Are You Basically a Human Potato? 10 Sneaky Signs You’ve Been Emotionally Numb Since Childhood (And How Your Zodiac Might Blame Your Mom)
Added on July 1, 2025 inASTROLOGY CARDS
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Ever had that moment where you feel like you’re watching your life through a fogged-up window—seeing the joys, but not actually feeling them? It’s not just you… and no, it’s not lazy acting. Sometimes, emotional numbness sneaks in like an uninvited guest from your childhood, especially if your young years were spent in an emotionally neglectful household. Growing up with parents who didn’t respond to your emotional needs can leave you with a kind of invisible wall — a numbing fog that’s stuck around well into adulthood. It’s a bit like Mercury retrograde messing with your circuits, making you zone out, dissociate, or just feel… well, nothing at all. So how do you tell if that numbness is more than just a phase? How do you break free from a life that feels unraveled and muted? Stick around—there are signs to watch for, and trust me, the journey back to feeling alive again starts here. LEARN MORE
Feeling emotionally numb as an adult can be the result of many different things, but often, it has a lot to do with your childhood, and whether or not you were raised with emotionally intelligent or neglectful parents. Emotional neglect happens when parents fail to respond to their kids’ emotional needs, and experiencing this as a child can have lasting effects into adulthood.
Ever dissociated? Emotional numbness is often described as feeling similar to dissociation. Emotional numbness is exactly what it sounds like: you feel nothing. It happens unconsciously, just like when we dissociate or “zone out.”
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You probably grew up in an emotionally neglectful family and learned at an early age that your emotions were irrelevant or burdensome. You may have even “walled off” your feelings as a coping mechanism, as a result of this Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN).
No doubt, though, the way you are living seems normal to you. After all, it’s the way you have always lived. It’s probably the way you were raised to be. So, how do you know if you’re emotionally numb due to a childhood of emotional neglect?
You can go through happy life events without feeling as happy as other people seem to be when they have similar happy events. Many people with this issue describe their joyful life experiences as “bland.”
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Some have gone through weddings, vacations, graduations, or award ceremonies feeling as if they are watching themselves from afar, disconnected from the experience, or even waiting for it to be over. They feel numb.
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You sometimes wonder why you don’t feel sadder when faced with loss. Similar to the above, it’s possible to go through a funeral of a loved one or a job layoff and feel very little. Your brain knows you should be sad, but your body does not feel it.
Unspent feelings, or walled-off ones, tend to all pool together into one big soup inside of you. Denied and pushed down or away, the individual ingredients (your emotions) blend to make one big one.
This big one is likely to be anger. Anger is powerful and can break through your wall more easily, so it becomes the primary emotion you feel. So you essentially have two emotional states: angry or numb.
One of the effects of walling off your emotions is that you lose touch with them. When you’re disconnected from your feelings, you’re not thinking about them or noticing them. If you ever need to explain how you feel, you stammer or clam up.
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You can observe yourself in certain situations and wonder why you’re not feeling something more. Others around you are crying tears of joy or sadness.
You look at them and wonder, “Why don’t I feel that? What is wrong with me?”
You are often uncomfortable when other people have strong emotions. When you find yourself in a situation where others are having feelings, you may have one yourself: discomfort. All you want to do is get away from this situation because it seems awkward and unnatural.
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Unfortunately, you can’t give up your negative feelings without also giving up your positive ones. When pain, anger, and sadness go out the window, they tend to take your love, warmth, and joy with them.
You see others experiencing those wonderful emotions, and you may wish you could too. Sadly, you cannot.
One foot after another, you march along, doing what you are supposed to do, and probably doing it well. Like a toy soldier or an Energizer bunny, you just keep on going. But you also find yourself wondering what it’s all for.
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Shouldn’t you be something more, you ask? The answer is yes. There should be highs and lows, pride, joy, and sadness, but you are missing it.
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For those whose feelings are tamped down, it can be easier to access them when it’s safe; when it’s not personal; when it’s not you.
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You can feel the emotions of a fictional character or someone in the news, but you can’t feel your own. When it comes to your own life, you can’t access those feelings.
This is the ultimate sign. Your “empty” feeling may reside in your belly or your throat, or it may be just an uncomfortable sense that something is missing in you.
That sense is your body telling you that what should be filling you, connecting and energizing you — your emotions — is not there. This is your body telling you that you are emotionally numb.
If you see yourself in any of these 10 signs, do not despair! Your feelings are not gone. They are still there, inside you, waiting for you to reclaim them.
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You can break down the wall that blocks them and welcome them back into your life. Bit by bit, slowly but surely, in a way that feels safe and healthy, you can reverse your numbness and fill your life with color and energy. You can do this by talking to a professional or even a close confidant.
Growing up with Childhood Emotional Neglect, you were taught to ignore and marginalize your feelings. But now that you’re an adult, you don’t have to continue that.
You can welcome your feelings back into your life and learn the skills to manage and use them.
If you are feeling emotionally numb as a result of childhood emotional neglect, know that you are not alone. There is help available where you can find the support you need. Call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or text “HELLO” to 741741 to be connected with the Crisis Text Line.
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Jonice Webb, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and best-selling author of two self-help books. She specializes in childhood emotional neglect, relationships, communication issues, and mental health. Dr. Webb has appeared on CBS News and NPR, and her work has been cited by many publications.
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