Any tricks, exercises, or books for emotional numbness?

[TheAffectee]

Does anyone know of any tricks, exercises, or books about dealing with and getting through emotional numbness?


One of my issues is a pervasive emotional numbness. I have trouble knowing what I want, I can't process or work with feelings I can't access, I can't connect with others, I can't grieve over past pain, I have difficulty setting boundaries, .... The numbness prevents me from living.

The only exception is that every morning I wake up with overwhelmingly strong feelings of loneliness, ennui, tiredness, and diffuse pain. I have enourmous difficulty in finding the energy to get up until the near total emotional numbness takes over after an hour or two.

I have time and time again tried focusing on and staying with the painful feelings in the morning, but they don't seem to fade away or get processed properly. I just lose contact with the feelings when the numbness suddenly comes, and the next day I wake up the pain is back as strong as ever until the numbness comes again.

I have tried finding some other feelings to work with in the morning melange in the hope of unlocking something, but haven't found anything other than the unresponsive pain and loneliness.


During the day the numbness might vary slightly in intensity, but I never get fully in contact with any emotions.

The only thing that seems cut through the numbness is complete rage. Often I have trouble noticing the building rage until I'm seconds away from exploding; that makes it difficult to avoid whatever is causing it, and doesn't give me an opportunity to get a handle on the rage enough to prevent me from exploding.


I have through some Internal Family Systems work realized that often the rage is covering some other painful feelings. Unfortunately the rage just explodes and is difficult to work with, and all other feelings are hidden by the numbness.


My psychologist has several times given me the advice to "stay with your emotions and just observe them in your body and the numbness will likely improve over time". After months of trying I have reached and gotten stuck at a point where I often find a trace of painful feelings in my chest if I look for them. The feelings are very similar to the physical sensation of being poked by a stick: a point of sharp ache that doesn't really mean anything, doesn't connect to anything, and won't open up further. Even when I stay with and keep my full focus on an aching point for an hour I'm not really getting anywhere.

Although the numbness likely has kept me going through the years, it's preventing me from healing as well.

 

[SoulSeeker]

Hi TheAffectee!

It makes a lot of sense that explosive anger would result from your disconnection to your feelings. Emotions need to go somewhere, they can't disappear. When your nervous system pushes them down, they actually are stored somewhere. Some people experience body pains, some have terrible nightmares, some see their feelings transformed into extreme sadness... anyway, your anger is like a valve that temporarily allows your hidden feelings to be released. That gives you one path you could explore. Anger. How about trying to voluntarily express it? It can be more or less subtle, from angrily writing things to yelling and hitting stuff (safely, of course). What do you think?

Other than that, I personally have found EMDR quite useful when it comes to finding hidden emotions. The good thing with EMDR is that it's a bit shamanistic in a way, it's an inner voyage that's very personal to you, step by step. You unravel things little by little and then without truly knowing how or why, something unlocks.

There's also TRE (Trauma Releasing Exercises) which is basically yoga focused on core muscles that are known to "hold" trauma. Yoga in general, I've heard, could be a way to reconnect to your body and as a result to your feelings.

Really, the unlocking could come from anywhere. Even things like art (doing it or experiencing it) or being in nature or in contact with animals. Things that gently push you to experience things through hearing, smells, touch. Maybe try to incorporate these things in your life.

Your therapist is right but I think it's easier said than done and you might need more external help because when our mind and body hides things from us, it usually means that we've reached a threshold of tolerance, something is too much for us to handle. So we need very strong support, signs that even if we unleash something terrifying, we will survive and will be able to handle it. Trying to unlock these feelings just by focusing, I believe, can be fruitless if sufficient safety isn't around. In fact, it can also be re-traumatizing in the worst cases.

I can see that it's not for a lack of trying that you can't access these feelings. I believe your nervous system is just waiting for the right circumstances, which is completely natural and in fact a very good safety measure.

Does that make sense to you?

 

[TheAffectee]

Hi SoulSeeker, thanks for the reply. You brought a lot of good input.

I'm uncertain about how to work on the rage. Earlier I had something that was more along the lines of strong anger, separate from the rage. I managed to calm a lot of the anger down with IFS and visualization exercises.
I suspect that the rage is what IFS calls "a firefighter"; it explodes in the blink of an eye, shuts off almost as quickly, and doesn't respond to prodding or reasoning much at all. So far the best management strategy has been to abort any kind of thought pattern I think will lead into rage-land, although that's more avoiding the problem than dealing with it. It feels like walking in a minefield at times; I know it's there, but a careless mental misstep or a minor external annoyance at the wrong time can set it off instantly.

You are probably right about yoga/TRE.
I got started with some simple trauma-informed yoga exercises my therapist suggested. At first my reaction was so severe I nearly fainted from being overwhelmed when doing some very simple stretches.
Currently I'm attending a beginners class in yoga. I usually notice some kind of mental shift after a class, but the overwhelming initial effects have worn off. Maybe the yoga leads somewhere down the line.

I've been interested in trying EMDR, but it seems like it requires a trained therapist? It will have to wait until I can afford regular therapy again.

 

[TheAffectee]

Here's two simple exercises for discovering emotions in the body that I found recently, in case anyone reading this thread also finds the exercises useful.


The first exercise is deceptively simple, I found it on Reddit.
Place your open hand on your chest, and using your hand feel how your chest feels. Can you feel any texture with your fingertips? Can you notice your heartbeat, or feel any muscles moving slightly? Really focus on any details your hand can feel on your chest.

Now switch the focus of your awareness from your hand on your chest, to your chest under your hand. Use your chest to feel your hand. Can you feel any warmth coming into your chest from your hand? Can you feel the fingers gently pressing against the skin on your chest? Really focus on how your chest feels right where your hand is touching.

Switch your awareness back and forth between your chest and your hand a few times, spend at least 10-20 seconds with your awareness in either position.

After a little bit, with each shift I noticed something loosening up ever so slightly with a hint of something hiding in my chest. I'll keep trying this exercise for a few days and see if I discover anything else.


The second exercise takes a bit of time, but is quite simple as well. The biggest difficulty lies in keeping your mind quiet and listening on bodily sensations.

Set a timer for 20-30 minutes and lay down on the floor, or on top of a bed.
Close your eyes, spread your arms and legs out comfortably, and just lay there focusing on whatever sensations you can find in your body.

If your body feels that it wants to lay on the side instead, turn over on your side. If your body wants to curl up, curl up. Just listen to what your body feels or tells you, and do whatever your body wants to the best of your ability.

If some small feeling shows up in your chest or stomach, observe it without neither forcing it away or trying to forcefully feel more of it. The feeling might do nothing, it might fade away, it might grow, or it might feel like the feeling wants you to do some specific movement or position. If you notice a movement or position in the feeling, try doing the movement or position and see if anything further happens.

I'll have to keep trying this exercise for a bit to see if anything shakes loose; I have experienced movements and positions unlocking emotions before so I think there might be something here.