Can’t Feel Your Feelings? Your Numbness May Be Transgenerational Trauma

Numbing your pain is not a conscious choice. It could be transgenerational trauma. Numbness is a common survival strategy, a self-protection from emotional overwhelm, beginning in childhood, during and after trauma. And, it’s often passed down for generations. Transgenerational trauma is real and numbness and trauma go together. Without knowing it, you experience your parents’ (or even grandparents’) trauma and you take on their defenses. Numbing, or being unable to feel your feelings, is one of those defenses. You sometimes want to cry. Why can’t you?

Feelings Can Be “Too Much”

When you go numb, it’s because your feelings are too much. You don’t know what to do with them. Feelings like: Sadness. Hurt. Jealousy. Anger. Feeling left behind and left out. Lost. Depressed. Too anxious to find a way to live your own life. Losing someone you love (or you wanted to love you.) Loss can feel unbearable. Loneliness, the worst imaginable fate.

There is loss due to any childhood trauma that makes you go numb. The loss of parents or grandparents, who are not entirely “there.” Or emotional and physical abuse, neglect, criticism, rejection. Children need parents who are sensitive, empathic, and present. Open to all feelings.

Loss makes you sad. Crying is a good thing; it helps. But when no one welcomes your feelings or “holds” them for you, you can’t cry. Your sadness feels too much. You shut it down and go numb.

That’s what happens with childhood trauma. And, if you don’t go numb unconsciously, many people are pulled to using drugs, alcohol, and other numbing “devices,” even thoughts of suicide. Killing the pain is the point. That’s why you go numb if you’ve experienced transgenerational trauma. But what exactly causes so much pain?

“Forgetting” Doesn’t Take Away Pain

Transgenerational trauma is a real thing. Surviving the Holocaust or other severe situations, being a prisoner of terror, close to murder and loss, can create lifelong trauma and numbness. Numbing the pain, trying to “forget,” doesn’t mean the pain or trauma is gone. Under that numbness in transgenerational trauma, the pain lives on. You can’t help it.

So, if you have close family members who’ve been severely traumatized and had no professional help, the residues of that trauma are felt by those they love. Let’s say: you have parents or grandparents who “put on a brave face.” They may unconsciously “teach you” to do that too.

They had no one to help with their feelings, so they toughened up, did their best, and “Moved on.” But if trauma isn’t processed and its effects understood and resolved, it lives on in subtle ways.

Or not so subtle ways. Sometimes you witness depression. Drinking. Alcoholism. Withdrawal. Irritability. Being quick to anger. Fear and social anxiety. Distrust. These all infiltrate your life too. Above all – there is every attempt to make the feelings “go away.” The pain is too much.

They, you, everyone who experiences trauma tries to soldier on. Some better than others. Yet, there are triggers – meaning sometimes something stirs up the feelings you’re trying to numb.

That’s because the feelings are never gone, only (sort of) hidden away.

Triggers for “Forgotten” Feelings

“Forgetting” is what trauma survivors try to do. Even if you aren’t a direct survivor, if you lived with or loved someone with severe trauma, you are surviving it too. You learn to numb the pain you witness or feel in them and don’t know what to do with. Forgetting (and numbness) are ways to try to go on. But there are triggers. Something stirs up your sadness. Or anger. Your hurt. Abandonment feelings. Shame. Especially if you’re sober. Or have let down your tough guard.

Let’s say that it’s loss that can’t be felt. Big losses that go back a generation or two. Maybe you’ve had your own losses that you haven’t grieved. You haven’t cried. You’ve kept pushing the sadness away, just as your parents or grandparents do. Now, you’ve had another loss or someone close to you did. You’re feeling something. You try to push it away, but you can’t.

That’s a trigger. It may be scary to be sad, but feeling is a good thing. Yet, feelings are hard. They carry the pain. But if you use your energies to numb pain, you’re in a constant vicious cycle of feeling something and numbing it out. And, if you can’t feel, you aren’t fully alive. That has its difficulties. Not being fully alive makes it hard to need anything and get what you want.

One of the worst struggles is this: if you’ve been taught to be stoic, like many trauma survivors are, when your feelings are triggered and if they’re exposed, you feel shame. You think you’re “supposed to” keep your feelings hidden. You don’t know where it’s safe to let them show.

Shame is another reason there’s numbness in transgenerational trauma.

Shame About Feelings

When you keep your feelings hidden, you might mistake that for being “strong.” After all, being “strong” is one good reason for numbing. You’ve toughened up. Don’t let anything bother you. If you’re hurt, you say “it doesn’t matter,” or minimize your needs. Shame can do that to you.

Plus, if you keep things to yourself, you believe you won’t be shamed. Yet, everyone has feelings. There’s nothing shameful about them (easy enough to say). It’s that there was no one to help you understand yours or people expressed them in scary ways or confusing emotional displays.

That left you with no choice but to do your best to hide your pain. Or, maybe, you don’t know you have feelings most of the time, except for the fact that there are those occasional triggers.

Because of your shame, you might be quick to apologize if you show any feelings. And, that leaves you without any comfort. Plus, you likely even believe that no one wants to hear your feelings. If you occasionally break down and share what’s been so pent-up, you’re afraid you are a burden.

So, you jog, make yourself overly busy, meditate, take pills (doctor’s orders or not), drink a bit too much, and other things of that sort. Those are your “self-prescribed solutions.” To stay numb. There’s numbness in transgenerational trauma. Numbness is learned, unconsciously. Your parents or grandparents numbed their feelings too.

The reality is, being able to have and share your feelings makes you stronger. Numbing your feelings means that you’ve cut off important parts of you. Plus, telling your feelings isn’t weak.

Yet, to feel, and even know what you’re feeling – you need help and a safe place to begin.

A Safe Place for Feeling

Being numb can keep you stuck in many ways. In finding love. Making a relationship work. From moving up in your career. Concentrating on your studies. And, numbness inhibits your creativity.

Feeling things is the answer. Knowing your feelings can give you directions. Your feelings can help you know yourself: your needs, your wants, and values, in a deeper way. But you can’t do it alone.

Pain is real. Feeling it makes it more real. That’s a good thing. Yet, it doesn’t always feel that way. It’s important to remember: If you tell someone your feelings, that isn’t a weak thing. It’s brave. But feeling things and coming out of your numbness can be a lot. Consider professional help.

A therapist who specializes in trauma will offer you a safe place for beginning to feel and guidance for opening a door into knowing your feeling world. It’s an unfamiliar world that has been shut down in your family for generations. If you didn’t have help growing up, you can have it now.

Feelings matter and feelings heal. They open up new life possibilities, more than you imagine.

If you’d like to read more, see my recent post on the film, A Real Pain, on Characters on the Couch. The film says a lot about numbing and transgenerational trauma.