Is it normail to feel numb?

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2004
Is it normail to feel numb?
3
Tue, 12-14-2004 - 1:49pm
Hi, I have posted here before and I have one question? Is it normal to feel numb about your husband? We have been fighting for almost 3 months straight while he has been deployed overseas. There has been name calling, screaming, and he has gotten on to me about every subject there is. He will be home in 4 weeks and I dont know how I feel. Right now, I am just numb and don't know what to say to him when he calls. Anybody else feel this way?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 12-15-2004 - 12:39am

Hi Needofhelp04, I'm glad to see you here. I was just peeking (actually hoping to see you here!) and thought I'd provide the links to your posts on Problem Solving for Couples so the members here have a better understanding of your situation: I Don't Love My Husband -- What Do I Do? and I dont know how i feel about my husband ,




This is a great group and they'll help you a lot. I'm so glad you're here getting the kind of support and understanding you need!




Huge hugs Needofhelp~

(apologies to the board for not removing my hat - didn't think about it until it was all ready to post!)

~ cl-2nd_life


"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."

~ Author unknown








"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-06-2003
Thu, 12-16-2004 - 1:30pm

Hi there, I'm glad you found your way over here. Have you checked out the home page yet? What do you think about the info? There's a checklist in the "off topic discussions" section that is very interesting to go through too.

To answer your question, yes, I think it's absolutely normal to feel numb. For most of us who have dealt with emotional and verbal abuse, we have been "taught" or conditioned to believe that voicing our opinions and feelings at best, is met with indifference, at worst results in very painful retaliation. Tragically, you've had the latter going on for some time now, haven't you?

We are told by abusers, in a thousand little and bigs ways, that what we want and need and feel is inconsequential. Our ongoing effort to be heard or considered is deeply annoying to them and results in increased tactics of control. We are told we are wrong so often to the point that we begin to doubt our thoughts and our gut feelings. Painful duality and inner struggle insues.

So, is it any wonder after daily doses of this, as a survival mechanism, we shut down? We bury the feelings so deep that even we can't get to them anymore. This dispondency can lead to depression and physical health problems. Migrains, ulcers, in my case severe depression and chronic and very painful psoriasis over a great deal of my body.

I think a lot of the other women here will back me up when I tell you that the biggest part of the healing process after abuse is to learn how to feel again. To learn to recognize our feelings and to learn to acknowledge and validate and work through all the feelings that we repreased in order to survive an abuser.

Needofhelp04, have you called the hotline yet? 1-800-799-SAFE. They can direct you to resources in your area. Have you managed to find the book: "Why does he do that? Inside the minds of angry and controlling men" by Lundy Bancroft. I just re-read it myself and it would do you a world of good. Please reach out to some one outside the military cirle you are in. Please talk to someone who has specific experience dealing with the dynamics of the power imbalance and control issues that are inherant in an abusive relationship.

You have four weeks left to decide what to do. Must you talk to him every day? Can you somehow give yourself a bit of a NO CONTACT break? Go visit family and friends for Christmas? He may sense something is up and you are pulling away. The arguing about everything and anything is to keep you off balance and confused to maintain his power position. It's a universal abuse control tactic we call 'crazy-making'. Getting you to react is, to him, proof of his control. If you must talk to him, tell him straight out that you will not argue anymore so if he starts, you are going to hang up - then DO IT! Hang up. Take back the power over yourself. It belongs to you, you know.

Do you have a recorder that you can tape the conversations? You can pick one up at Radio Shack for about $70 in Canada. I started doing that after separation because stbx was threatening me. When I played back the conversations it was blatantly obvious that he was bating me over and over. If I didn't take the bate on one topic he'd switch immediately and throw a verbal dagger on another one. He just needed me to react. I only communicate with email now but, he still tries. I don't bite. They never change.

Numb is very normal in your situation. It's also extremely strong evidence that you need to do something NOW! Your member name says it best. You are in need of help. Your children need you to be more than numb. They need you to act for yourself so you can care for them. Read, learn, call the hot-line number, make an appointment with an abuse counsellor, go visit a shelter, get that book. If you sit there, numb and doing nothing, in four weeks he will be back and you will be doing the same arguing only in person, in front of the children, with potentially much more dire consequences. You and your children deserve better but, no one will bring it to your front door. It's up to you to go out and find out what you options are. It's up to you.

Keep looking up^, Susan.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-12-2003
Fri, 12-17-2004 - 12:29pm

just my input, i feel numb too. i didnt used to, until DH told me he was in love with my friend at her wedding. He was sitting there in the bathroom with me, all upset over her because she was his "soul mate" and if he had met her first he would have married her and not me. But he said that I was 2nd and hat he wouldnt divorce me. He was asking me about if I thought that he had a chance with her if she ever got divorced.

Thats when something that I felt for DH died inside of me. Whether it was love, lust, respect, hope that we would be happy in the future, it just died.