numb

the feeling that steals all feelings

Hi friends, 

I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of feelings tonight and I’m struggling to process or place them all. Mostly, I’m feeling frustrated that I’ve grown numb to the horrors I see on tv, perhaps as a way of emotional self-preservation or perhaps because it has become apparent that change isn’t coming anytime soon. My mind is calloused after watching the same reporters report the same stories on different dates and in different cities. Oh, I say, a slight pang hitting my chest each time a new headline breaks through. Just oh. 

I’m trying to be gentle with myself as I would be with a friend expressing these feelings—witnessing reoccurring injustice, especially when it’s preventable, is enraging, and we can only hold this feeling for so long. The weight of collective grief can feel unbearable too, especially when compounded. This isn’t just a school shooting. It’s another one, preceded by another one, preceded by hundreds of others.  

At this point in my life, I’m not sure what the correct response is other than feeling helpless and unheard by people in positions of power. Since I was nine, there have been more than 350 US school shootings. The outrage is always the same. The social media posts and political discourse and eventual silence by the majority of the population is a script we all have memorized at this point.

The allure of feeling numb is that we get to keep moving, pretending everything is just fine despite fire licking up the walls. I can drink my coffee, respond to work emails, and avoid the grief threatening to consume me. Of course, I want to pay attention. I want to throw my fists to the sky and march to the hill for whatever battle needs to be fought to end this hell we’ve created for our children, but I just don’t know which way is up any longer. Numbness offers an escape, even if just for a minute. And how could you not want to escape this?

The problem with our feelings is that they, on the most elemental level, remind us that we don’t have control. Choosing to feel your feelings means releasing any notion that you can fix the world. Sometimes there is only grief. Sometimes there is only rage. Sometimes there is grief and rage and injustice happening, all while the sun shines and the birds sing. It’s messy and complicated and overwhelming. Numbness is our way out.

But while numbness seems like an easy way out, it also steals all other feelings, erasing them entirely. It’s like a suit of plaster enveloping our bodies. The hard cast forms around us, hiding who we really are until we become unfamiliar to even ourselves. We tell ourselves we’re fine despite not being able to feel anything. It’s only when we finally scream that the plaster cracks and crumbles away, leaving us raw and exposed. Leaving us to face our fears and all of the feelings that come with them. 

I’m not sure what the response is or how to end this piece. I feel numb but don’t want to feel this way. I want to feel enraged again, but I’m not sure what the point is any longer. That statement alone is enough to send my mind reeling. For now, I’ll continue to follow the checklist (because, damn it, this happens so often we have a checklist): call your representative, donate to organizations fighting for change, light a candle and say a prayer.

I guess my new contribution this time is to write about these impossible emotions and to ask you all how you’re doing. There are no wrong answers. Maybe you’re also numb, or perhaps you’re caught in a web of grief. Whatever you feel, it’s valid and deserves to be acknowledged and held, even if—like numbness—you hope it eventually crumbles away.