“Emotional blunting is a common side effect of SSRI antidepressants. In a way, this may be in part how they work–they take away some of the emotional pain that people who experience depression feel, but, unfortunately, it seems that they also take away some of the enjoyment.
Patients on SSRI antidepressants feel numb because the drug reduces reinforcement sensitivity, that is, our sensitivity to positive feedback, which you can also call rewards or pleasure.
A smaller study from New Zealand involving 180 people on long-term antidepressant therapy found that 64.5% experienced emotional blunting. 7 Related side effects included sexual difficulties (71.8%), not feeling like themselves (54.4%), and a reduction in positive feelings (45.6%).
In particular, depression and certain antidepressant treatments may lower your empathy levels. If you think that you or someone you know has lower empathy levels, it can help to learn more about it.
Emotional blunting can be temporary, lasting from a few minutes to a few hours at a time. It can also occur over the long term, from months to years. It all depends on the underlying cause.
among 161 patients, 46% reported a narrowed range of affect, 21% reported an inability to cry, and 19% reported apathy. a cross-sectional study of 117 patients revealed that approximately 30% of patients reported some form of apathy.
Whether you've been addicted to a drug used as an antidepressant or have been prescribed one for a mental health diagnosis, healing from emotional blunting is possible. Sometimes, it takes time; other times, you can work with your doctor to adjust your dosage or type of antidepressant.
Derealisation refers to a similar set of feelings and perceptions, but in this case it is the world itself that seems strange or unreal; everything may seem far away or staged in some way – as though life is being watched rather than lived. Depersonalisation and derealisation are relatively common on antidepressants.
The reported prevalence of antidepressant-induced apathy ranges between 5.8 and 50%, and for SSRIs ranges between 20 and 92%. Antidepressant-induced apathy emerges independently of diagnosis, age, and treatment outcome and appears dose-dependent and reversible.
Feeling emotionless can often be a symptom of mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic disorder so it's not something to dismiss or downplay. In these cases, seeking the help of a professional is crucial.
The good news is, emotional numbness is usually temporary and treatable.
Being emotionally numb means your emotional experience is lower than expected, dampened, or completely missing. In situations where you might be expected to experience joy or sadness, you may feel empty or detached instead. This feeling isn't positive or negative; instead, it's absent of emotion.
Phases of SSRI Withdrawal
Acute withdrawal: The acute withdrawal phase can last six to eight weeks. 8 During this phase, you may begin to experience flu-like symptoms, have greater fatigue, and notice increased feelings of anxiety and depression.
Reduced emotional sensitivity is sometimes a residual symptom of an uncontrolled mental health issue. That's according to a report in Frontiers in Psychiatry. Research has also linked blunted emotions to mental health disorders, including: Major depressive disorder.
Someone with a blunted affect displays little feeling in emotional contexts. For example, a person recalling their father's death might simply recount the factual details of the death. The person might not share much information about how they felt. They may show little facial expression or speak in a monotone voice.
When you lose the ability to feel or express any emotions, this is called flat affect. If you feel numb only to positive emotions but are still able to feel negative emotions, this is called anhedonia. Anhedonia is a common symptom of depression and shows up in a lot of mental health conditions.
Approximately 70 percent of people taking SSRIs suffer from sexual side effects. But these drugs may also compromise the ability to feel love.
The most common signs your antidepressant dose is too strong are symptoms of serotonin syndrome. If you become overly elated, tense with your loved ones, or irritated and have mood swings, this indicates that you are taking high antidepressant doses.
One of the widely-reported side effects of SSRIs is 'blunting', where patients report feeling emotionally dull and no longer finding things as pleasurable as they used to. Between 40-60% of patients taking SSRIs are believed to experience this side effect.
Emotional detachment can also be "emotional numbing", "emotional blunting", i.e., dissociation, depersonalization or in its chronic form depersonalization disorder.