How Do I Heal When I Don’t Feel Anything

For the sadness to rise like a wave and crash over me so I can finally feel it, cry it out, scream into a pillow, whatever people do when they're healing. I keep waiting for the release. For the moment, it all makes sense, or at least feels real.

But it doesn’t come. Not the tears. Not the rage. Not even the numb kind of ache. Just static. Just silence.

People keep asking how I am, and I keep saying “tired,” because that’s the only thing that’s true. Tired feels like the only feeling left that I can still name. And even that feels like a whisper of what it used to be. Not exhaustion, not burnout, not devastation. Just… flat. Like someone turned the volume down on my life and forgot to turn it back up.

I know I’m supposed to be healing. I’ve read the books. I’ve tried the journaling and the somatic tracking and the grounding exercises and the meditation apps with the soft voices that tell me to “just notice what’s there.” But most of the time, what’s there is nothing. A wall. A blank space where the pain should be. Or the joy. Or the longing. Or anything.

And it scares me.

Because if I don’t feel anything, how do I know if I’m getting better or just better at pretending?

I used to feel so much it nearly broke me. That was the problem. Every emotion cracked my chest open like lightning. I was too sensitive, too emotional, too intense. I cried too easily, got attached too quickly, broke down in bathrooms and grocery store parking lots. So I shut it off. Bit by bit. Year by year. Until I forgot how to turn it back on.

And now here I am. Numb. Functional. Dissociated in ways that look like self-control. I go to work. I make plans. I laugh at jokes. But there’s this echo inside me where something used to be. Like a ghost version of myself is still waiting in some locked room, tapping on the door, asking, Is it safe yet?

And maybe that’s part of it.

A shield. A trauma response that learned to dress itself up in logic and self-awareness. Maybe this is what healing looks like before it starts looking like healing. Maybe this is the prelude. The pause. The unbearable quiet before something stirs.

I want to believe that. I want to believe that not feeling doesn’t mean I’m broken, it just means I’m not ready yet. That my body is smarter than I am, and it’s saying not yet, not here, not with them. That numbness isn’t failure, it’s protection. Temporary. Wise, even.

So I’m trying to meet myself in the absence. Trying not to judge it or force it. Trying to sit in the blank space without demanding it become something else. Maybe healing, for me, right now, just looks like staying. Not checking out. Not rushing in. Not making a goddamn checklist out of my own recovery.

Just staying.

Even when I feel nothing.

Especially then.

Because maybe the next feeling, whatever it is, only shows up when it knows I won’t run.

I hope you enjoy reading this blog post. If you'd like to explore it more deeply, read more in this series of thoughts.