Time to reconnect: How we disconnect ourselves through numbing behaviors

[Note: this post was originally published on Substack April 18, 2023] 

The story around my jar of Peanut M&Ms

I’ve been feeling stressed lately, which means I've been numbing myself a lot to try and cope.  It’s not my preferred way of getting through the day... anymore. I used to use numbing behaviors almost exclusively. I didn’t use the usual drugs or alcohol that we so often hear of as numbing behaviors. I had lived with alcoholics and people who did drugs to “escape”, and I had tried enough to know it just wasn't my thing.  

These days when I find myself numbing, I'm playing games on my phone. Video games (yes, even solitaire!) are a classic numbing device, along with food, alcohol, drugs, workaholism, being a people pleaser (because you're ignoring your own needs, hence numbing), and plenty of other behaviors we use to disconnect from our body to stop feeling what we're feeling because it's hard, uncomfortable, and it hurts.  

I thought for a long time that I was a hard worker and took into account the needs of others. In my mind, that made me a good employee, provider, and a thoughtful person. What I really was doing was numbing with people pleasing and workaholism. This was a pattern I adopted early in my adult life and lived daily until my burnout last year, when I was forced to take a hard look at what I was doing to myself and those around me and make some decisions about how I wanted to continue to live. There wasn't another option, I was forced to make changes. The numbing I had practiced for so long had created a situation my body could no longer tolerate. 

The straw that broke my body was a combination of a huge amount of pandemic lockdown stress and increased work stress. Maybe I would've been OK with one or the other, but with both, I was struggling. I held on for many months, thinking "this will pass, things will calm down, and I'll be OK".  With so many shortages and so much stress, comfort food, usually an every-once-in-a-while treat, found its way back into my pantry on a more permanent basis. I picked up a third numbing device, food, without even realizing it.  

While there were other comfort foods that wound up back in the house, a glass jar of peanut M&Ms became my work-from-home companion and symbolic of this shift in behavior. With all the various shortages during the pandemic the one thing there wasn't a shortage of was comfort foods like candy and snacks. At least not where I shopped. 

This was a new thing. I usually never kept snacks in easy access at my desk. I never had "that many" M&Ms at any one time (as I told myself), but they became a frequent, and eventually daily, additional numbing behavior.  

When I was working 12+ hours a day, a little pick-me-up in the afternoon seemed reasonable, especially if I had skipped meals, as I often did. (When you're numb, you don't pay attention to things like hunger.) It used to be coffee, but I became too sensitive to the extra caffeine, so I had to cut that out. I love tea, but it's not the same. Peanut M&Ms seemed the "least worst" choice. They had peanuts! That should account for something, right?!  

It started small. I counted out the number listed as a serving size. Over time, as my stress continued to build and build with no outlet, they went from a once-in-a-while treat to a couple of times a week to a daily indulgence. I was hurting so much by then; a serious crash was only a matter of time. 

When the burnout finally did crash my life, I was a stressed-out mess. I was in classic burnout: I was emotionally exhausted, I had no empathy or compassion left, especially for myself and my body's needs, and I felt I was totally useless, at everything, not just my job. There was so much stress balled up inside me, tucked into every possible nook and cranny I could find, that I had no energy left to feel any feelings at all. I had achieved total numbness, but it was a terrible feeling (technically, a lack of feeling), and came with a very high health cost as well. 

Not only did I have to take a good, hard look at my work life, but also all the ways I had disconnected from and hurt my body, and resisted being self-aware to see what I was doing to myself and to others with this behavior. 

It has been a long recovery journey that will never be fully "over". I will always be in recovery from using numbing behavior, including people-pleasing, food, and workaholism, to ignore my hard feelings and deal with stress. I have to maintain a conscious vigil when I start working on something to make sure I'm paying attention to my body's needs, including a healthy diet, hydration, and exercise. I have built a mindfulness practice that helps me stay focused on the present, which helps me stay connected to the feelings I'm feeling in my body and accepting them, but I still relapse and still have to recover each time that happens. I am still a work in progress. 

I have realized that being connected to friends and loved ones is part of how I was able to reconnect to myself. These past couple of weeks, when I've found myself back in my numbing behaviors, I've realized that I've disconnected from the people around me as well as myself. It's hard to accept, but at least I'm aware of it now and can do things to address it, especially reconnecting in order to work through the stress and pain I’m feeling.  

If you see yourself or someone you love in these words, please know using numbing behavior is a sign that there is pain and disconnection happening, even if you/they aren't aware of it or willing to acknowledge it right now. If you're using numbing behavior, take a pause and reach out to a friend or trusted advisor, like a therapist or a coach, and reconnect. If you see this in someone you love, reach out to them, be a friend and stay connected to them. Whether it’s you or a loved one, I’ve learned that talking about what’s causing the hard feelings and ending the cycle of bottling everything up inside is the only way through and reconnecting.