10 Signs Of Emotional Detachment & How To Heal, From Therapists

If these situations sound familiar, you may be experiencing emotional detachment. 

If you struggle with emotional detachment, it's likely you have difficulty maintaining relationships in your life. Being unable to openly express empathy and the full context of your emotions may prove to be an ongoing theme in your life. Ziskind notes people with emotional detachment often blame themselves for their inability to authentically connect with others, but it's often not their fault. When used in unhealthy ways, emotional detachment is at its core a coping mechanism designed to keep people at a distance so you feel safe—even at the cost of being numb.

In the face of ongoing neglect, stress, or abuse, emotional detachment can correspond to attachment disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), or past instances of trauma. Although it's not listed in the DSM, emotional detachment can also reveal itself as a symptom of a mental health condition or from the use of certain medications like antidepressants. 

Here are a few examples of emotional detachment and how it may show up in your life, according to Tran and Ziskind: 

Your friends and family may share deeply personal stories about what they're going through. You can feel what they're going through, but you're unable to summon the appropriate response to meet them in a heart-opening place. Since you find it hard to be affectionate and listen to their emotions, they may perceive you as being rude or uncaring.

When people are crying, you may find yourself reaching for your phone. It's hard for you to keep up with friends and a bustling social calendar because you think people want too much from you that you're unsure you can give. Another tell is you might find yourself laughing at painful stories and experiences, says Tran.

Forming significant bonds with people means you have to show you care. Because you're not able or willing to connect with all of your emotions, let alone other people's emotions, it can come across like you're neutral toward your loved ones—or worse, like you're stonewalling them. For some, being around your loved ones may not feel enjoyable sometimes because you believe you're not a good communicator in certain situations or because you just don't want to go in too deep with them. 

When you're in a situation where you have to label your own feelings, it may not be easy to parse through what's happening internally. You only know your emotions feel unpleasant and uncomfortable. You're not able to differentiate between your emotions as they come up and properly sort them into categories like grief, anger, or fear. 

When your loved ones want to hear about your struggles, you resort to emotional suppression and downplaying what you're going through—even the good experiences. Even when you're alone, you're still emotionally unavailable to yourself. You would rather distract, intellectualize, and stay clear of them.

Depersonalization is when there's a persistent feeling that you or your surroundings aren't real. People, events, and things may seem foggy and removed. It doesn't seem like you really feel anything at all. Because you are so detached from what's happening, you feel disconnected from your thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

When your partner asks you about your needs and wants in the relationship, your mind is a total blank. It's not so simple for you to understand what you're feeling in the moment, much less reveal things that could open you up to shame or hurt you later on. Because you blunt out emotions so much, it's hard to communicate your expectations and yearnings because you're too busy evading them. 

If you strive to be a people-pleaser instead of setting boundaries, Ziskind says the inability to practice good self-care could, in fact, be a sign of emotional detachment. Not being able to advocate for yourself means you're often denying your own needs and, subsequently, your own emotional desires. 

Ziskind says emotional detachment can contribute toward a large inner critic and a lack of motivation to complete tasks. Being hypercritical leads to perfectionistic tendencies and a distorted belief that you are not good enough. 

Being able to sincerely receive praise from others means you're able to accept the positives in yourself. But for people who experience emotional detachment, you might feel awkward or tense expressing happiness with the compliment. Instead, it may be easier to sidestep the comment and deflect. 

Lastly, if you suffer from emotional detachment, you don't have to do it alone—after all, isolation is a hallmark of this behavior. Ziskind and Tran emphasize the importance of sharing your feelings with the people you trust such as your partner, family, friends, or a trauma-informed therapist. It'll help co-create fulfilling relationships where you both feel seen, heard, and understood. 

Take it from Tran: "Consistency, practice, patience, and compassion are all necessary on the journey of healing. While healing oftentimes can be painful and uncomfortable because it requires confronting what we've been avoiding, on the other side can be joy, freedom, peace, and more connection to ourselves and others we care about."