Growing up, your feelings were treated like unwelcome guests in your own home 🏠. When you were hurt, scared, or angry, the adults around you either ignored you completely or made it clear that your emotions were *inconvenient, dramatic, or wrong*. You learned early that feelings don't get you comfort—they get `invalidated, criticized, and turned against you entirely`. So you did what any smart kid would do: you shut down the emotional spigot to stop bothering people with your needs.<br><br> This `emotional numbing` was actually brilliant survival strategy 🧠. You became incredibly self-sufficient, able to handle crises without falling apart, and developed a radar for others' emotions since yours didn't seem to matter anyway. But now you find yourself *disconnected from your own inner world*, struggling to know what you actually feel or need in any given moment. When someone genuinely asks "What's going on for you?" or "How are you feeling?" there's often just... static 📻. You've become so good at reading everyone else's emotional temperature that you've forgotten how to take your own. The strategy that once protected you from humiliation and rejection now leaves you feeling like a stranger to yourself and  disconnected from the people closest to you.

The Stoic

Living in unsafe or high-crime neighborhoods

No safe adult to turn to for emotional support

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