If you’re feeling numb after a breakup, your feelings prove that you suffered a huge shock. You went through so much pain in such a short amount of time that you lost the ability to think clearly and feel emotions. Your experiences don’t bring you any excitement or meaning because you feel hollow and incomplete as an individual.
This is completely normal. Many dumpees feel numb after a breakup. They get their hopes, dreams, and expectations crushed—and fall deep into depression. While they’re depressed, they go through a period where everything seems meaningless to them.
The things that previously gave their lives joy and purpose no longer make them happy. They can’t make them happy because they experienced overwhelming psychological trauma and emotional burnout. They need time to recover from the shock and see that there’s more to life than their failed romantic relationship.
How much time they need depends on their coping mechanisms and what they do to get their ex out of their system. If they sign up for therapy and surround themselves with empathetic friends, they heal faster than those who shut themselves in and have no one to talk to. Their actions are extremely important as the harder they try to live a busy social life, the quicker they stop feeling numb and start enjoying life again.
So if you’re feeling numb after a breakup, keep in mind that it’s normal to feel that way. You went through one of the hardest, if not the hardest, experiences life has to offer where you got rejected by the person you loved and felt unloved and worthless. Your relationship and personal goals instantly went up in a blaze and disoriented you.
Especially if your ex cheated on you or monkey-branched to someone shortly after the breakup. That’s an extremely difficult piece of information to accept and cope with.
No matter what your ex did, the unwanted turn of events shocked you and left you no choice but to obsessively think about your ex and ways for you to be happy again. Pain probably tempted you to reach out to your ex, explain your side of the story, and force your ex to take you back.
If it did, it’s very common and nothing to be ashamed of.
Most dumpees try to change their ex’s mind for a while. Some reach out via family and friends whereas others do more desperate things such as showing up at their ex’s house unannounced. Obviously, there are different levels of breakup mistakes dumpees make, but most of them make the dumpee feel worse. Every time the dumpee seeks something from the dumper, he or she pushes the space-deprived dumper away, blames him/herself for it, and prolongs his or her recovery time.
You’ll feel better if you keep your distance from your ex and remind yourself that you feel numb because your ex’s abandonment destroyed your plans and hurt your self-esteem. It annihilated your purpose and ability to feel emotions and enjoy life. This is because, to some degree, you depended on your ex for happiness. You needed your ex to love you so you could feel validated and secure.
Rest assured that you won’t feel this way forever. Once you stop taking the breakup personally and learn to rely on yourself for various wants and needs, you’ll stop seeing your ex as your savior but rather as someone who made your life difficult. It might take a few weeks, but when you’re back to being your cheerful self, you’ll wonder why you even spent so much time analyzing the breakup, putting your ex on a pedestal, and convincing yourself you’ll never be happy again.
For now, allow yourself to feel sad, anxious, depressed, and numb. Consider these emotions a part of your healing process. You need to acknowledge them and accept them in order to get through them. If you tell yourself you’re weak and that you shouldn’t be feeling how you feel, you’ll make things worse because you’ll fail to meet your standards and think something’s wrong with you.
So try not to think too negatively about your post-breakup numbness. It may feel uncomfortable and strange, but try to understand that most people feel it at least to some degree. Most dumpees feel depressed and anxious and struggle to connect with others and see meaning in life.
Normally, they need a few weeks of distance from their ex to accept the breakup and become open to the idea of not having their ex in their lives. When they partially accept that they may not get back together with their ex, they stop feeling numb and regain some control over their thoughts and emotions.
You’ll regain your lost control too. As soon as you convince yourself that you matter and that life goes on without your ex, you’ll start to think less about your ex and more about yourself.
I can’t tell you when exactly that will happen. But if you went no contact and didn’t struggle with depression or other mental health problems before the breakup, you probably won’t feel numb longer than a couple of weeks. Simply put, the length and intensity of your numbness depends on your mental health and coping mechanisms.
Hence, it’s important to work on yourself before, during, and after the relationship. Your self-work will determine your suffering when unpredictable and painful things occur.
Today, we shed some light on why you may be feeling numb after a breakup and how you can stop feeling that way.
Why do I feel numb after a breakup?
If you’re feeling numb after a breakup, nothing and no one stimulates you emotionally. Your post-breakup experiences seem completely meaningless as you’d rather preserve your energy than do things you don’t want to do. Unlike your ex who feels empowered by the breakup, you feel emotionally drained and unwilling to take your life in a different direction.
The reason you’re feeling so unenergetic, numb, and stagnant is that you didn’t see the breakup coming. You had no time to prepare for the sudden abandonment and loss of self-esteem and happy hormones. The breakup hit you out of the blue and forced you to start adapting to new dynamics.
Because you weren’t ready to do that, you suffered a huge shock and felt lost.
You must understand that you feel numb because your ex shattered the future you had envisioned and worked toward. Your ex made you give up on a relationship with him or her and forced you to look for new paths in life. Since you lacked backup plans and ways to cope with his or her absence, your self-esteem immediately took a toll and triggered immense suffering.
This intense period of suffering scarred you, depleted you emotionally, and caused you to feel numb. Numbness now prevents you from feeling emotions you previously experienced at work, school, home, or with friends. Due to the severed stream of happy hormones, you feel lost and empty. Hobbies, friends, and daily tasks you previously enjoyed no longer give you any sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
It’s as if you’ve forgotten how to have fun and live with purpose.
The truth though is that you’ve endured more pain than your coping mechanisms could endure and that it left you defenseless. The breakup or your ex’s actions broke you and forced you to work on your independence and self-esteem. Things may seem bad, but it’s given you a chance to learn why your ex’s abandonment hurt you so deeply and what you can do to avoid feeling hurt again.
Some dumpees seek new romantic interests to validate themselves whereas others actually work on their self-esteem. I strongly discourage you from going down the former path as it will likely lead to further disappointment and pain. You need to deal with numbness by identifying its triggers rather than ignoring it and replacing it with another person.
Another person can’t help you love yourself. He or she can only boost your ego and put a temporary patch on your problems. Long-term, you need to invest in yourself and ensure breakups don’t require you to make significant changes to many aspects of your life. The more things you have to change because of your ex, the more you can expect to suffer.
And the more you suffer, the bigger the chance of falling into depression, acting on difficult emotions, making breakup mistakes, and feeling rejected and numb.
Post-breakup emotional numbness has a good side to it too. It gets rid of dumpees’ fears and lets them live a fearless life. Many of their issues temporarily disappear, such as worries about what others think. During this difficult time, they can learn that most of their worries are of little importance and that they can handle them better when they’re emotionally numb and don’t care about them.
Anyway, you’re feeling numb after a breakup with your ex because you emotionally invested in your ex and expected your ex to help you solve some of your challenges and reach certain goals. You slowly became reliant on your ex and got hurt when your ex pulled the plug on you.
Because you had strong feelings and lacked alternative solutions and tools to cope with the breakup blues, you experienced a powerful shock and found yourself feeling numb.
Keep in mind that it’s almost impossible not to feel shocked or a bit numb. Those who don’t feel shocked have already detached from their ex – most likely due to wanting to break up. They’ve processed or half-processed the breakup before they even got broken up with.
With that said, here’s why you’re feeling numb after a breakup.
How to get rid of post-breakup numbness?
Getting rid of post-breakup numbness will require time and dedication. You’ll need to acknowledge and accept your feelings. By doing so, you’ll allow yourself to feel what you feel rather than resist it and put yourself down for it. You might feel better if you remind yourself that most dumpees feel tired and numb and that it’s part of the dumpee’s recovery process.
Dumpees go through recovery stages known as the dumpee stages of a breakup. During these stages, they experience denial, what-ifs, depression, nostalgia, guilt, and numbness. They need time to get back on their feet and discover their true potential. On average, they need a few weeks to stop feeling numb, a few months to stop obsessing over their ex 24/7, and 8 months to get over their ex.
They need twice or thrice that long if they’re dependent on their ex for basic human wants and needs.
Anyway, you must understand that the best way to get rid of post-breakup numbness is to actively work on it. Active work entails leaving your ex alone and engaging in hobbies and activities that bring you joy and a sense of purpose. Even though you may not feel like doing much, it’s important to force yourself to stay busy.
A busy life will allow you to wean off your ex and see meaning outside of the relationship with your ex. Make sure to socialize with your friends and stay away from people, locations, and things that remind you of your ex. You want to spend as much time as possible thinking about the present and the future.
If you can’t express yourself to friends and family members, start journaling or find a therapist to open up to. You’ll feel better when you get things off your chest and feel heard and understood. Make sure to also establish an exercise routine. Exercise will keep your heart strong and release much-needed happy hormones.
Since your ex destroyed your goals, it’d be wise to establish some new ones. Think about all the short and long-term goals you want to accomplish and put them down. That way, you can read them often to remind yourself of what you need to work on and improve. You can always work on your relationship skills. It will benefit your next relationship whether it’s with your ex or someone else.
Why do you think you’re feeling numb after a breakup? Post your breakup experience below.
However, if you’re looking for help with your breakup, get in touch through our coaching page. At Magnet of Success, we help dumpees understand the breakup and help them recover emotionally.
My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.
