Is it normal to just… not feel anything? I’m not sad, I’m not happy, I’m not angry. I’m just kind of here. Like watching my own life through a window.
I read the emotional numbness article and it described exactly whats going on with me. But I always thought numbness was just being chill. Turns out theres a difference between being calm and being disconnected.
Anyone else deal with this?
I didn’t realize I was numb until my wife pointed out I hadn’t cried in 6 years. Not at funerals, not at our kids birth, not at anything. I thought I was “strong.” Turns out I was just shut down.
The scary part is how normal it feels. You don’t notice whats missing until someone points it out.
This is called emotional blunting or alexithymia in clinical settings. It can be a trauma response, a side effect of certain medications (SSRIs are a common culprit), or a symptom of chronic stress where your nervous system basically goes into energy-conservation mode.
If this resonates — its worth exploring with a professional. Especially if it started after a particular event or medication change.
I went through this. For me it was burnout that had been building for 2 years. My body basically said “ok you won’t rest so I’m going to turn off all the non-essential systems” and emotions were aparently non-essential.
What helped: forced breaks, cutting my work hours (which felt impossible at the time), and honestly just acknowledging that the numbness was a signal, not a personality trait.
Exercise brought mine back. Not the gym-bro motivation stuff — actual movement that forced my body to feel something. Cold showers, hard runs, heavy deadlifts. My therapist called it “bottom-up processing” — sometimes you gotta get the body going before the mind follows.
Look up alexithymia. My therapist mentioned it and it was like someone turned a light on. Its basically difficulty identifying and describing your own emotions. Not the same as not having them – you still have them, you just cant access them. Super common in men apparently
I went through this. Looking back I think the numbness was my brains way of protecting itself. I had so much stress from work and a rough childhood that shutting down emotionally was literally a survival mechanism. The feelings were still there, just buried under like 20 years of concrete
This is me right now and honestly reading these replies helps. Started journaling like my therapist suggested and at first I literally couldnt write anything beyond ‘fine’ or ‘tired’. Its been 3 months now and Im slowly starting to notice more. Like last week I realized I was actually sad about something and it felt like… progress? Weird that feeling sad is progress but here we are