personal story Archives - The Buzz Base

Emotional Numbness: When You Stop Feeling Anything At All

Penny — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 09:36:11 +0000

For two years, I told people I was “fine” and meant it. Not in the way people usually mean it, where fine is a polite lie covering something messier underneath. I meant it because I genuinely couldn’t find anything else under there to report. No sadness. No anger. Not even relief. Just a flat, grey nothing that I mistook for peace.That’s what emotional numbness does.

It doesn’t announce itself as a crisis. It arrives quietly, dressed up as calm, and you don’t notice it’s moved in until someone asks how you’re feeling and you realise you don’t actually know.

What Emotional Numbness Feels Like From the Inside

People imagine numbness as the absence of pain. It isn’t. It’s the absence of access. The pain is still there, somewhere underneath the floorboards, but the part of you that’s supposed to feel it has gone offline.

I could watch a film that used to make me cry and feel nothing. I could sit through a difficult conversation with a friend and respond like I was reading lines from a script someone else had written. My voice did the right things. My face did the right things. Inside, there was a strange, padded silence, like the volume had been turned down on my own life.

I didn’t call it numbness at the time. It was called it being “level-headed.” I told myself I’d just become someone who didn’t get rattled anymore. It took a long time to admit that wasn’t strength. It was a nervous system that had quietly decided feeling things was too dangerous to keep doing. Some of the more telling signs of emotional numbness include feeling like an outside observer of your own life, or even envying people whose emotions still run loud, both of which felt uncomfortably familiar once I started paying attention.

Why the Body Shuts Emotions Off

Numbness is rarely random. It’s usually a trauma response, the same survival mechanism behind fight or flight, except this one doesn’t run or fight. It freezes. When the brain decides that emotion has become unsafe or overwhelming, it can dial feeling down to almost nothing, the same way you’d flip a circuit breaker to stop a house from burning down.

For me, the breaker flipped during a stretch of grief and chronic stress that never really got a chance to resolve. One loss came too close behind another, and somewhere in there, my system made a decision without asking me: shut it down before it floods us both.

That decision probably saved me from drowning at the time. The problem was that nobody told my body when it was safe to switch back on. So it didn’t. Research on the neuroscience of dissociation explains why this happens: when the brain’s alarm system stays on high alert for too long, it can swing the other way entirely, dulling emotional response rather than amplifying it.

Mistaking Numbness for Healing

This is the part I think people get wrong most often, myself included for a long time. Numbness can look a lot like healing from the outside. You stop crying. You stop reacting. Friends say things like “you’re so much stronger now” or “I’m proud of how far you’ve come,” and you nod, because it’s easier than explaining that you’re not stronger, you’re just absent.

Real healing has texture. It has bad days mixed in with better ones. Numbness has no texture at all, which is exactly what makes it so easy to mistake for progress. Nothing hurts, so it must mean nothing’s wrong. Except a life with nothing hurting and nothing moving isn’t peace. It’s a kind of pause button stuck on hold.

I stayed on pause longer than I’d like to admit, partly because nobody around me could tell the difference, and partly because I didn’t want to look too closely either. Numb was, at minimum, bearable. I wasn’t sure feeling again would be. Left unexamined, numbness like this tends not to resolve on its own; it just keeps quietly running in the background until something forces it into the open.

Learning to Feel Again, Slowly

Coming back from numbness isn’t dramatic. There’s no single morning where the lights flick on and emotion floods back in technicolor. It happens in small, almost embarrassing moments. A song catches you off guard in the car and your throat tightens for no clear reason. A small kindness from a stranger leaves you oddly close to tears. The first time it happened to me, I remember sitting in the driveway afterward, just checking that what I’d felt was real and not something I’d imagined.

It still comes and goes. Some weeks I feel everything a little too sharply, like my system overcorrected. Other weeks the grey returns and I have to remind myself that doesn’t mean I’ve gone backwards. It just means I’m still recovering from something that took a long time to build.

If you recognise this, the flat calm, the sense of watching your own life instead of living it, I want you to know there’s nothing wrong with you for going quiet like that. Your system was trying to keep you safe. It just hasn’t gotten the message yet that the danger has passed. That message tends to arrive slowly, in pieces, and usually long after you’ve stopped expecting it.

Resources That May Help

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If this story brought up difficult emotions, please know that you do not have to face them alone.

The Buzz Base is a storytelling platform and not a crisis or mental health service. If you need immediate support, please reach out to a trusted professional or contact:

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Help is available, and reaching out is a sign of strength.

South Africa:

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International:

Psychology Today — Find a Therapist

My Body Remembered Everything My Mind Tried to Forget

Penny — Tue, 19 May 2026 11:22:09 +0000

I thought I was over it, but my body remembered everything.

That was the thing, I genuinely believed I had processed what happened to me. I could talk about it at dinner parties, in a measured way, with context and distance and even the occasional dark joke. I didn’t cry anymore. I’d filed it away.

What I didn’t understand was that talking about it and healing from it are completely different things.

My body knew the difference, even when I didn’t.

What I’d Normalised Without Realising

For years, I had a list of things I just accepted about myself:

There were things I’d stopped noticing. The way my whole body would jolt when someone appeared behind me, that heart-in-throat, already-bracing flinch that was over before I could think. Waking up at 3am, completely alert, room feeling wrong in ways I couldn’t explain. Quiet calculations I did in every new space: where’s the door, or exit, don’t sit with your back to the room. I thought I was just wired that way. It didn’t occur to me that wiring like that usually comes from somewhere.

In conflict, even minor, low-stakes conflict, I would go completely blank. Like someone had switched off the part of my brain that could form sentences. I thought I was just bad at arguing.

It took a therapist who specialised in trauma to sit across from me and say, gently but directly: “These aren’t personality quirks. These are trauma responses.”

This is actually well-documented. Psychiatrist and trauma researcher Dr. Bessel van der Kolk has written extensively about how the body holds traumatic experiences in physical sensations, nervous system patterns, and physiological responses, long after the danger has passed. Riviera Therapy explains it clearly: when survival energy from a traumatic event cannot be discharged, it becomes stored in the body, leading to symptoms like chronic muscle tension, hyper-vigilance, panic, emotional numbness, and difficulty sleeping. Even years later.

That was me. To the letter.

What Nobody Tells You About Trauma

Nobody told me that you can be traumatised by something and still believe it wasn’t bad enough to count.

I minimised what had happened to me for years. Other people had been through worse, much worse, objectively. Who was I to call what happened to me trauma? It felt like an over-claim. Like I was being dramatic.

So I never addressed it properly. I acknowledged it, intellectually. Talked about it, carefully. But I never actually processed it, because I never believed I had the right to.

What my therapist helped me understand was that trauma isn’t a competition. Your nervous system doesn’t grade experiences on a scale of severity relative to other people’s. It just responds to what happened to you, in the context of you, and what your nervous system at the time was able to handle.

Mine hadn’t handled it. It had stored it.

What Healing Actually Looked Like

I want to be honest here, because I think there’s a sanitised version of healing that circulates online and it’s not the whole truth.

Healing was not a smooth upward line. It was messy and nonlinear and there were weeks that were harder than the weeks before I started therapy.

When I first started working with a trauma-informed therapist, I cried in places I hadn’t cried in years. The parking lot of a supermarket. In the shower on a Sunday morning. During a completely ordinary walk. My body was releasing things it had been holding for a very long time, and it wasn’t graceful.

I also got angry, properly, deeply angry, in ways I hadn’t let myself be before. And that was important, even though it didn’t feel good.

I did EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). If you haven’t heard of it, LynLake Centers for WellBeing describes it well: rather than focusing on changing thoughts or emotions around a traumatic event, EMDR focuses on specific memories and how they are stored in the brain, using bilateral stimulation to help the nervous system process what talking alone can’t always reach. It sounds strange. It felt strange. But it worked where years of regular talk therapy hadn’t quite gotten to.

My sleep improved before my mood did. My startle response softened before I felt consciously “better.” The body moved first. I noticed that.

What I Had to Grieve

Part of healing from trauma that I wasn’t prepared for was grieving, not just what happened, but what I lost because of it.

Years of energy spent on hypervigilance. Relationships I didn’t let get close enough to matter. Opportunities I didn’t take because I didn’t feel safe enough in my own skin to try. A version of myself who might have existed if things had been different.

That grief was real and important. It wasn’t self-pity, it was acknowledging the actual cost of what I’d lived with, for the first time, without dismissing it.

Where I Am Now

I’m not going to tell you I’m healed, because I’m not sure that’s exactly the right word for what happens. What I am is different. Steadier. More present in my body than I’ve been since I was a child.

I still startle sometimes. I still have hard days. But I know what’s happening now. I have language for it, and the tools. I have a therapist I trust, and people around me who know the truth of what I’ve been through.

And I no longer believe that what happened to me was too small to matter. That might be the most important shift of all.

This story was shared anonymously. Trauma responses are real, and they deserve real support. If any of this resonates with you, INTEGRIS Health’s guide to somatic healing and the Somatic Experiencing International website are both worth exploring, you don’t have to navigate this alone.

I Stayed Silent for 39 Years | Why Survivors Stay Silent

Penny — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 07:50:00 +0000

The Weight of 39 Years of Silence

I stayed silent about my abuse for 39 years. This is why survivors stay silent, and what really happens when that silence finally breaks after years of carrying trauma alone.

I was 45 years old, sitting across from the man who would become my second husband, when I said the words out loud for the first time.

“I was abused as a child.”

Thirty nine years. That is how long those words stayed locked inside me.

Thirty nine years of carrying something that shaped everything about who I became, and who I could not be.

This is not a story about instant healing. This is a story about silence, survival, and what happens when that silence finally breaks.

Why Survivors Stay Silent in Childhood

It started when I was 6 years old.

I was just a child who wanted to play and be happy. That is what children do, right?

But that was not my reality.

This resulted in me becoming hyper alert. I did not want anyone to touch me. I apologised for everything, even when I did nothing wrong.

My body knew something was wrong, even when I did not have the words for it.

When you are a child, you do not understand what is happening. You just know something feels wrong, and you feel afraid.

Sometimes you are left alone with someone older. You feel uncomfortable, frozen, even numb.

You pretend nothing happened.

Because you do not understand it, and because deep down, you are afraid no one will believe you.

Back then, children were often dismissed. If you tried to say something, you risked being told you were making things up.

So you stay quiet.

Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into years.

Before you realise it, silence becomes your normal.

This continued until I was about 14 years old.

Eight years of my childhood were taken from me.

Silence Becomes Survival

I never told anyone.

Not my parents. Not my family.

I had already seen how children were treated when they spoke up. Even small things were dismissed.

So I learned quickly that silence was safer.

When you are a child, silence is not a choice. It is survival.

How Trauma Shaped Who I Became

As I got older, the silence stayed with me.

In high school, I had no boyfriends. I came across as tough, almost like a tomboy. I even fought with boys.

People saw strength.

But I was not strong. I was protecting myself the only way I knew how.

No one ever asked why.

How It Followed Me Into Adulthood

According to World Health Organisation research on trauma and long-term psychological impact, and unresolved childhood abuse can affect emotional regulation, relationships, and self-worth well into adulthood.

The abuse stopped when I was 14.

But the silence did not.

It followed me into my twenties, my thirties, and into my first marriage.

I struggled with relationships. Trying to fit into what I thought I should be, but it never felt right.

I had my first child on my own, because I did not see a future where I could trust someone enough to build a life with them.

Years later, I met my first husband and got married at 35.

At the time, I thought I had finally found stability.

But I never told him about my past.

There was always something stopping me.

After our first child together, everything changed. I discovered he was cheating on me.

I stayed longer than I should have, because my self worth was almost nonexistent.

Eventually, the marriage ended.

I was left raising three children, carrying everything on my own.

Still, I never spoke about what had happened to me.

I convinced myself it did not matter anymore.

But it did.

It was shaping everything.

Age 45, Breaking the Silence After Years of Abuse

Two years later, I met someone different.

Someone safe.

Before we even started dating, I told him.

I remember saying, “I do not know how to tell you this, but I feel like I have to.”

And then I said it.

“I was abused as a child.”

For the first time in 39 years, someone listened.

He did not interrupt or question me.

Instead he believed me.

That moment changed everything.

For the first time, it was not just something I carried alone.

It was real.

And for the first time, I felt some form of relief.

When Disclosure Isn’t Enough

The Gap Between Telling and Healing

I thought telling someone would fix everything.

It did not.

In fact, it opened everything.

Although I had finally spoken, I still did not get help. I only started therapy at the age of 50, five years after that moment.

At first, telling him felt freeing.

But over time, everything I had buried started coming to the surface.

When Everything Started Breaking Open

The anger came first.

It was constant and overwhelming.

I reacted to everything. Small things felt big. My emotions were unpredictable.

One moment I was fine. The next, I felt completely out of control.

I did not understand what was happening.

Looking back now, I see it clearly.

For decades, I had suppressed everything. The moment I opened that door, everything came rushing out.

At the same time, I was dealing with perimenopause, which intensified everything I was feeling.

I became easily triggered.

This made me lash out at my husband, my children, and even strangers.

I carried deep anger, not only toward the people who hurt me, but also toward myself.

I blamed myself for not fighting back, even though I was just a child.

The guilt and disgust were overwhelming.

Eventually, I started withdrawing. I spoke less. When I did speak, it came out as anger.

That was when I realised something had to change.

Seeking Help After Breaking the Silence

With my husband’s support, I finally reached a breaking point.

I did not want my family to carry my pain.

So I sought help.

My first therapy session was overwhelming. I did not know where to begin.

But once I started talking, everything came out.

I cried uncontrollably.

At the same time, there was relief.

That was the beginning of my healing.

What Healing After Childhood Abuse Really Feels Like

Therapy is not easy.

Some days are manageable. Others feel impossible.

Memories come back in flashes. Feelings come in waves.

There are days when you push through, and days when you do not want to get out of bed.

Sleep becomes difficult. Your mind does not rest.

But slowly, things begin to make sense.

Through therapy, I learned how to ground myself. Simple things like breathing, feeling my body, and reminding myself I am safe.

There were times when I did not want to feel anything at all.

But through this process, I began to understand something important.

What happened to me was not my fault.

Letting go of that belief has been one of the hardest parts of this journey.

One day after a session, I cried the entire drive home. When I got home, I broke down completely.

That was the moment everything shifted.

I finally stopped blaming myself.

Why I Am Telling This Story

I am sharing this for anyone who has stayed silent.

For years. For decades.

If you feel like it is too late, it is not.

If you feel like it does not matter, it does.

You may not be able to get over it, but you can get through it.

Silence protects abusers.

Speaking up breaks that silence.

If this feels familiar to you, please know this.

You are not alone.
You are not broken.
And it is not too late.

This Is My Start

I am 50 years old, and I am only now beginning to heal.

Some might say I lost years to silence.

I say I survived.

Now I am learning how to live.

This journey is not easy. It is uncomfortable, messy, and overwhelming at times.

But for the first time, I am not carrying it alone.

I am choosing to be present.

To use my voice.

I am choosing to help others who are still living in silence.

Bring it to light.

End the silence.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE IN THIS.

If You Need Support

If you are reading this and need help, please consider reaching out. Support is available.