When You Feel Numb, It’s Hard To Make Productive Changes

When you feel numb, you want things to change, but you can never find enough energy to make a change.

You’ve done your research. You know what steps you should be taking in order to boost your mood, to better your mental health. You could exercise — but you can’t bring yourself to step on a treadmill. You could spend more time with family and friends — but you can’t bring yourself to send a text. You could see a therapist — but you can’t bring yourself to set an appointment.

When you feel numb, you come across as lazy because you don’t have the motivation to do anything. You don’t care enough to put in the effort. Your drive is at an all time low.

You don’t plan to sit around all day doing nothing. You don’t want to sit around all day doing nothing either. It’s not like you’re getting enjoyment out of lounging around the house instead of acting productive. You’re not on some sort of staycation where you’re having fun playing video games and watching movie marathons and dancing around to your favorite music. You’re miserable the entire time. You’re kicking yourself for not moving from the couch.

When you feel numb, you might rely on the wrong things to impact your mood. You might chug coffee in order to give yourself the illusion of energy. You might swig beer in order to give yourself the illusion of happiness. You might smoke a joint in order to give yourself the illusion of relaxation.

But as soon as your high from the coffee or alcohol or drugs wear off, you’re back at square one. You’re back to feeling nothing again, which you’re convinced might be an even worse feeling than pain.

When you feel numb, there are a lot of things you want to accomplish in theory. You might want to grow your social circle. You might want to advance your career. You might want to strengthen your muscles. You might want to create. But you never put your plans into action. That would take too much work — and both your mind and body are low on energy right now.

When you’re numb, you’re only really living inside your daydreams. In the real world, not much is happening. History just keeps on repeating itself. You wake up, work, go to sleep, and repeat. You barely have a social life. You barely have a sense of self.

When you feel numb, it’s hard to reset yourself. It’s hard to force yourself to care about anything, even the things that mean the most to you. You get stuck in a cycle of immobility. You always hope you’ll feel better tomorrow, will have more energy tomorrow, will care more tomorrow — but you don’t actively do anything to make tomorrow any better than today.

When you feel numb, it’s extremely difficult to muster up the energy to take care of yourself, but you need to make a change. You can’t give up on yourself. You can’t keep surviving like this.