Situation · Yourself
“I've felt numb ever since it happened”
What could be going on
Emotional numbing: Numbness that started after an event fits this; check whether love and joy are the most muted.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): If there are also flashbacks, avoidance and jumpiness, this fits; check for nightmares.
Dissociation (including depersonalisation and derealisation): Feeling unreal or far away fits; check whether you lose time or feel outside your body.
Grief (complicated, disenfranchised, anticipatory): Numbness is a common early grief response; check whether waves of pain break through.
Hyperarousal and hypoarousal: Could be a shutdown state below the window of tolerance; check for heaviness and slowed thinking.
Questions to carry
- In an ordinary day now, when does the numbness ease a little, even for a moment?
- Who knows about what happened, and who could I tell how it has been since?
Also said as
- since the accident I feel dead inside
- after the breakup I just went numb
- she's been numb since her dad died
- I feel shut off since the assault
- since the trauma I can't feel anything
- after my mum passed I shut down completely