Has anyone experienced emotional numbness, headaches, and feeling like they don’t care anymore?
Hi everyone,
I’m a 28-year-old female and I’m looking to see if anyone has gone through something similar because I’m honestly scared and feel like I’ve become a different person.
A little background:
I’ve always been a very emotional person. If I heard about something sad happening, I would cry. If a family member got hurt or sick, I would immediately panic and worry. I would get excited about trips, my jewelry business, working out, or even watching movies.
Over the past several weeks (after my week of a full blown migraine attack), something changed.
The headaches themselves are much better than they were at the beginning. They aren’t full-blown migraines anymore—it’s more of a mild pressure or light headache most days—but emotionally I don’t feel like myself.
The biggest thing is this overwhelming emotional numbness.
For example:
My dad was in a car accident, and I felt almost nothing emotionally.
My grandpa was hospitalized, and I knew I cared, but I couldn’t actually feel the emotions.
I can still feel anxiety, nervousness, and sadness to some extent, but excitement is almost gone.
I don’t really care about things I used to look forward to.
I want to start working out again, but I don’t feel motivated because nothing feels rewarding.
When I watch videos or hear emotional stories, I know they should affect me, but it’s like there’s a disconnect between my brain and my emotions.
The weird part is that I don’t necessarily feel depressed. I still want to get better. I still care about my family logically. I still have goals. It’s just like my emotions are muted.
Some additional information:
The headaches started after what seemed like a migraine cycle.
They’ve improved a lot, but this emotional blunting hasn’t.
I’m very sensitive to medications.
I haven’t started my prescribed migraine preventive medication because I’m worried about side effects.
Sleep is okay most nights.
No recreational drugs or alcohol recently.
I’m wondering:
Has anyone experienced emotional numbness during or after migraines?
Could this be part of migraine recovery?
Has anyone had headaches cause derealization, emotional blunting, or feeling disconnected from their own emotions?
Did your emotions eventually come back?
If this happened to you, how long did it last?
I’ve been really worried because I don’t feel like myself anymore, and I’d love to hear if anyone has experienced something similar.
Thank you for reading.