Emotional paralysis: meaning, causes, effects and coping

You may already be familiar.freeze response‘ to stress. Usually, the normal stress response is the fight or flight response. If you can deal with a source of threat/stress, you will. If you can’t, you try to escape (fly). These are basic survival responses found in all animals.

A freeze response occurs when you can’t choose which one to choose struggle or flight. You sense a threat, but you can’t do anything about it. So your body freezes. This can be a way to avoid detection by predators, but it allows you to track the source of your threat and takes time to make the right decision.

Interestingly, the freezing response can depend on more than just your behavior. It can also be about your feelings and your mind (thinking). This means that when you experience a response, not only is your body paralyzed, but you may also experience mental or emotional paralysis (EP).

Emotional paralysis and mental paralysis

EP is the inability to experience emotions. Your emotions stop. You cannot feel them. You don’t feel them moving inside you.

Mental paralysis is when your mind stops or, more commonly, “goes blank.” You can’t think or think clearly. There is a bidirectional relationship between mental/spirituality and EP, meaning that one can lead to the other. But both can happen independently.

What causes EP?

Excessive stress

Why do our emotions shut down when we experience stress after freezing?

When you experience strong negative emotions like fear, anxiety, depression, shame, etc., your emotional system is overloaded. Your mind has a limited sensory network. When this bandwidth is overloaded with strong negative emotions, the mind stops emotional processing. He has run out of emotional resources to process further emotions.

This emotional closure can be seen as the mind’s way of protecting you from emotional pain. Say how you feel intense emotional pain in a threatening situation and cannot do anything about it. In this case, it is better to dull the ability to feel pain, so that you can tolerate more pain without feeling it. So the EP is also titled:

It’s the same phenomenon when your body experiences stress or pain (like during exercise) and then you feel better because endorphins are released. This pain-relieving effect of endorphins applies not only to bodily and physical pain, but also to mental and emotional pain.

Indirect effects of stress

Stress can directly or indirectly cause emotional dullness. Directly when it is accompanied by extremely strong and strong negative emotions. Indirectly through mental paralysis, even if mild. Even mild, everyday stress can shut down the brain’s prefrontal cortex (PFC).

When the PFC shuts down (mental paralysis), it can no longer control negative emotions, which is one of its important functions. If this function is disturbed, even initially moderate negative emotions can become uncontrollably overwhelming emotions, leading to emotional closure.

You can also experience EP by 'catching' the overwhelming emotions of others. An inability to handle your own intense emotions leads to an inability to handle others' intense emotions.

Trauma

Situational EP occurs when you are experiencing extreme stress at the moment. If the situation is resolved, the EP will leave. The quality of being unresolved is characteristic of trauma. Thus, it stands to reason that trauma-induced EP should be stable, not just situational.

EP in response to a traumatic experience is caused by a phenomenon called dissociation. Dissociation means disconnection. This term is often used in the context of cognitive dissociation. It means a mental disconnection from the situation. This can manifest as zoning, to dreamand, in severe cases, “feeling out of body” or even dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder).

Related: 5 Types of Dissociation

A breakup can also be emotional, meaning you feel emotionally disconnected from the situation. Thus, dissociation can and does produce emotional numbness. Trauma-related emotional numbing caused by dissociation is associated with anxiety disorders, depression, and PTSD. That is why those who have experienced traumatic experiences often talk about “the call”. They feel a disconnect between themselves and their emotions.

Encountering your trauma triggers, especially, is highly likely to induce emotional numbing. It becomes a learned response to the unique situation you faced and its cues.

Impact

If you cannot feel your emotions, you will have difficulty expressing them. A big part of connecting with others is connecting with them emotionally. A big part of being emotionally connected to others is expressing your feelings. Not being able to feel these emotions can have a negative impact on all of your relationships. A bad relationship not only brings social stress (more stress, more problems) may hinder your ability to achieve your important goals.

Examples

Tim was abused by his father as a child. His mind evoked a stable EP that he took to school. He remained aloof in the classroom and did not open up to anyone. He still struggles with making friends as an adult.

Jim went through a serious divorce. The incident was traumatic and she suffered from PTSD symptoms. She was emotionally numb shortly after the breakup. For a long time, he thought that he had lost the ability to love, trust and care, because he no longer felt these feelings.

Overcome

The best way to get rid of emotional shutdown is to eliminate the excessive stress that causes it from your life. Take inventory of all your stressors and try to eliminate the main ones. Usually, these are big problems that you are facing but haven’t solved or even avoid facing.

You may not have the resources (knowledge and skills) to solve these problems. In that case, you can start by becoming more resourceful, educating yourself, and seeking help. 

While you are working on dealing with the major emotional issues in your life, you can also work on managing your stress. Techniques like journaling and grounding can help. When you write down your feelings in a journal, you force your feelings and work through them. It drives them.

Grounding involves being aware of your little feelings and emotions. By focusing on the things you see (their color, shape, and size), the sounds you hear, and the textures you touch, you bring your mind back to your body. It reduces the connection between your body and mind.

Because emotions drive actions, emotional numbness is often accompanied by behavioral paralysis. Emotionally weak people inhibit their behavior because they do not feel the emotions that control their behavior. When you conquer EP, it will be reflected in your behavior. You move physically and emotionally.