I couldn’t figure out why I felt so numb. I couldn’t connect with any part of myself that felt good, happy or joyful. I was completely disconnected from feeling good, emotionally, spiritually and sexually. I had seen my doctor to figure out what was wrong – she couldn’t figure it out, either.
I felt broken and I was scared that I would feel so little for the rest of my life.
I shouldn’t say that I felt nothing. Eventually other feelings started percolating – mainly anger, resentment, envy and bitterness.
It was a hard time, very confusing and uncomfortable. I imagine I wasn’t that fun to be around either, as the frustration in me had nowhere to go and would have been a bubbling undertone of my personality and behavior.
It took me a long time to realize that the numbness and the peril of emotions I was experiencing were because I had lost track of myself. I had given up my identity and pushed past my intuitions to force a reality that didn’t feel good.
I had broken trust with myself because I hadn’t been honest with myself.
I had permitted myself to stay in a relationship that didn’t serve me. I felt that because I had made commitments, I wasn’t able to change my mind. I felt guilty for wanting something different and I was scared at the social ramifications that would come with ending the relationship. I was also terrified of being lonely. My fear of loneliness meant I stayed in a relationship where I felt empty and alone because I had disconnected from the things that felt good; my body had no choice but to numb to stay with it.
I had friendships that kept me small because I was so anxious about being alone. I kept any friendship that helped me avoid that. I wanted to be seen so I kept company that filled that role, but it made me feel unseen.
I was feeling numb because I wasn’t being real. I was being who I thought I should be, but I wasn’t being the me that felt good, honorable or honest with myself. We can do this in all kinds of ways, some which may look like:
- Being overly available to others, even when we know it depletes us.
- Having an open-door policy in our office or home but feeling exhausted by the amount of traffic that enters.
- Committing to work deadlines that we know are unrealistic.
- Feeling unable to say NO.
- Not taking vacation time.
- Fitting in as much socializing as possible so we don’t feel like we’re missing out.
- Scheduling every minute of our days so we don’t have to be with ourselves.
- Hiding from the world, so we can literally hide from how we feel.
- Not going after what we want because we’re afraid of being judged.
- Trying to fit into society’s ideals of what our lives should look like, including what we and the people in our lives should look like.
Any distraction we use (social media, work, alcohol, drugs, people, shopping, exercise, etc.) to not feel an emotion, like sadness, loneliness, overwhelm, fear of the future, worthlessness, failure, and pain, is just a method for disconnection. If those disconnections become everyday habits, we will eventually start to feel the ways we’re not being real with ourselves. This is especially obvious when life gets real, such as during the death of a loved one, job loss, loss of friends, global pandemics or environmental disasters. You get the point – anything that hits home and makes us feel because we’re unable to avoid it.
For me, my whole world had to fall apart, in all ways, not only in the loss of relationships; any sense of knowing what the future might be or what home looked like was burned to the ground. I had to slowly rebuild, and it felt hard and scary.
This was extremely difficult, and I think we don’t have to take this route. I think we can see the ways we’re disconnecting with ourselves and slowly shine the light there, eventually healing and recovering the parts of ourselves that we’ve abandoned so that we don’t have to hit rock bottom to realize what’s not working.
However, through my massive disconnect I’ve learned that anger and frustration are my north star. If I start feeling those things, I need to think quickly about what I’m doing, because whatever is happening in my life is not serving me, and those emotions help me see clearly and relatively quickly.
What are the emotions you feel when you’re not honouring yourself or when you’ve disconnected from the parts of you that feel good? Do you feel it in your body as a sensation, do you have strong emotional responses or is it a combination of both?
With love, Noelle