In pop psychology, as well as everyday conversation, people often toss around phrases like “I just want to feel safe” or “Being numb helps me cope.” But as research and clinical observation show, emotional safety and emotional numbness are distinct psychological states, and confusing the two can slow your growth, isolate you from support, and leave you stuck in patterns that feel safe but aren’t.
Before we dive into the signs of confusion, we must define both terms so we can distinguish them ourselves:
1. Emotional safety is a state in which you feel secure expressing your whole range of feelings, rooted in the belief that supportive connections, trust, and acceptance are possible in your relationships and environment.
2. Emotional numbness refers to a reduced capacity to feel emotions, often as a coping response to overwhelming stress, trauma, or internal conflict.
Ironically, numbness can feel safe because it reduces emotional pain. But that feeling of “nothing matters” isn’t the same as genuine safety; it’s more of a psychological shutdown. And research backs that up.
A growing body of work highlights how emotional numbness shows up in clinical contexts. For example, a 2024 study published in JAMA Network Open found that trauma-exposed individuals, particularly those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), exhibit rapid swings between emotional states.Get The Full, Articles. .
𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁𝘀𝗔𝗽𝗽 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 𝗧𝗼 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗟𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗔𝘀 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗗𝗿𝗼𝗽!
