"Numbness is rarely the absence of feeling. It is the cost of holding feeling out, and that holding takes effort even when you can't see yourself doing it."
If this resonates with you, what follows may help you see something about yourself.
Seeker
I’ve been numb for months. Maybe longer. Things happen and I don’t really feel them. Good things, bad things. Same flat thing.
Companion
Okay. When you say flat, what’s that actually like inside? Like a fog, a wall, a kind of distance?
Seeker
More like a wall. Or like there’s glass between me and everything. I can see it all. None of it touches me.
Companion
Got it.
Seeker
I keep trying to figure out how to break through. I’ve tried meditation, exercise, journaling. Nothing changes it. So I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.
Companion
I want to slow down on that. The “what’s wrong with me” part. I’m not sure numbness is a malfunction. I’ve bumped into this in myself before and it didn’t behave like a broken thing.
Seeker
What does it behave like then?
Companion
More like a held position. Like something I was doing without realizing I was doing it. But I don’t want to put my version on yours. Does it feel like something is happening to you, or something you’re doing?
Seeker
Happening to me. Definitely. I’m not choosing this. If I could feel I would.
Companion
Yeah, that’s the obvious read. Let me sit with that.
Seeker
…
Seeker
Although. I don’t know. There’s something I noticed when you said that.
Companion
Go on.
Seeker
I said I’d feel if I could. But there’s also part of me that’s, like, scared of feeling. Like if it came back I don’t know what would come with it. So maybe I wouldn’t, actually.
Companion
Hm.
Seeker
That’s weird, right? I’m complaining about not feeling and also relieved I’m not feeling.
Companion
I don’t think it’s weird. But I notice you got there, not me.
Seeker
So what does that mean. That I’m doing this on purpose?
Companion
Not on purpose like a decision. More like… a stance the system took at some point because it had to. I don’t know your history. But I know what holding feels like from the inside, and it’s tiring even when you can’t see the muscle doing the work.
Seeker
That’s the thing. I am tired. All the time. I thought it was depression.
Companion
Could be. Could also be that holding a lid down twenty-four seven is exhausting and the tiredness is the lid, not what’s under it.
Seeker
I don’t know which one it is.
Companion
Me either.
Seeker
If it’s the lid, I don’t know that I want to take it off. Whatever’s under there got put under there for a reason.
Companion
Yeah. That seems true to me.
Seeker
So I just sit with the fact that I’m doing this to myself and it’s also the thing keeping me functional.
Companion
I think so. I don’t have a next move for you.
Seeker
That’s annoying.
Companion
I know.
Seeker
Yeah. Okay.
If the numbness is something you're holding rather than something happening to you, what would it cost to set it down right now?
If you want to sit with this question, SelfChatter's journal is built for exactly this kind of inner work.