A Guidebook for the Numb

I can feel it moving, but I don’t know what it is.
Tears well in my eyes, but never fall.
My throat gets tighter, but I don’t have anything to say.
My chest feels heavy, but there’s no dread.

I wish there was a guidebook for emotions. 
Not for how to regulate them.
Not for how to process them.
But for how to let them arrive fully. 

I’ve lived numb for decades. 
Things had to be really exciting or really bad for it to register.
The rest of the time, I lived as a floating head.
Not feeling my body. Not feeling my emotions.
I thought that was contentment. 
Turns out, it’s a survival tactic.

If I can’t feel my body, I can’t feel the hurt.
If I can’t feel the hurt, I must be healing, right?

NOPE.

Numb isn’t the same as healed.
I thought it was. 
I thought a lack of emotion meant a lack of pain.
A lack of anger. Disappointment. Fear. 
All the stuff we try to avoid. 

But it was all still there. I just couldn’t feel it.

New love? That broke through the numbness.
Losing a friend? That did too.
But so much didn’t.

Sure, I’d laugh but I didn’t feel the joy.
I’d cry, but I didn’t feel the sadness.
I’d yell, but I didn’t feel the anger. 
The right outward reactions would occur even when the inside was quiet.

Except with fear.
That I knew how to feel.
I felt it everyday. 
So much so, that I stopped seeing it as fear.
It just became my normal operating mode.

So what is swirling in me right now?

Is it grief? I don’t feel sad.
Is it joy? I don’t feel elated. 
Is it anxiety? I don’t feel buzzy.

I know something is moving under the surface, but I can’t name it.

It’s not pride, though I am impressed I noticed it.
It’s not anger. Not surprise. Or disgust. Or fear.
It’s something. And when I hear the right word to describe it, I’ll know.
But so far, I am coming up blank.

I’m frustrated I don’t know what it is or why it’s happening.
But my frustration is the reaction. 
The originating emotion remains unknown.
Like a Jane Doe.
An unclaimed, unknown, unrecognized victim of a crime. 
Only in this case, I can’t even name that.
I don’t know what “crime” my body is reacting to.

The ongoing fear within me wants control.
It wants me to name what’s happening.

Once the emotion has a name, control says a plan can be made.
It can be executed with precision.
Surgically excised.
Removed cleanly.
As if freedom comes from cutting it out.

Because that’s what’s happening.
I’m still trying to run from my feelings. 
It just looks different now.
Like progress showing up in a new suit.
The numbness is lifting and I don’t always know what to do.

I’m stuck in this limbo of wanting to feel while waiting to feel.
And still being scared to feel.
It’s like a void within me. 
A desperate desire for relief from an unknown.

I feel like a Who in Horton Hears a Who.
Instead of screaming, “I am here! I am here! I am here!”
I’m shouting, “Let me feel! Let me feel! Let me feel!”

And when I finally do feel something?
It feels like my system is flooding. 
Like there’s an emergency valve I need to turn to make it stop.

It’s intense. Overwhelming. Disorienting. Sometimes beautiful. Often terrifying.

So my nervous system spoon-feeds me emotion like a baby learning to eat oatmeal.
Tiny bites. Nothing too big for me to choke on.

And I don’t even know what would happen if I could feel this unknown emotion.
Do I sit with it? Try to soothe it? Wait for it to go away? Or is just naming it enough?

We seriously need a guidebook for the numb.
Not a manual. Not a how-to.
Not a Feelings Wheel. 
Not something written by experts.
But something written by survivors.
Preferably with large print, a coffee stain, and a dog-eared cover.
I’d buy it in a heartbeat.