“Why do I feel numb?” – If you’ve been trying to figure out where the hell your feelings went and why you can’t feel them – read on!
If you have been wondering why you don’t feel anything beyond ‘good’ or ‘not so good’, this blog post will help you to uncover where the spectrum of feelings went. And why you’re struggling to feel. Maybe you used to feel more. Now you can’t figure out why everything feels dulled down, or you might even be realising that other people seem to have so many more feelings compared to your experiences of ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
Maybe you’ve been through really big experiences, losing a job, a relationship break-up, and still – NOTHING. You’re sitting and wondering why you can’t feel anything, it’s not that you don’t want to; you just… Don’t? You might even be going through some pretty big life stuff now, but it’s almost as though you’re on autopilot. It’s difficult, you know this, rationally, you can even see that it’s stressful – but you’re pretty much going through the motions. You might even physically feel the impact of the intensity, the busy time at work, the difficult relationships – you might notice that you’re physically tired, or you’ve got a headache.
But the other things, sadness, anger, nervousness – they just don’t seem to be there? Not to the extent you’d expect anyway.
It’s not that you can’t feel – it could be that you weren’t allowed to, or that having feelings wasn’t convenient, and you learnt to push them to one side.
Maybe nobody was going to pay any attention to or comfort you, and so feeling all those feelings became pointless. Sometimes, when that’s what you experience, your brain almost shuts the feelings off. There’s no point turning the light on if there’s nobody there to experience it, so you stay in the dark.
What is emotional numbness?
Emotional numbness often occurs when experiencing and fully feeling feelings simply isn’t possible. There are many reasons why this can happen, but it’s often something that grows out of a survival mechanism when it’s not emotionally safe to feel.
It can appear to others as though you are aloof, or even uncaring. It’s not that you don’t care, it’s more like a difficulty in accessing your feelings.
For some people, it can feel like those feelings are just out of reach. You might feel like there’s something – you just can’t put your finger on it.
Sometimes this can be referred to as dissociation or depersonalisation – this sense of being disconnected from your thoughts, feelings, memories and even your surroundings. It’s a common coping mechanism for stress or Trauma. Depersonalisation is a more specific form of dissociation where you might feel like you’re observing yourself from the outside. There’s more to it – but that’s a simple overview.
How does emotional numbness develop?
It often starts slowly, earlier in childhood or teenage years – when emotions aren’t recognised or emotional needs met efficiently, children often learn that it’s not okay to be emotional, or to express their feelings, and so they begin to stop. To become more acceptable. (Holmes, 1993)
Emotional numbing, or detachment, often develops when you’ve experienced or been exposed to stressful situations – in this case, the brain is triggered to protect you, and could shut down, and you might find yourself living in a ‘freeze’ stress response longer term. The freeze response can be really helpful if there’s a bear on the prowl: play dead and avoid being attacked! (PTSD UK, 2026). Learning about the nervous system response in therapy is often the starting point for understanding how you are navigating the world, where those reactions have come from, and how you can take steps to feel safe and integrate previous experiences and step forward into the rational and real experiences of where you are in the here and now. Often, the body is still responding to an experience that’s already finished.
Signs of emotional numbness in adults
Maybe you’re already nodding your head, or recognise some of this in yourself, others may have pointed bits out to you, but you might find signs of emotional numbness or feeling numb, including:
- Struggling to focus, feeling like you’re not completely ‘present’
- Feeling like you no longer care or are interested in the hobbies or activities you used to enjoy
- Feeling unable to access your feelings
- Struggling to experience positive feelings such as happiness
- Preferring being alone compared to being with others
- Being in denial about situations and realities
- Feeling flat, as though everything is on one frequency, or one volume, with no differentiation
It’s important to note that there are loads of reasons why you might struggle with feeling like this – that can also be attributed to other things, it’s important to speak to a GP or health professional – these blog posts are not a substitute for health, nor can you diagnose yourself with anything, they are for reflection, and to provide ideas that you may or may not connect with. #
How does feeling emotionally numb impact your daily life?
When you’re not connected to how you’re feeling, it can feel a little like you’re stuck in a snow globe – someone else is shaking everything up, and you’ve got no real control over it. You can see that everything is swirling around, but there’s no connection to how or why it’s happening. You are long for the ride.
Feeling disconnected from your emotions can make it hard for others to connect with you. This detachment often leads to issues in all types of relationships, whether at work, among friends, or in romantic partnerships.
Many people say they feel like they are just going through the motions of life, operating on autopilot. They do what they think is expected of them, but don’t really care about it. This creates a gap between their obligations and their true desires because they aren’t sure what they really want.
Can you reconnect with your emotions?
You aren’t stuck feeling emotionally numb – so many people turn to therapy to figure out what’s going on, to start discovering what’s up with how numb they’re feeling. Starting that process and even noticing it is a huge step.
It takes time, but it’s possible to start connecting emotionally and not just intellectually. Imagine knowing what you feel, feeling more confident that you can notice what you experience. As you become more in tune with yourself, you develop closer connections with others as a result; relationships don’t feel like a performance but are a genuinely intimate experience that goes both ways, rather than something to navigate that gets stuck on the surface level.
If you’re wondering whether childhood emotional neglect has left you feeling numb, I’ve put together a free guide. You can download it here.
If this resonated, you aren’t alone.
There are many adults who find themselves starting to take stock, noticing that they don’t feel the same as others around them seem to do. It can be disorientating to suddenly realise that things aren’t quite how you’d want them to be. To wake up and realise you’ve been holding it all together for a really long time and that you want to feel better. It’s okay.
If you feel like your childhood is linked to how you’re feeling now, download the free guide to childhood emotional neglect here:
References:
Holmes, J. (1993) ‘Attachment Theory: A Biological Basis for Psychotherapy?’, British Journal of Psychiatry, 163(4), pp. 430–438. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.163.4.430.
PTSD UK (2026) Emotional Numbness – PTSD UK, PTSD UK. Available at: https://www.ptsduk.org/emotional-numbness/.