Emotional blunting means you are numb to both positive and negative emotions. You can't seem to cry or feel sad about things that normally would make you sad. You also can't seem to laugh or smile at things that would normally make you happy.
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.
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.
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. Experiencing emotional blunting may affect your relationships and how you feel about yourself and the world.
Numbness describes a loss of feeling in a part of the body. It also is often used to describe other changes in sensation, such as burning or a pins-and-needles feeling. Numbness can occur along a single nerve on one side of the body. Or numbness may occur on both sides of the body.
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.
Emotional numbing is a common symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Particularly Complex PTSD, (C-PTSD) when it can also be accompanied by memory suppression.
Emotional blunting is a condition present in many psychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia (26) and post-traumatic stress disorder (27). As its name suggests, emotional blunting refers to a sense of numbing of both positive and negative emotions.
If you experience emotional blunting, your healthcare provider may lower your dose or switch you to a different antidepressant (say, from an SSRI to an SNRI). They may also be able to add other medication to offset the emotional blunting.
Apathy therefore falls short of WHO's definition of optimal health. Apathy is different from a reduction in emotional display or expression (emotional blunting) where individuals fail to express their feelings or emotions, though emotion itself is not intrinsically reduced.
The opposite of blunted affect is expressing emotions in the ways we usually expect to see it. People using the full range of ways to express emotion have regular changes in their facial expressions and tone of voice as they transition between different emotions.
Emotional detachment can also be "emotional numbing", "emotional blunting", i.e., dissociation, depersonalization or in its chronic form depersonalization disorder.
Feeling empty is a complex emotion often caused by physical, psychological, and social factors. These may include the loss of a loved one, a major life change, depression, anxiety, unresolved trauma, and poor relationships. Feeling empty may also be caused by disconnection, loneliness, and boredom.
Along with memory loss, other signs of repressed trauma can include low self-esteem, substance abuse disorders, increased physical or mental illnesses, and interpersonal problems.
Roest-Gyimah explains that common signs of emotional numbness include: a feeling of being disconnected from yourself and others. inability to emotionally connect or relate to those around you. seeking sensations through behaviors that may jeopardize your safety or via self-harming experiences.
Apathy is when you lack motivation to do things or just don't care much about what's going on around you. Apathy can be a symptom of mental health problems, Parkinson's disease, or Alzheimer's disease. It often lasts a long time. You may lack the desire to do anything that involves thinking or your emotions.
The mental health conditions most often associated with emotional numbness are depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Emotional numbness can also come up in some dissociative disorders, which are connected with a personal history of trauma.
[ ap-uh-thet-ik ] show ipa. See synonyms for apathetic on Thesaurus.com. adjective. having or showing little or no emotion: apathetic behavior.
Vortioxetine 10-20 mg effectively improved emotional blunting, overall functioning, motivation and energy, cognitive performance, and depressive symptoms in patients with MDD with partial response to SSRI/SNRI therapy and emotional blunting.
While flat affect and blunted affect may sometimes appear interchangeable, they are different. Those with flat affect have no response to emotional stimuli. Blunted affect, however, describes a dulled or constricted response, where a person's emotional response is not as intense as normally expected.
Feeling emotionally numb, like your emotions have somehow become blunted, or that you have no emotions at all are common symptoms of anxiety disorder. Many anxious, depressed, and stressed people experience feeling emotionally numb. It's also a common symptom associated with sleep problems, such as insomnia.