# Emotional Numbness



## Guest (Feb 24, 2014)

http://9gag.com/gag/adNe7QN#comment

I found this post while procrastinating, and it reminded me of something important.

I was emotionally numb ages before DP/DR happened, simply because hiding my emotions had become an automatic process. When I was very young, kindergarten even, I had strong fear of being overly expressive, but not to the point I hid my emotions. Instead I simply avoided certain actions or things that associated with being expressive; I refused to use the word "cool" and avoided wearing anything other than plain colors, maybe stripes, but NEVER pictures or patterns.

A little while after that in elementary school, the bullying began. As it got worse I hid my emotions more and more because they were just something else for people to target, and the whole situation was more bearable if I just didn't feel anything. After that I became friends with a very emotionally unstable person who was frequently suicidal, so I kept hiding my emotions to be the stable person in our relationship.

After a while, not feeling became my default.

I've been working on it bit by bit and I've recently managed to figure out how angry works, kind of. I'm not entirely sure about it yet.


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## Guest (Feb 24, 2014)

"I was emotionally numb ages before DP/DR happened"

I feel ya man. This is why I scratch my head when people say emotional numbness is a symptom of DP.

*I've had DP for nine years and the only times I felt emotionally numb were when I was stressing my own self out.*

In my opinion emotional numbness is when you can't get nostalgic. Cuz I used to cope with my DP by listening to songs from my childhood that I had good memories of, but I eventually got to a point where I couldn't feel those emotions anymore.

Im sure as soon as you take it easy on yourself I think you'll be able to feel again, Im in that healing process as well.


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## Guest (Feb 24, 2014)

seafoam mellow said:


> "I was emotionally numb ages before DP/DR happened"
> 
> I feel ya man. This is why I scratch my head when people say emotional numbness is a symptom of DP.
> 
> ...


Hmm, never had issues with nostalgia personally, then again I never thought about it much.

I think the only real aspect of DP is the feeling detachment from ones self.That one issue simply spawns any other symptoms.

My numbness has always been for strong negative emotions. I could never for the life of me get angry or sad. I had to force myself to cry while my do was dying, and went sort of flat when he finally did and never thought about it again.


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## Guest (Feb 24, 2014)

^ I can get sad easily, but not angry, maybe our main problem is repressed anger?


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## Ivan Hawk (Jan 22, 2010)

I feel like the bullying is a separate issue from the emotional holding back, but both certainly contribute to a greater difficultly with expressing emotions later. Gradual changes in yourself - reassessing who you are and gradually working up to expressing more and more (taking those brave leaps) will help feel more of who you know you are.

It's unfortunately sociopathy and psychopathy still remain in the dark today for bullies to lurk about unnoticed. I like to keep the matter in empirical perspective. There is no doubt most true bullies has great difficulty feeling empathy and thus act upon their human nature to compete and engage others more negatively with ignorance of the emotional consequences. Sheer ignorance in the matter as if nothing seems wrong. There is no mercy in a bully's eyes and that's the key problem... we need greater science that can change such problems. They are a social virus to society causing many children brain damage in early childhood that takes some serious efforts to heal.


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## sydneylondon (Feb 4, 2014)

seafoam mellow said:


> "I was emotionally numb ages before DP/DR happened"
> 
> I feel ya man. This is why I scratch my head when people say emotional numbness is a symptom of DP.
> 
> ...


that's terribe, music is one of the very few things that get my emotions back ocasionally!


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2014)

sydneylondon said:


> that's terribe, music is one of the very few things that get my emotions back ocasionally!


Yeah, it's cool, Im getting some feelings back though!


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## NEEDMOREBLAZE (Apr 8, 2013)

Antimony said:


> http://9gag.com/gag/adNe7QN#comment
> 
> I found this post while procrastinating, and it reminded me of something important.
> 
> ...


Sounds alot like "learned helplessness"


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