Numb
Have you ever been in so much pain you could no longer feel? Whether the cause is physical or emotional, pain is important to deal with. But what if you can’t feel it?
Some people have a condition where they cannot sense physical pain. If their bodies are injured, they remain unaware unless they can detect something that indicates they have been wounded. With emotional wounds, we can have a similar issue. An injury occurs, but we do not sense the pain and the wound is left unattended.
Other times, we know we’ve been hurt but the pain is so great, we are unable to process it. We can go into a state of shock or adrenaline delays the feeling of pain. Emotionally, we can acknowledge the source of the pain but its magnitude prevents us from feeling it. The resulting numbness can be just as debilitating as the pain.
So what do you do? Physical injuries can be treated with medicine and bandages, but how do you treat emotional wounds that you cannot feel? I don’t know the answer to that. What I’ve been doing for mine is this:
Some people have a condition where they cannot sense physical pain. If their bodies are injured, they remain unaware unless they can detect something that indicates they have been wounded. With emotional wounds, we can have a similar issue. An injury occurs, but we do not sense the pain and the wound is left unattended.
Other times, we know we’ve been hurt but the pain is so great, we are unable to process it. We can go into a state of shock or adrenaline delays the feeling of pain. Emotionally, we can acknowledge the source of the pain but its magnitude prevents us from feeling it. The resulting numbness can be just as debilitating as the pain.So what do you do? Physical injuries can be treated with medicine and bandages, but how do you treat emotional wounds that you cannot feel? I don’t know the answer to that. What I’ve been doing for mine is this:
- Tell myself the truth about how I feel. Even though I don’t currently feel the pain of rejection and disappointment, I acknowledge the truth about the circumstances I’m in, the emotions that come along with them, and the present numbness that is occurring because those feelings are too big for me to handle right now.
- Pray. I tell God about what happened; how that usually makes me feel; and how I don’t feel it now. I know I can trust God with all of my pain, feelings, and numbness.
- Avoid denying my pain. It’s super easy to deny what you don’t feel. It’s also easy to continue to do that once you start to feel it. As sparks of emotion show, I try to feel them and not dull them.
- Feel what I feel. If all I feel is numbness, I acknowledge that and process the non-feeling. This helps to counter the urge to go into denial.
- Wait. In my experience, emotional pain isn’t something that just goes away on its own. It must be acknowledged so that healing can take place. Eventually, the feeling returns and at that time, it can be dealt with.
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
Psalm 34:18 ESV
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