Coping with Emotional Numbness in DID and Trauma

Emotional numbness can feel more unsettling than pain — leaving you cut off from yourself, your emotions, and sometimes even your relationships. For many survivors of complex trauma and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), numbness is a survival response: a way the nervous system protects you from overwhelm. In this video, we’ll explore gentle, practical ways to understand emotional numbness, view it as a protective response, and begin noticing safe pathways back to feeling again.

Sometimes, numbness is more distressing than pain. Pain at least tells you that you are alive. But numbness? Nothing touches you. If you’ve had to shut down to survive, you are all too familiar with numbness. At first, it can be a relief. But when it lingers, you can start to worry that something is wrong with you. You may worry that you’ll never feel again. I’m going to come back to this concern at the end of the video.

Emotional numbness is common with complex trauma. And with DID, often one of more members of your system are actively involved in shutting down emotions so your system is not overwhelmed by them. Not being able to feel was crucial to your survival once and your nervous system hasn’t gotten the memo that things are different for you now. Your nervous system continues to try to protect you through numbness. So when you notice you are numb and not feeling any emotions, look at this as a sign that your nervous system doesn’t feel safe. You might even imagine numbness as a protector part in your system. You might ask yourself, “What would numbness tell me if it could speak?”

You might choose to explore the numbness like you would any emotion. Get curious about it. What do you notice? Is it heavy or light? Is it in one part of your body or spread throughout? Is it soft or hard, prickly or smooth? Does it have a shape or color? What would it look like if you sketched it?

Often times one path to experiencing emotions is through a safe relationship. This might be imaginal, such as remembering how you felt with a loving grandparent. Or it might be in the present moment, stroking your cat or dog and thinking about how much they mean to you, and noticing the peace being with them can give you.

It is possible you are not completely numb. You might be experiencing some, milder emotions that aren’t registering. You can monitor yourself by tracking emotions several times per day. Perhaps each time you eat, you might take a minute and ask yourself how much curiosity, interest, amusement, contentment, or relief you are experiencing. Use a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is none and at 10 you can’t experience any more than you already are. Over time, you may record small variations in what you notice. You may notice that you are ranging from 0 to 3 or 4. While 3 or 4 is still small, it’s significantly more than you thought you were experiencing.

I have given you several different ways you can approach your emotional numbness. You get to decide which is right for you, and when. Perhaps now isn’t the right time to work on this. You may have other issues which are more crucial. Don’t feel pressured to try all of these ideas, especially if one of them stands out to you over the others. Take what is helpful and leave the rest!

Tying this back to the beginning of the video, I noted that many times people who are experiencing numbness also experience concern or anxiety about it, fearful they may be stuck like this forever. Notice those words I just used: concern, anxiety, fear. Those are emotions! So if you are currently struggling with emotional numbness or deadening, I hope your concern, anxiety, or fear can be a weird comfort to you by showing you that the numbness isn’t 100%. You’ve identified that you do feel something. And with time and effort, you will be able to decrease the numbness.