When Feeling Nothing Feels Safer: Understanding Emotional Numbness After Trauma
One in eight children worldwide will experience sexual abuse before age 18. In the United States, those numbers are even more staggering: one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before reaching adulthood.
But these aren't just statistics. They represent millions of survivors living among us—many walking through life emotionally numb, disconnected from themselves and others, because at some point, numbness became the only way to survive unbearable pain.
The Funeral That Changed Everything
Chris Yadon, Managing Director of Saprea, a global nonprofit dedicated to healing childhood sexual abuse, didn't fully understand his own emotional numbness until he stood at his grandfather's funeral at age 24.
This was the man he'd spent countless hours with on the farm, floating toy boats down irrigation ditches, riding on tractors. The man who made him feel safe and loved. Yet as Chris stood over his grandfather's open casket, he felt... nothing.
"He was the one who had died, but I was dead inside," Chris recalls.
His wife had been gently suggesting for months that he might not be experiencing emotions normally. But it took that moment of expected grief—grief that never came—for Chris to realize he was emotionally numb.
Years later, when he began working with childhood sexual abuse survivors, Chris discovered he shared something profound with them: emotional numbing is one of the most common trauma responses survivors use to cope with unbearable experiences.
What Emotional Numbness Actually Feels Like
Chris describes emotional numbness as a spectrum. "Imagine a box of crayons. On one side you have the brightest red, on the other, the palest red. They're all red, but they're on a scale. When we're numbing our emotions, it's like we've taken that bright red crayon and muted it to pale red. The emotion's still there—it's just not alive inside of us."
The insidious part? Numbing happens so gradually that most people don't realize how disconnected they've become until something jolts them awake.
The Hidden Signs of Emotional Numbing
Emotional numbness doesn't always look like depression or sadness. Sometimes it looks like success.
Chris struggled with hyperproductivity—getting more done in a workday than most people, but using that busyness to avoid sitting with his thoughts or emotions. Others become extreme peacekeepers, avoiding conflict at all costs rather than healthily working through disagreement.
These coping mechanisms helped survivors survive their trauma. But they also prevent them from fully experiencing what it means to be human—the entire spectrum of joy, sadness, grief, and healing.
Creating Safe Spaces Without Retraumatization
So how do we help survivors break their silence without causing more harm?
Chris emphasizes two critical solutions: breaking down shame and stigma by talking openly about childhood sexual abuse (he calls it "embracing the awkward"), and creating safe spaces where survivors can experience triggers and learn to manage them.
"A lot of people are so afraid of retraumatizing somebody that they try to create spaces free of triggers," Chris explains. "But what survivors actually need is to experience those triggers in a safe environment so they can learn to cope with those emotions as they surface without fear of judgment."
How Loved Ones Can Help (and What to Avoid)
For those supporting survivors, Chris offers clear guidance:
Don't: Bombard them with questions or take away their control. Interrogation—even well-intentioned—often carries shame and can retraumatize.
Do: Practice active listening and ask open-ended questions like, "Thanks for sharing that with me. How can I best support you?"
Remember: when someone experiences trauma, control was taken from them. Their nervous system is responding to that loss of control. When loved ones exert control—even trying to help—it can trigger the same response as the original abuse.
The Choice to Feel Again
Chris's message to survivors is both honest and hopeful: "You can live your entire life while numbing your emotions. You don't have to learn to feel again. You can get by. But you limit your full experience of what it means to be human."
Learning to feel again is a journey fraught with challenges. But the results—experiencing the full spectrum of human emotion, feeling truly alive—are worth it.
Healing is possible. Help is available. And choosing to feel again, while terrifying, is choosing to truly live.
Resources: Saprea offers free resources specifically designed to help survivors deal with emotional numbing. Visit saprea.org or connect with Chris Yadon on LinkedIn and Substack for more information on this healing journey.