Can you be abused and yet not feel it?

So yeah.... Can you suffer from abuse and feel nothing towards it? Like it's just another boring conversation.

i can say for myself that i lack feelings towards the past abuse i've experienced. not as another boring conversation, but more like "total no feelings " for me. i tend to have more compassion for others than for myself.

guess in other words, i have frag memories but no feelings. can't say this is a healthy way of dealing with past issues. but it is all i have..

To be it simply, if you have been abused and don't feel it then yes seems the clear answer.

We've had a similar discussion on a thread I started about lacking emotion when discussing abuse.

We discussed how it possibly arises from dissociating yourself from situations. I don't know about you, and and I don't know how you do with things. But I have an ability to go somewhere completely within myself where I am safe and my body is seperate. Most people would say thats dissociating. Its a defence mechanism. The problem is, when things change for example for me I am no longer being abused and have finally started seeking treatment for my past abuse so now, my copig mechanisms from the past don't make sense.

It is no longer acceptable for me to dissociate from my feelings, although at the moment it is all I do. I hope someday to be strong enough to face my feelings and move on from them but it is hard.

My advice to you would be to take your time with things. If you can, try and work through things with a therapist. I think its healthy to have the feelings there. However, I completely understand how you don't have feelings and how hard and alien it feels to not have or show the feelings you probably do have somewhere inside of you. On the other hand, I might be chatting complete rubbish!

Yes you can. I can't handle my feelings right now as, when I let them in, it's all too much.

Yes, I think so. I assume we're talking about emotional abuse. Sometimes people might not see it as that, when everybody else does--or maybe the person has just shut down some emotionally, to tune it out. I actually observed three generations of a family who said things to each other that I perceived as very cutting and unkind. But the family members just accepted it as "normal," evidently. And I know they weren't just joking with each other. They were a very dysfunctional group, that's for sure.

I know a little about dissociation, picklewheeze, and I can definitely understand what you mean, in a theoretical way. If I recall correctly, dissociation is a disconnection and impairment of cognitive thinking. So your thought process becomes distorted. But I'm more talking about emotional rather than cognitive detachment, but I guess cognitive impairment can effect your emotional mind set.... Anyway.... I do sincerely hope that you find relief soon and thank you for your contribution .
That is a little dysfuntional, Payne1. Maybe being born into it creates the illusion of normalcy, that it is simply how it's always been.

MichaelSacha I agree with you,just couldn't explain it myself

Another interesting coping mechanism that could explain this is supression. Youve suppressed your emotions for so long its now all you know so you can no longer feel them.

Who knows! I hopebyou too, find relief.

Supression coupled with denial, rationalisation, projection, exaggeration and minimalisation and you have the basic personality construct of a narcissist. I imagine that is when the problem becomes "all pervasive". If done from a young enough age than the essentials of emotional development in the brain is stunted. But yeah, supressing (repressing) emotions can be problematic.

It depends on the person to be honest.

Some may feel it and may still be stuck with the feelings and emotions of what happened and may or cannot let it go, possibly out of fear.

and others simply after a while will turn their emotions away from the past abuse and then if get reminded or remember something from there past may just not show or have any emotion towards it!. x