Numbness

Numbness can be one of the most confusing parts of grief.

You expect pain.
You brace for tears, heaviness, heartbreak.

Instead, you feel… nothing.
Or something dull and far away.
Like you’re watching your life through thick glass.

This can feel frightening. Or wrong.
People often worry it means they didn’t love enough, or that something inside them has shut down for good.

But numbness isn’t absence.
It’s protection.

What’s happening in your body

When loss overwhelms the nervous system, the body sometimes shifts into a freeze or shutdown response.

This is biology, not psychology.

Your brain reduces emotional intensity to prevent overload. Stress hormones change. Sensation dulls. Time can feel distorted. Memory can feel fuzzy.

It’s the same survival response the body uses in accidents, disasters, or extreme threat.

Numbness is your system saying:
This is too much all at once. I’m slowing things down.

What numbness can feel like

Numbness shows up differently for everyone. You might notice:

• flatness or emotional blankness
• difficulty crying, even when you think you “should”
• feeling disconnected from people, including those you love
• a strange calm that feels unsettling rather than peaceful
• guilt for not feeling more

None of these mean you’re broken.
They mean your body is doing its job.

Numbness isn’t the opposite of grief

Grief doesn’t move in neat stages.
It pulses.

Numbness often sits alongside grief, not instead of it. The feelings are still there, underneath - waiting until it’s safer to surface.

For many people, numbness comes and goes.
For others, it lingers for weeks or months.

There is no correct timeline.

If you’re in numbness right now

You don’t need to force yourself to feel.
You don’t need to dig.
You don’t need to “break through” anything.

Gentle noticing is enough.

Maybe that looks like:
• noticing temperature on your skin
• holding something warm
• naming one thing you can see or hear
• letting the day be simple and small

Feeling will return in its own time.
And when it does, it often arrives unevenly - in waves, not floods.

A quiet reassurance

Numbness does not mean you’ve lost your capacity to love.
It does not mean your grief is shallow.
It does not mean you’re doing this wrong.

It means your system is keeping you alive.

And that counts.