The Ones Who Never Learned to Numb

I’ve always admired people who can shut things off.

The ones who can bury their emotions like they were never there. The ones who don't cry in public. The ones who can read the news and not flinch. The ones who can walk past a homeless man and not carry his story in their chest for the rest of the day.

But that was never me.

I don’t know how to shut it off.

I never learned how to numb.

It Started Early

When I was a child, I’d cry over cartoons.

Not just the sad ones the happy ones too.

I once cried because the lion cub found his mother again. I cried because the balloon floated away. I cried because someone on TV smiled, and I could tell they hadn’t smiled like that in a long time.

My parents used to say I was too soft.

Teachers called me sensitive.

Classmates called me dramatic.

And eventually, I started to believe it was a flaw that this inability to turn down the volume on the world was something broken inside me.

But I didn’t know how to fix it.

And maybe that was the point.

The Quiet Weight of Feeling Everything

Some people feel things once.

We feel them on repeat.

When someone we love is in pain, it doesn’t end when the moment ends. We carry it. We replay it. We dissect it. We become it.

We take on the emotions of strangers.

We flinch at sharp tones.

We absorb silences like they're messages.

It's not empathy in the polite, socially-approved sense. It's something deeper. Messier. It's like walking around with open skin while the world scrapes past.

And sometimes it feels unbearable.

Not because we're weak. But because we feel it all, even when we’re not supposed to.

The Temptation to Numb

There are moments - I’ll be honest - where I’ve wished I could trade places.

I’ve watched people breeze through life like nothing touches them. And I’ve envied them.

I’ve tried, too.

Tried to turn it off.

Tried to laugh when I wanted to cry.

Tried to act like I didn’t care.

Tried to numb.

But here’s the thing no one tells you about numbing:

It doesn’t discriminate.

You can’t numb sadness without also dulling joy.

You can’t block out grief without also muting awe.

You can’t shield yourself from heartbreak without also shielding yourself from wonder.

So I gave up trying.

Because I'd rather feel everything than feel nothing at all.

When the World Makes You Want to Go Cold

There’s a strange cruelty to being soft in a world like this.

We're living in a time where stoicism is celebrated. Where detachment is survival. Where feelings are framed as liabilities.

Sensitivity is often mistaken for fragility.

But the truth is feeling this much takes strength.

It takes courage to care when apathy is easier.

It takes resolve to stay soft when hardness could protect you.

It takes a kind of quiet rebellion to feel in a world that tells you not to.

We are not broken.

We are just awake in a world that’s trying to sleep through its own sorrow.

For the Ones Who Never Learned to Numb

You are not too much.

You are not too soft.

You are not the problem.

Your emotions are not inconveniences they are information.

They are reminders that something sacred still lives in you.

That not everything has been burned away by cynicism.

Your softness is not a flaw. It is a frequency.

You’re just tuned in to the truth most people are trying to escape.

And yes, it’s hard.

Yes, it hurts.

But you’re not alone.

There are others like you who carry their hearts like lanterns.

Who refuse to go dark, even when the night tries to swallow them.

What You Carry is Sacred

You may not have the answers.

You may not always have words.

But what you carry the depth, the ache, the clarity it matters.

One day, someone will say, “Thank you for feeling that.”

“Thank you for noticing.”

“Thank you for saying what no one else would say.”

And it will click.

That maybe the thing you thought was your weakness…

Was always your gift.

A Quiet Benediction

To the ones who still feel everything,

And the ones who never learned to numb

This world may not understand you,

But it needs you.

Stay open.

Stay tender.

Stay alive to the ache.

Because in a time when everyone is shutting down

You are still breathing.

If this touched you…

Let me know in the comments.

Share it with someone whose softness you admire.

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