Anyone else have trouble feeling emotions?

Sometimes I feel like something has happened to my faith if I don't respond with the overwhelming guilt I used to feel, but I realize that guilt was not necessary to the degree I felt it.

Have you mentioned this to your Dr. or Psychiatrist?

I am on medication and my feelings are less intense now. I am really glad for that because I had out of control emotions before. Sometimes, though, I wish I could have a good cry because I think I need to. But I do try to stay "up" as much as I can so that's my reason for not wanting to cry, too. As you see, I have mixed emotions about my feelings. Before I had guilt and panic out of proportion and not warrented. I am glad that is not happening now.

One of my daughter's is having the same feeling as you right now as on a number of occations she has said she is worried because she feels neither happy nor sad, lacking in emotion. I know I also felt the same way for a while. I think it is probably the bodies way of protecting itself. I can assure you that in time your emotions will come back, when you can handle them.

God Bless
Faithfulfriend

Hi Rion, Yes I also had simmilar problems to you. When I was taking Zoloft I used to also have no feelings sometimes, or they were suppressed. I've read that it is the way the antidepressents work, it reduces the stimuli we feel. But its pronounced with Zoloft. I changed to Clomipramine which is better. But different meds work differently for people so speak to your doc.
I'd like to say that exercise also works - it releases the natural "feel good hormones" in the body. Try it out too.
God bless u.

I have anxiety with a slight OCD disorder. I take Paxil and it is the only thing that works for me, but when I am on it it does mute my emotions. I am currently taking a little welbutrin to give me some emotion back. I might switch to cymbalta if I can afford it. Talk to your doctor. Nothing works for me except paxil. What is the lesser of the two evils ? You must write out your pros and cons.

I dont have time to go into it now because Im getting ready for work, but YES.

dont worry man, we need our emotions and feelings, but we have to hold fast to the truth, it is so hard sometimes and when I am having a bad day i wanna be far from the Truth but we must pray that the Holy Spirit will hold us intact, that He will remind us that there is a war between out flesh and our Spirit, the Word says that the mind of the flesh is death but the mind of a Spirit is Life, did u hear that? our fleshy minds are against the Spirit mind......Im sure none of us on these boards have no clu what Im talking about, right? /sarcasm/
hold fast to the truth! May the Holy Spirit bring back the emotions and not 9/11 or somethin like that, pray , pray , pray just talk to Him, and im sure the meds dont help with supressing of the feelings, I personaly dont like meds, some do and take them, so its up to u, but Put on a whole ARMOR of God, starting with the belt of TRUTH (what is the Truth and not what ur mind thinks) and remember that this is War!!! Not battlening flesh and blood but principalities! God supplies all the weapons for us but we must first relize that we are in spiritual Iraq and that we do have an M16 on us.....we just gotta learn how to reload, pull the trigger, and get over the dings in our buletproof vest (breast plate of Rightiousnes..... we could compare the whole armor of God with a garment of a soldier, its cuz we re at war, imagine urself in Iraq with Khakis and a button up shirt, lets wake up ARMY OF GOD!

i have trouble with emotions as well. I have never had medicatins but things like high school graduation which is normally Euphoric for everyone i did not feel much of anything. Sometimes Im bothered by my lack of emotion and feel something is wrong with me. Like for instance I went to the holocuast museum and did not feel any emotion and that bothered me. not having emotions is one reason I doubt my salvation so much even though I know faith is not a feeling . in church one time a guy said that if you were not drawn to tears when you accepted Christ then you must not have accepted Christ and hearing this as a child has always bothered me .

I sometimes think that I have trouble feeling emotions. This is only when my anxiety is so great that it's the only emotion I can feel. It rules the day so to speak. When I'm like that I can go to a funeral and not cry, I can't find anything funny, I don't get any enjoyment from things that I would normally look forward to.
When I'm feeling better the emotions come back. I cried at my nieces wedding a couple weeks ago. If she'd gotten married a couple months ago when I was in the midst of misery with my OCD I know I wouldn't have been relaxed enough to feel the normal emotions of happy tears. I sang at a funeral of a neighbor. Again I was having a real bad bout with my anxiety at the time. I got up and sang... because the Lord helped me to, but I didn't shed one tear over her death. My anxiety was too great at the time to have normal sad tears.
I don't know if this is what's going on with you but this has been my experience.

I think this is part of OCD. It tricks you into thinking youre a bad person. But if you was really a bad person, would you really be concerned about turning heartless? No

Don't lets these feelings get the best of you, as a young sufferer i understand how ocd can make you feel, but brush these type of feelings off because they are certainly untrue.

Sometimes I have bad thoughts about God and it bothers me cause i don't get real scared cause i want to u know has anybody ever done that before????????/ It bothers me.I hate Scrupolosity Ocd it 's bad and sad and a struggle to. the very things I don't want to think is the things I think is that llike what Paul say's the very things I don't want to do I do?????????// It makes me a very sad and lonely person with this illness and i"ve been diagnoised with bipolar too.would someone please reply to this?????Thanks You

Hi,i haven't been coming here too long,but for the last months when I have a bad thought I don't have a feeling and it makes me wonder what in the heck is wrong with me?/ I ask God to not let my heart harden,and to protect my heart and stuff like that.I'm very sad right now......I've been diagnoised with bipolar too and I'm on tons of meds. and I don't like it. I don't know exactly how bipolar affects ocd and I wonder if anyone else has both and can tell me. I'm clueless,i'm afraid my faith has failed me. My ocd has been so bad even some of the bad blasphemous thoughts have come out of my mouth when i've been alone and that really scares me,has anyone had this happen or just me?I talked with a pastor and he said just keep reading the Word everyday........everyday. I am but the thoughts are still there. I'm a very unhappy person right now and I don't like living my life like this thinking I've done such wrong in my life when all I wanted to do was love the Lord so much when I accepted HIm over 20 years ago.I need someone to majorly encourage me and understand, I wish I could cry for the Lord Jesus so bad this numb feeling I don't like.Thank You.

jewellj, I am so sorry that you are suffering in this way, all of us on this board are either going through or have gone through what you are going through right now. It really is all part of this disorder OCD. When your "feelings" shut down it is just your body's way of trying to protect itself, remember that OCD is not really who you are, so many people including Doctors call it the big "lie". Also many medications, I have heard can cause you to just not feel anything at all, maybe your dosage is not right, I would check with your doctor and tell him how you are feeling. Your pastor is right as well just keep reading God's word even if you don't "Feel" anything right now, you will eventually feel again and everything will be allright just don't give up, those are the words I want to keep encouraging you and everyone else on the board with. God will and is seeing us through even if we don't "feel" his presence, He has not left us and is caring for us. I will be praying for you as I do everyone on the board, we must remember Jesus loves us and He understands the OCD and Bipolar mind. Blessings Jan

I'm having trouble feeling emotions,I feel numb actually alot when I have bad blasphemous thoughts and that bothers me. I want to cry for Lord Jesus so much that I can't stand it. I think I should shake and tremble like I use to and I pray to God not to let my heart get hard and to have the most reverant fear,u know how it says in the Bible to work out ur salvation with trembling and fear,I do understand Jesus took care of the Salvation but I want to be so obeident and I feel like I'm so not. I've had ocd for 20 something years and i'ts always been on Relgion or on God and I usually bounce back but since last year when I was in the psch hospital 3 times in Spring and 1 time this past winter I haven't been able to bounce back. I don't understand,they also diagnoised me with bipolar too which I never use to have and I wonder how this plays on my ocd??Does anyone out there have both? I've had so many preachers say it's the devil but if God knew we were gonna have a mind problem on Relgion it seems like He wouldn't let the devil mess with us if it was an illness.I'm a very unhappy person and have been for awhile cause i can't seem to get back with it. Also another scarey thing,3 times when I had bad thoughts when it was time to go to bed bad thoughts came out of my mouth...............What is that?My ocd therapist said it's just ocd but i wonder 'what if it's not"What am I to do????Somebody please help me,the thoughts I don't want to think is the ones I do think and etc. Does anyone out there understand??????I talked to a pastor last week and he said just to keep reading my Bible every day and I have.......Sometimes I wonder if it's too late for me........I acuse myself.........LIke I say to myself"U think that's funny ha ha"When I have a bad thought........it drives me nuts.I'm here alone and stranded,I can't drive due to a surgeon messing up my eye and i'm stuck at home most the time. My husband is in a rehab he got on drugs and that's made it worse on me. I 'm at the end of my rope sometimes.I would just love to cry for the Lord Jesus,I doubt myself and everything.....Please someone respond and pray for me please

Jewellj,

I am praying for you. This sounds so hard. The fact that you are crying out for our Lord Jesus, means that you are working out your salvation with fear and trembling. He will "never leave nor forsake" us.

Unfortunately, some well intended pastors, do not understand ocd and can actually feed into our compulsions. Prayer and scripture are always appropriate, but as soon as you hear "it's the devil" that ramps up the anxiety (the root of the problem) even more.

Looking back, I have always been oc about my faith. I actually think depression (which I had never really had before), precipitated my "end stage" ocd -- ocd I could no longer handle on my own. For clarity there is no such thing as end stage ocd - I made that up to describe my situation. So in your case, the depressive component of bipolar behavior could be unmasking this ocd and making it worse for a time, along with all of the stress you are dealing with.

As far as wondering whether or not it's ocd, that seems to be for me as ocd as ocd gets. It really feeds that obsessive thinking better than any other question or idea. I am going to try to wonder why I am thinking that suddenly I no longer have ocd and "where did that thought come from?".

Don't accuse yourself as you mentioned. Remember, God is God, and He alone reserves the right to judge. Fortunately, He is kind, good, and perfect. We are often our own worst judges, but why? It is not our job. So in Christ, we are free from a job that we are terrible at to begin with. Why do we insist on "playing God," by accusing and condemning ourselves? We are so unqualified for the position.

I resign....you with me?

Praying for you and your family. Marc