Emotional Detachment

Hi.

Over the past four years or so (I'm 16 now), I've had a lot of difficulties feeling strong emotions.

Let me just list off a couple of recent examples... Just last night, I thought my messenger bag had been stolen at the airport, which held my laptop and passport in it. I honest to god thought it was gone forever, but I did not care one bit. I felt absolutely no different than I had 10 minutes prior. (Turns out someone thought it was unattended luggage and brought it to lost and found.)

Another thing that happened this morning is that my family received my grandpa's remains for the first time. Our cousins had been keeping it for the past 8 years, and when my dad opened it up, the ashes were kept in a degraded ziploc baggie. He was furious, my mom was crying, and my brother looked disturbed, but I seriously feel nothing. I know that it was incredibly disrespectful of my cousins that they did that, but I don't feel angry or anything. I just... don't care.

There are a lot of other instances like these, but apparently they're not important or recent enough to me to recall. (Well, I can remember deaths because my parents get all moody. I didn't feel any strong emotions when my favourite aunt died, when my grandpa and grandma died, or when my weird-*** uncle died.)

Can someone give me a diagnosis? I have no anxiety in social situations but avoid them if I can, laugh easily, don't cry often, complete loner (but don't care about that either), and I don't think I'm depressed. Am I just unconsciously blocking negative emotions, or do I have a problem?


Thanks.

Welcome to PC. Glad you found us.


Hope you can find some general support here. You may have a form of emotional detachment bur we can't diagnose you here. Is there a school counsellor that you could talk to in real life?

Welcome to PC

I agree that a diagnosis cannot be given here, nor frankly would be expected anywhere online.

Is it detachment or apathy?

Have your parents ever commented about your emotions or lack there of? If not speaking with a school counselor what about your family doctor? You're of an age where privacy and confidence certainly matters. And they are becoming more in tune to mh screenings than compared to years past.

Sounds real familiar. I'm not going to give a diagnosis cause I'm not qualified but I can sure talk you through it. Do you find that you know the emotional context of a situation but don't physically feel it? Like it doesn't move you?

Maybe there's blockage somewhere between your conscious and subconscious where you're emotions reside?

Sounds like schizoid personality disorder

Sometimes, after trauma, people stop feeling - you are at a loose end, you have had enough of the drama.

That is human. It's not a diagnosis. Please everyone posting, consider that 'not feeling' is not necessarily a diagnosis. There is the possibility that the individual AKA OP is not feeling because they have already been though the feeling process.


Harassed or exposed to some concern/issue long enough, all humans stop feeling. Its the body and minds protective mechanism. Why must there be labels?????

I think you should visit a doctor to be sure - it could be many things. Have your parents ever noticed any of this?

When my emotions get overwhelming, I tend to "disassociate:" My emotions turn off and I function solely with logic. Whether that's actual disassocation, some version of alexiathymia, something psychosomatic, or something completely different, my doctor won't put a label on it.

Do **NOT** try to diagnose yourself or get someone else to diagnose you online. If you wish, ask around and use whatever you find to point you to the right psychologist specialty but you must visit a doctor to get a true diagnosis. Even then, nowadays doctors are more hesitant to just slap a label on something and call it a day.