When you don’t feel anything during a depression

Each person experiences depression in a different way.. There are those who experience a mixture of sadness and anger combined with despondency. Others, on the other hand, only perceive a void and the total absence of emotions. It’s like having lead in your body and fog in your mind, because when you don’t feel anything during a depression it’s as if your own being is blurred to remain suspended in absolute nothingness…

Phillip Lopate, a well-known American essayist and writer, once described this same situation in an overwhelming poem titled Numbness (Insensitivity). In it he drew a millimetric and stark portrait of that type of depression in which the person experiences a complete emotional void. It is, he said, like moving through fields of ice, it is indifference and a heart that beats at zero degrees, an anorexic illusion that displaces us from the world.

Something we must first understand about depression is that few diseases can be more complex and multifaceted. There are those who show clear symptoms, others in changes carry it with them invisibly for months or even years. It affects sleep, concentration, memory, movement and even a person’s language skills.

Now, in the midst of this clinical picture there is an aspect that is not always talked about. It’s that where The patient shows absolute insensitivity, where he says he does not feel any emotion, and only perceives a wall that has completely disconnected them from the world and even from themselves.

When you don’t feel anything during depression: why is it?

When you don’t feel anything during a depression, it is simply because you previously felt something excessively intense that you didn’t know how to handle. Thus, one aspect that the clinical literature on this topic tells us is that what many patients with this characteristic experience is a type of “emotional hangover.” It is the result of something that at one time completely surpassed them. What’s more, behind the depression itself there may also be other conditions, such as anxiety disorders or even unresolved traumas.

On the other hand, it is also worth noting the classic idea that many maintain about people with depression. This disorder is still associated exclusively with sadness. However, in a good part of the cases this reality presents other layers, another architecture. Because depression is not just sadness, it is pessimism, it is anger, it is dejection… And what also occurs is insensitivity, an emotional neutrality that often It is mixed with other physical symptoms: migraines, muscle pain, digestive problems…

Patients with this profile are also characterized by hypersomnia; they can sleep between 10 and 15 hours a day. Likewise, as they declare, they feel incapable of smiling or crying. It is as if his mind, his body, had forgotten not only how to do it, but the very meaning of these emotional gestures.. Something so seemingly devastating has several explanations that we will now detail.

Repressed emotions

When you don’t feel anything during a depression it is because perhaps you were taught as a child that it is better to camouflage, hide, swallow what hurts, bothers or worries. In fact, It is common when, for example, we go through complex family moments, stressful work situations or moments of certain adversity..

These situations generate high anxiety, which little by little becomes chronic, until the person descends into depression. Accustomed for months or years to not releasing, managing or externalizing worries, fears or regrets the brain itself ends up showing that “zero degree” on the scale of emotions. Something like this also makes up the classic mental fog, the one where it is not only difficult to react to our environment, but also reduces attention, concentration, memory…

traumatic past

If we read the poem cited at the beginning, the one by Phillip Lopate describing the callousness of his depression, we will find a truly revealing part. The one where he talks about how his father called him “cold fish” from the age of nine. An authority figure’s early criticism of his shy behavior, mocking his appearance and behavior, conditioned the way he perceived himself.

Thus, something that has been seen frequently is how The weight of a complex past or unresolved traumas, in turn, mediate the development of this type of depression characterized by emotional insensitivity.

What is the therapeutic strategy in these cases?

Our brain is an amazing organ. Now, in addition to being wonderful, sophisticated and crucial to ensuring our evolutionary success, what also characterizes it is its complexity. Hence, sometimes it is so challenging for us to make effective use of such a complicated organ to resolve precisely those equally complex situations that life itself presents to us.

Something we must understand first is that no matter how much they repeat that the brain is like a computer, there is very little truth in this idea.. We are not machines, and this sensational organ is basically governed by emotions. Understanding their processes, understanding how to handle them and putting them in our favor is the only way to get out of our own prison, from depression.

In this way, something that psychologists recommend in these cases where you do not feel anything during depression, is start our sentences with “I feel”. It is necessary to take an internal journey to remove layer by layer those embedded, trapped and infected emotions. We must explore possible traumas, resolve them and heal them… Therefore, therapies such as cognitive-behavioral therapy can help us, without ruling out other treatments aimed at controlling and resolving the anxiety disorders that these clinical conditions usually present.

The moment we begin to release our rageour anger, fears and worries, we will be starting the road to recovery.

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