Feeling Numb.
02 Oct 2019, 6:18 am
Sometimes in life I feel emotionally numb. I am normally very emotional, but since about 2007 where I was hit by death after death... 43 deaths of family and friends etc... Since then, if some sort of emotional event happens I go emotionally numb. I go into robot mode. I am functioning without feelings, and I don't like it. On the one hand I start to initially feel like crying but then it switches to numbness.
Question. Is this something to do with autism or is it something to do with life where everyone gets it?
If I tried to put feelings into a scale (E.g. on the "How do you feel right now" thread), I have no needle at all on my display to tell you. I could be very happy or very sad at the moment but I can't really feel it. I can't say what I feel except emotionally numb. What is this? Why does it happen in this way? Can anyone relate to this?
I basically feel like I have an emotional numbness dam set up like a wall, and that if the dam breaks then all the emotions would come flooding out at once and I would have some sort of break down as I couldn't handle it. So maybe being emotional numb is protecting my heart and mind from a crash?
It is interesting as I look at how my mind works. How feelings and emotions work. If I was not emotionally numb I could not write this.
But I only write to question if others experience this and what it is all about? Why didn't I have it before about 2007? Yes. I know life seemed to throw everything at me back then. But why did I not get this numbness before? Or maybe I did?
I remember as a child, one morning I woke up and found my pillow and bed covered with blood. I had a perforated eardrum because of the cold. It was winter. Frost was on the windows of the old cottage which predated the 11th centuary. The cottage didn't have an attic. The bedroom and upstairs ceiling followed the inside roofline where massive oak beams (One in each bedroom) which were pegged with a crossbeam held the roof up. The house had no central heating. The windows were sinhle pain and had old pre war metal frames. There were cosmetic shutrers on the outsides of the window frames (Fashionable before the war) and the four outer window panes (There were nine panes per window for most of the rooms) had lovely criss cross designs over them made from lead. The cottage was tiled in preasant light blue Pembrokeshire slate but had previously been thatched. The ajoining cottage (Which my dad had to partly demolish in the hot summer of 1976 where wildfires reached the field behind and the whole mountain behind aad in flames) was thatched with early corrogated iron sheets over the top. This was common once corrigated iron sheets were invented as it saved people from needing to change the thatch so often. Indeed, this thatch had been there for a great many years like this. There was a lovely little stream infront of the cotrage which dried up in summer. It was basically fed by rainwater. I used to enjoy rainy days where I would love to go out to play in the stream! And, when my parents were not looking, I would drink the rainwater which had accumilated on the top of the dustbin lid. I have to honestly say that that was some of the very best tasting water I have had in my lifetime!
But going back to the ear issue. I was first taken to the doctors who put ear drops in and sent me to the hospital. There was talk of me staying inside for a few nights. This was in the late 1970's so I was only about six when it happened. Maybe seven. No way did I want to leave my parents. No way! Fortunately theee was a shortage of beds. Gods blessing! A hospital doctor emptied an entire bottle of ear drops dosn my ear, plugged it with cotton wool and I was sent back home.
Now at the hospital the staff kept saying I was really brave to endure the pain. I must say. I had switched myself off to pain. I didn't feel the pain. I was numb to the pain!
Yet before that ear aches due to the cold were noraml life. They were rather like having tooth aches but in the ears. Many times I used to get them as a child. So I did used to get numbness. I am assumeing that it is ones bodies way to cope?
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02 Oct 2019, 6:35 am
Question. Is this something to do with autism or is it something to do with life where everyone gets it?
If I tried to put feelings into a scale (E.g. on the "How do you feel right now" thread), I have no needle at all on my display to tell you. I could be very happy or very sad at the moment but I can't really feel it. I can't say what I feel except emotionally numb. What is this? Why does it happen in this way? Can anyone relate to this?
I basically feel like I have an emotional numbness dam set up like a wall, and that if the dam breaks then all the emotions would come flooding out at once and I would have some sort of break down as I couldn't handle it. So maybe being emotional numb is protecting my heart and mind from a crash?
It is interesting as I look at how my mind works. How feelings and emotions work. If I was not emotionally numb I could not write this.
But I only write to question if others experience this and what it is all about? Why didn't I have it before about 2007? Yes. I know life seemed to throw everything at me back then. But why did I not get this numbness before? Or maybe I did?
I remember as a child, one morning I woke up and found my pillow and bed covered with blood. I had a perforated eardrum because of the cold. It was winter. Frost was on the windows of the old cottage which predated the 11th centuary. The cottage didn't have an attic. The bedroom and upstairs ceiling followed the inside roofline where massive oak beams (One in each bedroom) which were pegged with a crossbeam held the roof up. The house had no central heating. The windows were sinhle pain and had old pre war metal frames. There were cosmetic shutrers on the outsides of the window frames (Fashionable before the war) and the four outer window panes (There were nine panes per window for most of the rooms) had lovely criss cross designs over them made from lead. The cottage was tiled in preasant light blue Pembrokeshire slate but had previously been thatched. The ajoining cottage (Which my dad had to partly demolish in the hot summer of 1976 where wildfires reached the field behind and the whole mountain behind aad in flames) was thatched with early corrogated iron sheets over the top. This was common once corrigated iron sheets were invented as it saved people from needing to change the thatch so often. Indeed, this thatch had been there for a great many years like this. There was a lovely little stream infront of the cotrage which dried up in summer. It was basically fed by rainwater. I used to enjoy rainy days where I would love to go out to play in the stream! And, when my parents were not looking, I would drink the rainwater which had accumilated on the top of the dustbin lid. I have to honestly say that that was some of the very best tasting water I have had in my lifetime!
But going back to the ear issue. I was first taken to the doctors who put ear drops in and sent me to the hospital. There was talk of me staying inside for a few nights. This was in the late 1970's so I was only about six when it happened. Maybe seven. No way did I want to leave my parents. No way! Fortunately theee was a shortage of beds. Gods blessing! A hospital doctor emptied an entire bottle of ear drops dosn my ear, plugged it with cotton wool and I was sent back home.
Now at the hospital the staff kept saying I was really brave to endure the pain. I must say. I had switched myself off to pain. I didn't feel the pain. I was numb to the pain!
Yet before that ear aches due to the cold were noraml life. They were rather like having tooth aches but in the ears. Many times I used to get them as a child. So I did used to get numbness. I am assumeing that it is ones bodies way to cope?
Good day, MG.
It's the same way for me with regard to any feeling but anger. And sometimes fear, which I very often deal with in an angry fashion.
Many times throughout the day, lately I feel tears welling up. Then they just absorb right back into my eyes. I would feel better if I could cry, but the tears won't come. I don't know why that is, either.
I also can numb myself to pain associated with most ailments and testing. I would not be able to numb myself to passing a kidney stone, or something like that. But, I also wouldn't cry. I would scream, but not shed a tear.
I don't know what any of that means, but emotional regulation is a problem for some autists.
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Neurocognitive exam in May 2019, diagnosed with ASD, Asperger's type in June 2019.
02 Oct 2019, 7:33 am
It is something I am now puzzling about as I am trying to fathom out what is happening to me... What things are related to autistic traits and what are related to trauma or any other events that can happen in life.
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