Why you feel nothing when you should feel everything

Living Behind Glass

The Experience

Something happened that should matter but you feel... nothing.

Good news arrives, and you are blank. Someone you care about is hurting, and you're numb. You're at a celebration, going through the motions, watching life happen from behind a pane of glass.

You remember what emotion felt like and that feelings exist. But now, there is just static—a void where the joy or the pain should be.

But you want to feel. You know you should care so you perform the script: you smile when you hear good news, you say the right words, you nod at the right times. But inside? Nothing.

It's like watching a foreign language you used to speak fluently but have somehow forgotten.

People might think you're cold, distant, or checked out. They don't understand that you aren't choosing this. You would give anything to feel something—even pain—rather than this endless gray static. You wonder if you're broken, or if this hollow version of you is all that is left.

You haven't lost your emotions. Your nervous system simply shut them down to protect you from being overwhelmed,

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Why This Happens

Here's what is happening inside your wiring:

When life becomes too much—too much pain, too much fear, too much to process—your brain activates a built-in emergency system called emotional numbing or dissociation.

It's like a circuit breaker in your house; your emotional system is like electrical wiring. If the voltage gets too high (trauma or overwhelm), the system risks burning out. So, your brain flips the circuit breaker and cuts the power to save the system.

The problem is that the breaker got stuck in the "off" position. Your nervous system learned a hard lesson: Feeling things is dangerous. Emotions lead to pain. The safest state is no feeling at all.

This creates a flatline. Because you cannot selectively numb just the bad stuff, you lose access to the good stuff, too. You become disconnected from your body because emotions live in physical sensations, and right now, your body is offline.

The circuit breaker is doing its job—it is protecting you from pain it believes you can't handle. It just doesn't realize the emergency is over.

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You Are Not Broken

Emotional numbness is one of the most common, yet misunderstood, responses to trauma. You are not cold. You are not incapable of caring. You are simply stuck in a protective mode.

Because this is a mechanism, it can be reset.

The circuit breaker can be flipped back on. Your capacity to feel can return, but it must happen slowly. You cannot force a frozen limb to thaw instantly without pain; you must warm it gradually.

To help the circuit breaker reset:

👉 Stop judging: Don't shame yourself for not feeling. Acknowledgement is enough.

👉 Focus on sensation: If you can't feel *emotion*, try to feel sensation. Notice the temperature of the air, the texture of your shirt, or the pressure of your feet on the floor.

👉 Use movement: Sometimes the body can access feelings before the mind can.

👉 Be patient: Feelings return gradually, often in small, inconvenient bursts. This is normal.

You're not broken. You're protected. Eventually, when your nervous system learns it's safe to handle the voltage again, the numbness will soften.

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Sources & More Information

* Van der Kolk, B. (2014). *The Body Keeps the Score*

* Levine, P. (2010). *In an Unspoken Voice*

* National Center for PTSD:

[Emotional Numbing]

(https://www.ptsd.va.gov/)

* Psychology Today:

[Understanding Dissociation and Numbing]

(https://www.psychologytoday.com/)