There are many ways to numb your pain, but you have to be careful.
If you’re going to become numb, it’s important to know the risks involved.
First of all, becoming numb can make you feel like you’re in a fog. You might not be able to focus on anything and everything will seem like it’s happening in slow motion. This can be dangerous if you’re driving or operating heavy machinery because your reflexes may be dulled as well.
The other danger is that becoming numb means numbing out any emotions or feelings you have—even good ones like joy and happiness. If this happens too often and for too long, it could lead to depression or anxiety disorders.
How To Become Numb
Step 1
Eat an entire pint of ice cream. Drink your problems away. Scroll through Facebook for hours. Get stoned. Sleep. Wake up feeling shitty.
Step 2
Recognize there’s an issue. Micromanage your life. Count calories. Exercise for two hours every day. Stop drinking and smoking weed. Find a sense of control.
Step 3
Lose control. Go over your calorie count. Miss a day at the gym. Cry. Call yourself a failure. Have an emotional meltdown.
Step 4
Throw yourself into work. Work hard. Work harder. Tell yourself you’re working so hard because you’re a badass overachiever. Shut out all other aspects of your life.
Step 5
Eat only drive-thru. Realize you haven’t done laundry in weeks. Wear your underwear inside out. Ignore the first signs of the flu.
Step 6
Make an unrealistically long “to do” list. Fail to achieve everything on it. Burn out. Declare yourself a failure. Wonder why you should bother trying. Return to step 1.
STOP.
Notice how you feel. Assess your values. Recognize the differences between what you want and what you’ve been doing in your quest to numb your feelings.
Grieve the time you’ve lost as you’ve thrown yourself, full-throttle, into the achieving, the striving for perfection, the burning out. Recognize that this grief gives you strength, and that experiencing it, while inherently painful, helps you to grow as a person.
At the same time, be compassionate to yourself, and to your past self, who was so afraid of what was hiding on the other side of emotional honesty. And continue to be compassionate to yourself when you backslide into old patterns, as you’re working to develop new skills to manage these new feelings.
Seek connection with other people. Lean into the things that give you joy. Give love generously, and receive it openly. Recognize that this joy and love could not exist without harder emotions like sadness, fear, pain, and anger.
Decide that maybe – just maybe – numbing isn’t the answer after all.
