Venting Sometimes i just dont feel anything

[ChaoticMind]

Sometimes i just to the point where i just dont feel anything emotionally, like nothing at all and i dont understand why..i mean im human right? I should feel something right? For example my partner would sometimes just pour thier heart out to me. And id have to force myself to try and feel something, to day something encouraging. Most of the time i am successful. But sometime i feel they can see right though me..into thant darkness..that nothingness..and i dont know how to change it. Its like a switch gos off a bam nothing. And sometimes i feel nothing but annoyance for their emotions and im not sure why..am i some kind of monster? What type of person can feel nothing one minute and something the next?

 

[Forever Sleep]

I think it's almost like emotional burnout maybe. If you feel very intensely at times then, maybe your brain/body just can't cope with that level of intensity all the time and it kind of shuts off. I don't think it makes you a bad person though. Especially with regards to other people. If I'm in a really bad place, I find it hard to cope with other people venting to me. I'm pretty much alone though. I don't have to have that around me. I guess with people we live with, maybe we do end up shutting off to them sometimes. I guess I see it like butter on toast being spread too thinly. Sometimes, I think we just don't have enough emotional resources to take on other people's problems as well as our own. And- you do kind of take on another's problems when you empathise with them. I suspect- if you truly were a bad person though, you wouldn't even notice or particularly care that you can't always be fully there for your partner. I suspect you're just tired maybe?

 

[ChaoticMind]

I think it's almost like emotional burnout maybe. If you feel very intensely at times then, maybe your brain/body just can't cope with that level of intensity all the time and it kind of shuts off. I don't think it makes you a bad person though. Especially with regards to other people. If I'm in a really bad place, I find it hard to cope with other people venting to me. I'm pretty much alone though. I don't have to have that around me. I guess with people we live with, maybe we do end up shutting off to them sometimes. I guess I see it like butter on toast being spread too thinly. Sometimes, I think we just don't have enough emotional resources to take on other people's problems as well as our own. And- you do kind of take on another's problems when you empathise with them. I suspect- if you truly were a bad person though, you wouldn't even notice or particularly care that you can't always be fully there for your partner. I suspect you're just tired maybe?

I can be very emotional one minute and emotionless the next. Ive spoken with my therapist my doctor and finally at 33 i was diagnosed with bpd so perhaps thats just part of it..i have not thought about it possibly being an emotional burn out too though.

 

[Ash]

I think you're a normal human being with normal human responses. Switching off line that is a valid defence mechanism in the face of overwhelming emotions. It's noted as one of the trauma responses (fight, flight, freeze, fawn and flop off the top of my head). See, no monster.