never came.  

Where is your anger?   

My reply was, “I don’t know”.

Where was it?  I knew what anger was, it had been so long since I had felt it though.  Years actually.  Many many years. Where had it gone?

What have I done to break the cycle of how emotional numbness has impacted me?

Step 1:
Noticing.  In my case my lack of an emotional response was pointed out to me, what it did was propel me into noticing, how and if I could respond to situations.  If you are not prompted to do this because someone has given you clear and direct feedback you can notice how you respond as compared to others.  We are all unique and have our own backgrounds and will respond to certain situations very differently, however if you see that most people are angered or upset and you are feeling blase or if you remember that you would have felt a response in the past and now you don’t feel anything it is worth noticing that something may have changed.

Step 2:
Minimizing stress - stress is a huge contributor to the feelings of emotional numbness.  If you are undergoing a lot of stress and for long periods of time, stress reduction will significantly help you because it is such a large part of emotional numbness.  Ideally you need to remove the main sources of stress in your life - by reviewing them you can see what you can get rid of.  Additionally you can support stress reduction with adding in relaxation techniques into your life such as:

• Meditation
• Deep breathing exercises
• Yoga
• Aromatherapy

Step 3:
Exercise - this is tough when you are feeling emotionally numb and do not want to do anything.  Exercise is going to be one of the last things you want to do.  The reason this is so important however is, exercise releases endorphins.  By exercising, you will be able to access a flood of endorphins - these relieve stress and pain which is needed to move away from emotional numbness.  Do this in a way that is manageable for you - this can look like a walk, swimming or running - really whatever you enjoy that you can fit into your life.

My experience - how implementing the steps outlined above led to a positive outcome:

After first realizing I was having trouble accessing some of my emotions, I was able to take the steps I have shared to fix this.    There was one emotion that remained untapped, that emotion was anger.

Finally after asking questions to expert therapists and doctors I learned that I was terrified of anger and that made me not want to access it within myself.  I had been exposed to absolutely terrifying anger growing up  - the kind that makes you want to hide all the time and the kind that makes you not understand how you are going to get through to the next day.  

I became terrified of my own anger, my experience with anger was that it was huge, and tore up everything in its way - it left a path of mass destruction that no one could escape.  Understandably, that wasn’t anything I wanted to be a part of. 

One doctor shared with me a story about how her anger saved a group of children. It was then I could finally see that anger can actually be a useful emotion.  It can be used as a form of helping others and most importantly, it can be a way of helping yourself.

Now I am proud to say I do get angry when I am being mistreated and I voice it, I get angry when those I care about are being treated wrongly or when I witness someone being treated badly and - yes - I voice it.

 My anger comes from a place of being healed and of strength and it is not the scary beast I once was, it is a force that I can use for the greater good.  That is the power of accessing your emotions.