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Hi SGC,

This month we've talked about intrusive memories, hypervigilance, and the way an anniversary can trigger a trauma response that has almost nothing to do with grief. This is the last one in the series, and it's really two things that belong together: what happens when your actually experience more numbing than the ‘louder’ or more dramatic PTSD symptoms and what it takes to feel safe letting people close again.

 

We have talked a bit about this in the group and first I think it's important to say that avoidance and numbing isn't necessarily BAD. Trauma is an incredibly overwhelming experience as is grief, which can leave us feeling flooded with emotions. Avoidance and numbing can actually create a dam to hold back that flood. Sometimes we need this in order to function. 
Often slowly allowing that damn to let some of the emotions through feels so overwhelming that we likely need support to do so. This is not a reflection of you not trying hard enough. It is a reflection of how heavy and scary this experience and these feelings and symptoms are. 

Here are some hallmark signs of avoidance and numbing:
Behavioral avoidance

Numbing, avoidance, aren't things you're doing on purpose, and you can't simply decide to feel more! Often because of reactions to your grief and trauma and experiences after this loss connection feels risky and even dangerous. 

Telling yourself to "just open up" doesn't work here any more than "just relax" works when your body is in hypervigilance, because this isn't a mindset problem either. 
Your brain and body is protecting itself (rightfully so) and will need to the right care to be able to feel relaxed enough to begin to open up. 
 

Numbing and avoidance aren't automatically a problem. In the first days and weeks after a traumatic loss, going numb can be exactly what lets you function, get through the funeral, make the calls, hold it together long enough to survive the acute part. Avoidance can give your nervous system the space it needs before it's ready to face that piece. Used this way, in small doses and for a limited stretch of time, it's protective. It's your body pacing you. It starts to cost you when it stops being occasional and starts begins to take over your whole life. 

Some signs it's tipped from helpful to harmful:  
You feel disconnected from yourself or the people you love most of the time.
You're using something to numb that's creating a new problem, like alcohol, food, overworking, or scrolling for hours, in a way that's hard to stop even when you want to. 
You notice you can't access grief at all, not even the good memories.
The distance you've put between yourself and other people has started to cause you to lose relationships you actually really valued
 

The difference usually isn't the behavior itself, it's whether it's giving you a break so that you can eventually feel and connect again, or whether it's become the wall to keep ANY feeling from getting in. 
 

5-4-3-2-1 grounding. Name five things you can see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell, one you can taste. Numbing pulls you out of your body, and this pulls your attention back into it through your senses and into the moment. 

The butterfly hug. Cross your arms over your chest and gently alternate tapping your shoulders, left, right, left, right. This is a bilateral stimulation technique sometimes used in EMDR, and it can help settle a nervous system that's gone flat or checked out, without needing to talk or explain anything first.

Low-stakes contact. A short voice memo or text saying you are strugging today instead of a giving someone a call. A one-line text to someone safe. Or, even just writing in your iPhone notes I fucking hate that my sibling is dead.  You don't have to connect deeply to your grief everytime you express something. Small expressions of grief still count as evidence to your nervous system that connecting to and expressing grief feels good. 

Co-regulation with a safe person. If someone safe is nearby, sitting close enough to sync your breathing with theirs, or just letting your body be near a calm nervous system, can help regulate yours. This is sometimes called co-regulation, and it's one of the reasons being physically near the right person can settle you faster than anything you could do alone.

Think of the last place or person you felt safe with, not happy or even encouraged, just safe. What was it about them that let your body believe it? What did they do, or not do, that made it possible to let your guard down even a little? Let yourself notice if there's a small way to get more of that this week.

Yes, for most people, though it tends to happen gradually and mostly through repetition rather than insight.

Practicing small, low-stakes vulnerability with people who've already shown you they're safe, and noticing what actually happens in your body afterward.

Letting yourself notice and name numbness or distance when it shows up, instead of judging yourself for it.

Collecting evidence on purpose. Literally keeping a running list, mentally or on paper, of moments someone was kind when you let them see a real part of your grief. 
 

Somatic therapies, which work directly with a nervous system stuck in shutdown or guardedness, often more effectively than talk therapy alone.

EMDR, which can help process the underlying events driving the numbing or the distrust, not just manage the symptom.

Internal Family Systems (IFS), which is often a good fit here specifically, since it works with the "part" of you that goes numb or keeps people at arm's length as a protector, rather than something to fight.

If you have any questions about any of this please just reply to me or drop your questions in the chat.