Inability To Feel Joy

[sun seeker]

I considered putting this in the Depression forum, because it is going to sound like a depression-related topic, but I really don't feel it is.

This September marks 11 years since an event that left me with a disturbing symptom: a complete inability to feel joy. It wasn't what I'd call a traumatic event exactly, but the loss of connection to some very important people in my life, and there were other stressors (big ones, now I think of it) going on at the same time. I suppose the event reminded me of other losses in my life, and the way I was treated at the time was demeaning and disempowering. I went through a long period of crying myself to sleep every night. Eventually things got better enough that I went on with my life, but the grief never really resolved.

Since that time I have not been able to feel joy. I can be in situations where I can reason with myself that, were I able to feel joy, this would be a time to feel it... but it's as if the impulse gets interrupted between my brain and my heart. It makes me feel like a robot. I'm wishing I could find that warm, excited, expansive feeling again.

I don't know if I've already answered my own question by calling this "unresolved grief." Is that the answer - more processing of the grief (and probably, all the previous losses in my life that this one reminds me of)? It feels like I've cried my eyes out over this time and time again. Not really in the presence of supportive others though; as soon as someone empathizes with how hard this loss must have been I shut down and feel like it wasn't that bad and I should be over it by now. Is that the problem?

Don't know why this is coming to mind right now when I have so many other pressing issues going on, but there it is. I don't know if there is a magic bullet for this kind of thing, or is there something obvious that I'm not seeing? Could someone please point me to it?

 

[NarcSis]

Emotional numbing is common with trauma and PTSD.

I know what you mean, I get that blank disconnected feeling a lot too. I notice I can smile or laugh but not feel the joy that should be there. I hug & kiss my hubby but can't feel that warm lovey feeling I used to. It's not depression it's just an absence of feeling that should be there, it's strange, disturbing and for me it comes and goes. Sometimes I can feel, other times of the year, blank.

 

[sun seeker]

I'm not sure if this is exactly emotional numbing, because I can feel other emotions. It's just joy that is missing.

Can you tell me @Medic72, have you been having this problem for a long time?

 

[NarcSis]

I'd say I only really became aware of it two years ago but my timelines are always screwey and jumbled since PTSD, it could've been three years....a while.

Like I said, I get periods of blank, months at a time. I can feel my negative emotions fine, I can react positively but I just can't feel the joy or happy inside of me, like it's been cut off.

 

[sun seeker]

I can react positively but I just can't feel the joy or happy inside of me, like it's been cut off

Yes, that's what it feels like for me too. Eleven years. Sigh...

 

[sun seeker]

Emotional numbing is common with trauma and PTSD

So this is interesting. I've probably had PTSD for most of my life, though I only bothered getting it diagnosed recently. But as I mentioned, the event that preceded this emotional numbing, if that's what this is, wasn't what I would call a trauma. Maybe it just filled my stress cup to overflowing so the trauma that was already there took over...?

 

[NarcSis]

It's called emotional numbing, the lack of connectedness to positive emotion. There are theories that it's a survival thing or that there are damaged connections to those brain centers. Whatever it is, it does kinda suck.

For now, I'm okay with being neutral, it's not depressed and it's not over joyed it's just even.

(((Hugs)))

 

[NarcSis]

That would be your trauma trigger, even though it's not a trauma, it elicits the memories and stimulates the trauma reactions to start.

PTSD & emotional numbing go hand in hand especially in developmental trauma. I believe suggestions to target it would be things like practicing connectedness - imagining your happiness/joy and trying to reach it. If that makes sense....????

 

[Friday]

Anything else on the happy-spectrum you can feel? I've got a suspicion here, but don't wanna blather on if I'm off my mark!

 

[sun seeker]

There are theories that it's a survival thing or that there are damaged connections to those brain centers.

Do you have any sources you could recommend? I'm reading wikipedia articles and they seem to mostly point to the anterior cingulate cortex, but on further reading it seems that processes negative emotion, which I can feel just fine. :(

That would be your trauma trigger, even though it's not a trauma, it elicits the memories and stimulates the trauma reactions to start.

I can see how that could happen. Loss of an important connection, even if it didn't happen in a traumatic way, is close enough to things that were traumatic that perhaps my brain processed it as trauma.

imagining your happiness/joy and trying to reach it

Wish I knew how to do this. It feels like the muscles that do the reaching have had their nerve supply cut off.

Anything else on the happy-spectrum you can feel?

Love. Calm. Not much else. Nothing excited, blissful, passionate, any of that. Active happy-spectrum emotions I guess you could say. I don't feel any of them.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I am sixty years old and for most of my life I never ever felt joy and felt angry and deprived of this emotion.

Recently within the last year I have begun to feel real joy and awe at the beauty I see on the planet and have a fuller appreciation for the wonders in simple pleasures now.

I tell you this to have hope that one day this will happen for you. It happens when you are ready for it having gone on your journey and finding light at the end of the tunnel.

I do not feel joy all of the time but it is a mighty fine miracle for me that at long last I do feel this emotion. It is awe inspiring to be able to feel real joy. So keep on going forwards anyway.

You sound so weary and I can remember feeling that way for most of my life. It does eventually get better for you, so please hang onto this ok?

 

[sun seeker]

Wow @gizmo, that is awesome news. Especially if you were unable to feel joy for most of your life, I can imagine what a precious gift it must have been to find it at last. What a long haul it's been for you and I am glad it is finally getting better. Thank you for sharing that.

Sigh... yes, weary is one of the things I am feeling.