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Numb or Regulated

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For me numb is....
I can put a bullet right between your eyes and not even blink if you pissed me off. I can have someone close die and just move on like any other day. I feel zero emotion good or bad. As with @Freida numb is sometimes good because you do not have to deal with the underlying cause of the trauma. It falls right in line with avoidance.

Regulated is.....
Able to feel both good and bad emotions. It’s the place where my PTSD cup is not full. I can laugh and enjoy it. My filter is there so I am not a sarcastic asshole.
 
I think regulated is when you have emotions that are basically what would be expected for said situation you are in.

Numb is when you don't/can't be able to feel the emotions that would be expected in that given situation.

I can give an example of numb. My husband died and I was only able to cry one tear out of my right eye. I guess that was numbness. I can't remember anything else from that time period either. It is like a missing piece of my life.
 
Thanks for sharing that @Changing4Best
I can very much understand. And the thoughts that go with the absence of emotion....confusing and self destructive.

Agree that there are memory gaps that go with numb too. I mean as little as I know about memory and how it’s coded in the brain, I understand that an emotional component is often required to lay down the tracks of memory.
Which is another piece of PTSD in itself - trauma invokes survival response, emotions come with that. The trauma feels out of control, so what we can control is where we send effort.....especially if the trauma needs to be endured, or we need to continue to function without processing what happened.
For me, I think that’s where numb started and it has become such an automatic technique.
 
Great question as I have also thought about this as well. Brene Brown (google her Ted talks) states that you can not emotionally numb selectively. In other words if you emotionally numb the negative, you also are numbing the positive emotions. So conversely if you are no longer emotionally numbing the negative because you has established regulation you, by Brene Bron's perspective you are also no longer numbing the positive emotions so........how do you know the difference between numbing and regulation.......if you are starting to or can even "feel" the slightest positive emotions then I would say you are regulated and not numbing. Now of course this is not a point in time check but more over a period of time awareness.
 
I disagree with the idea you can't selectively numb an emotion.

I did it with sadness many years, and with anger other years, and with care / compassion even though not really an 'emotion' more a series of choices, but talking the emotive component...

And I ain't that special, which means that understanding of selectivity and what's possible, is simplistic.
 
I disagree with the idea you can't selectively numb an emotion.

I did it with sadness many years, and with anger other years, and with care / compassion even though not really an 'emotion' more a series of choices, but talking the emotive component...

And I ain't that special, which means that understanding of selectivity and what's possible, is simplistic.

I was only stating what Brene Brown had stated about selectively numbing emotions. I am still pondering that idea myself.
 
This thread might end with zero replies cuz it’s just something unique to me, or maybe not. Maybe it could be useful to others too.
I was very very close to making an almost identical thread, but a few hours before you posted this? Decided to try and draw it out for my T, instead. (Still haven’t drawn it :whistling: ). Because finding the words is difficult, when I’m in it.

((I’m in limbo-land, at the moment, sort of stuck between places and still unsure of which way it’s going to drop. There are things I could do to deliberately push into some... not great, but very well understood... places. But pivoting towards places I want to be? How to get there? Very much beyond me.))

Feeeeeeeelings :wtf:
 
Alright....selective numbing. Yeah, I think it’s possible but the outline is obscure cuz I haven’t thought about it until you said @Ronin

So, curious.... when you stuffed sadness/anger/care etc....for certain you could feel/engage with happy, joy, fear?

Was it genuine or did you get conditioned or adapt to present a certain way for survival?

@Friday I agreed to talk to my T and this is the topic, so you and me both are plotting this mess out together.
 
Lol @Warrior Chicken... You had me at 'Was it genuine... Or did that just get conditioned or chosen adaptation.'

Because damn good Q. ;)
And something I'll come back to.

@Friday Trash it out if it'll help you, maybe we can kick back and make a party in mental hell, Warrior is excellent company if numbness leads to Aw f*ck what IS this mess instead :sneaky:

(We seerious need got your 6 emoticon. Cos plain :hug: ain't what I goddamn mean at both of you.

I'm also bored as f*ck by my own shit and thinking of someone else's feelings sounds fun.)
 
Alright....selective numbing.
@Ronin

So, curious.... when you stuffed sadness/anger/care etc....for certain you could feel/engage with happy, joy, fear?

Was it genuine or did you get conditioned or adapt to present a certain way for survival?

Yah, doubled the coffee so might even be verbal, now.

The sadness part was honestly something that went on its own. I mean sure, there were incentives / who gets hurt / worse, next. But most of it was the feeling just... stopped. It was still there as a dull ache that changed all other moods for months in, months out... but it wasn't sadness. The short spells of it had me hysterically crying, restrained or restrained by mates so adults don't get to hear, or flying myself at targets... because the world is Sad, not me ;) / was what kid me said, the world was sad, that it was my feeling honestly didn't compute.

... and then not remembering a goddamn thing. Normal day. Totally cool and calm. Laughing and genuinely happy, even.

One part of why sadness is such a bitch, adulthood. Because it got pushed so deep down even I forgot where it is.

The other emotions / answer, later ;) Imma do this in pieces / in order I compartmentalize it okay. Can't answer it in one piece. :)
 
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