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Emotional healing is also possible if you’re numb
The operative word is healing, not emotion
Disclaimer: I don’t know you and you don’t know me so there is no good reason to take my writing as personal and relevant mental health advice. Rather, see this as background information to keep in mind when seeking relief from emotional trauma. Use it to become more aware, not an expert.
To heal, you don’t need to remember (exactly) what happened or feel the accompanying old emotions. I will give you many examples.
Contrast
You may cry ‘from happiness’ or ‘from being moved.’ It is actually the healing of old sadness or shock that got numbed. When you cry enough, you may start to see what the trauma was and even feel again. In any case, you can cry now because the present bliss contrasts enough with the old sorrow. We need sure footing to empty out the ocean. You can’t now evaluate old upsets while being very upset now. A young child lost in a super will first run to his father and only cry once safely in his arms.
Most current upsets in grownups are just an awakening of old distress without much new pain added. Yet, having an old wound opened without a chance to heal adds pain. Ongoing abuse or oppression also adds up. Rape and other forms of sexual abuse are very traumatic because they combine closeness with hurt; but these often come after prior childhood molestation that had become ‘forgotten’ and weren’t healed.) A friendly smile, a great joke, ‘laughing your head off’ might get your tears started. The excretion of tears doesn’t really heal. Rather, they are merely an outward sign of something very profoundly happening in the brain.
This healing cannot happen when the natural brain function is interrupted but medical or recreational drugs like alcohol, coffee, painkillers, anti-depressants, and tranquilizers, regardless if they numb or enlarge feelings. To get rid of chronically to be taken prescription drugs that influence brain function, you may need permission and guidance from a psychiatrist. These may be hard to get since many of them prefer all their clients to be drugged and addicted over being sued for one who went off the drugs and then killed themselves. You must convince the doc that you have a realistic expectation of how bad you’re going to feel and support to deal with that.
Humans naturally process fears while laughing, shaking, trembling, blushing, and perspiring (with cold or warm sweat). Also, these outward signs don’t mean that someone is hurting; rather, they are healing. You can’t cry or shake ‘too much.’ The heaviest discharge can’t make you crazy. Keeping it all in might. Well-meaning attempts to distract or stop the release don’t help healing. They may make onlookers feel better. Don’t just do something; sit there!
Huge fears don’t heal so well by getting terrified all over again. Rather, we can heal them with ease by … making fun of them. This is very counter-intuitive and often infuriating to people. The result is that many people after a huge trauma do cry a lot but will stay stuck in their terror. Gleefully exclaiming ‘I almost died’ may get you shaking. A cheerful ‘I’m ready to die, right now’ might work too. You can explain the victim that G^d won’t take them when they say that because He knows it’s just theater. But for your brain, it may contrast enough with your frozen old fear to start healing.
We seem to generate anger to contradict our feelings of powerlessness. A good anger display will lead to crying and trembling. Just make sure that, in their anger, they don’t hurt or endanger themselves or people or things around them. Don’t agree with their anger. Your anger isn’t the issue while helping others. Warmly receive their anger and welcome if there is more.
Panic can be contrasted by saying it’s over. This is not reassurance to make them shut up but safety to help healing to begin. ‘It’s over. It’s very over. I will protect you against any harm for the rest of your life at least for now.’
Connections
Communicating with others, who don’t judge and who care can speed up healing tremendously. There is a giant difference between a thought and a spoken word. It also helps to write them in one’s diary or letters (never to be sent?), maybe because we voice the words while we write.
Our bond with loved ones may help us heal too. Promise them that you will stop human extinction, that they can trust you. If that doesn’t make the speaker shake like a leaf, what will?
Stoics seeing loved ones cry may help them cry too. Unless they turn into therapists. Someone may need to take that task from their shoulders.
Out of Character
‘The strongest come last.’ Some people do a great job looking away from how they were hurt. Unfortunately, in the long run, that can backfire in that they would never heal. That impairs our flexibility and happiness, even (especially) if we don’t remember what happened.
We have the stoic, brainy one, macho, butch, and the numbed. Don’t give up on them. You can start tears by pretending to cry. This then may turn into crying with tears. ‘But I don’t know why I’m crying. I don’t recall or feel anything.’ No problem. The memories and emotions will come eventually. Ask them if they have ‘tiny feelings’ to talk about.
The over-responsible can’t feel. ‘Tell me everything I should worry and think about while you rest’ may help them cry, shiver, laugh, fall asleep—whatever they need most—which is impossible to predict. But they know.
‘You took care of everything and everyone; maybe now it’s your turn?’ Ask them how it was for them. Praise them, reassure them, and thank them that they went beyond the call of duty, but fairness can’t leave them out.
The workaholic may first need to sleep before being in any state to heal. The alcoholic must first get sober before their brain could begin healing. The anorexic might first need to eat a bit before they could start therapy.
The despondent with the mantra ‘this can never heal’ and who push drugs often take drugs themselves. They too can heal but not while under the influence. A brain hurting physically presently can’t heal its past hurts.
Unfortunately, abusers will have a hard time healing. They act out what was done to them when they were tiny and overpowered. They may be con artists, secretive, charmers, or sadistic. Power over others may feel too good to give up on because, while they victimize others, they (still) feel the victim. You can help them cry without revealing what happened to them or how they feel by grossly empathizing with their suffering while playing to be weak and so, unthreatening. ‘I don’t think people realize how greatly you suffer.’ ‘I’m not sure you realize the depth of your own hurts.’ Yet, the healing may be piecemeal because they don’t return to therapy. Staying inside their controlling habits might be too comfortable to leave.
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