BPDFamily.com

Hi, for about ten days now I really don't feel much, I don't know if I love my BP SO or not, I don't feel much towards my kids, don't feel a thing about their father - my ex-husband, don't feel much towards my friends. I'm kind of numb. Any techniques of getting back to my feelings? So confused... .

This sounds troubling. I'm so sorry you are feeling this way. Was there something that triggered this? If I felt like that, I'd run, not walk to my doctor, or get back in therapy(I'm currently in therapy). There could be lots of reasons you are feeling this way.

Could you give us some of the backstory?

Thank you. I am in therapy. I am also pretty sure I'm not depressed, it's something else.

I think what triggered it was another episode of splitting and blaming everything over me after some two months of reasonable behavior. It was escalating and the previous episode ended in me almost kicking him out of my flat. He then agreed to get in therapy. So now I was frightened it will end again in some eruption and supposedly locked my feeling not to feel hurt to much by this. I had a BP mother, so I suppose detaching emotionally is a defense mechanism I developed quite early in my life. But this time it's like I'm in an glass sphere where no emotions can reach. It' quite frightening.

The more I have detached, the less emotions I have felt also. It's scary in that I feel like I've lost the "real me" in a way.

What I've found helps is exercise, if I jog for a while I can reach a point where I suddenly get strong emotions, on the verge of crying sometimes.

Wish I could help you more, hopefully others can chime in.

This is most likely a protective measure that we sometimes use in order to protect ourselves from the hurt our pwBPD causes. I find myself in this same numb spot at times. When I'm there for a little while it feels nice to not have to worry about getting hurt, but then over time I see that it's not good for me or the people who I should love and care for. When we block people from hurting us, we also block our ability to love others.

If this continues I would definiately suggest talking with a counselor. If you think its temporary maybe you could spend some time reflecting on what you are willing to allow in and what you aren't. When I am like this I have to choose to let myself be vulnerable. It may be something as simple as smiling when I talk to my uBPD or actually laughing at this jokes. It might be choosing to do something kind for him just for the sake of being kind, not to butter him up.

Are you reading through the lessons on the right side of the page? There are so many good resources about how to respond better to your pwBPD and in using those responses, you reduce the need to use numbing--maybe not all the time, but more often than before.

Thank you so much for your comments. It's good to see I am not alone with this. Exercising is such a good idea! I also made an appointment with a DBT therapist, I was doing psychodynamic T and I don't think it works that great for me. Thank you for your help.

I felt exactly as you described a couple of years ago. I saw a psychologist who explained to me it was my bodies way of shutting down to protect me from anymore stress.

Unlike you my stresses were down to having young children very close in age. The thing that worked best for me was removing myself as much as possible from my children, meditation and letting things go over my head and becoming indifferent to certain things.

I can totally relate to this. I think you must be emotionally shut down. Are you aware of any psychological issues that you might have? I know myself I have been struggling with feeling emotionally shut down because of all the stress I am under between my daughter and my partner, its actually changed my personality. I am normally an INFJ, a counselor but yesterday I was an ISTJ, a duty fulfiller. I know I tend to get more into my rational mind and out of my emotional mind when I am under duress, I also tend to cut myself off from my intuition which normally leads me and focus on the facts in front of me. I don't think its good when that happens to me, on the other hand it allows me to bend without breaking and adapt to circumstance.