I Feel Like I Can’t Feel

Mariam Naeem
3 min readJul 27, 2021
Photo by Austin Tiffany on Unsplash

This is a difficult moment to describe. I feel like I can’t feel. Recently, I’ve not noticed much in the way of sadness or happiness. I can express it by saying it, but my body doesn’t seem to react much any more.

Call it desensitization to feeling or empathy. I think it’s going.

They say if you go through enough trauma in your life it eventually leads to your loss of empathy. It’s almost troublesome to realise that I don’t feel the way normal people feel. Yes, I have gone through things in my life that a woman should never have had to go through. Yes, I’ve had some toxic humans in my life.

I can see when someone is hot, so I’ll offer them an ice cream. If someone is cold, I’ll suggest a hoodie or a blanket. I’m not a total loss.

In terms of relationships with friends, family and lovers however, that empathy is fading. I don’t react much any more. We had a big family celebration of Eid and although I was back from travelling and exhausted, I could have still said yes. Logically it wasn’t feasible. I had no time to buy an outfit, get my nails done or relax after work. It would have been a case of running home and rifling through millions of clothes to find a suitable outfit, shower and get ready and get to the restaurant the family had booked all within an hour.

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Mariam Naeem
Mariam Naeem

Written by Mariam Naeem

Long-term overthinker, short-term procrastinator

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