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THE SHIELD: NUMBING
We are a culture of people who’ve bought into the idea that if we stay busy enough, the truth of our lives won’t catch up with us. Statistics dictate that there are very few people who haven’t been
affected by addiction. I believe we all numb our feelings. We may not do it compulsively and chronically, which is addiction, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t numb our sense of vulnerability. And numbing vulnerability is especially debilitating because it doesn’t just deaden the pain of our difficult
experiences; numbing vulnerability also dulls our experiences of love, joy, belonging, creativity, and empathy. We can’t selectively numb emotion. Numb the dark and you numb the light. ☀️
Americans today are more debt-ridden, obese, medicated, and addicted than we ever have been. For the first time in history, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced that automobile
accidents are now the second leading cause of accidental death in the United States. The leading cause? Drug overdoses. In fact, more people die from prescription drug overdoses than from heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine drug use combined. The dealers today are more likely to be parents, relatives, friends, and physicians.👨🏻⚕️🥼℞☤🩺👩🏻⚕️💊
The primary driver of numbing would be our struggles with worthiness and shame: We numb the pain that comes from feeling inadequate and “less than.” Anxiety and disconnection also emerged as drivers of numbing in addition to shame. The most powerful need for numbing seems to come from combinations of all three—shame, anxiety, and disconnection.
The anxiety described by the research participants appeared to be fueled by uncertainty, overwhelming and competing demands on our time, and (one of the big surprises) social discomfort.
Disconnection includes a range of experiences that encompassed depression but also included loneliness,
isolation, disengagement, and emptiness.
Anxiety with shame rising. Disconnection with shame rising. Anxiety and disconnection with shame rising.
Shame enters for those of us who experience anxiety because not only are we feeling fearful, out of control, and incapable of managing our increasingly demanding lives, but eventually our anxiety is compounded and made unbearable by our belief that if we were just smarter, stronger, or better, we’d
be able to handle everything. Numbing here becomes a way to take the edge off of both instability and inadequacy.