Many people with depression feel an unbearable, knock-you-off-your-feet sadness, a debilitating despair. They feel like they’re drowning or suffocating. They feel a deep, all-over aching pain. Even breathing feels arduous.
But many do not.
In fact, many people with depression don’t feel anything except for numbness or emptiness.
Dean Parker’s clients often describe a “thick feeling throughout their body.” Some describe feeling like they’re “covered in lead.” Others describe being “in a fog.” Still, others say things like: “I have no emotions,” “Nothing gives me pleasure,” “Nothing gives me joy.”
Counseling psychologist Rosy Saenz-Sierzega, Ph.D, has worked with clients who initially feel a profound despair, which then turns into numbness. “Clients at times refer to this as an ‘emotional hangover’ – having nothing left to give after having experienced such extreme emotional outpour.”
Other clients tell Saenz-Sierzega that they’re unable to feel anything at all. Which isn’t a neutral state of mind; her clients tell her it’s terrifying and isolating. They start to feel helpless and hopeless and become “fearful that they will never again be able to feel.” They “feel as though there is a wall or barrier between them and other people – it’s very lonely behind that wall,” she said.
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