losing emotions...

A long time ago, I was a fighter.  I sustained a few concussions, more than a few actually, and the resulting issues led to substantial family problems.  I suffered from emotional dulling for a long period of time.  This is a not so uncommon side effect of brain injury (and yes, concussions are a brain injury, even mild ones).

My emotional state looked almost like depression, but I wasn’t sad.  Imagine, looking at your children and feeling little more than the knowledge they’re yours.  Imagine feeling nothing for your spouse whom you know you used to love.  Image feeling no connection to anyone, they’re just background noise.

For two years I struggled to figure out why I felt so little.  Nothing affected me, nothing touched me.  Looking back, it was longer than that and started slowly over the course of my career as a self-defense instructor.  It made me a good fighter, but I didn’t understand why I was so able to shut down.

Unfortunately, many of our military who’ve been in combat are struggling with the after-effects of blast injuries and concussions.  What was thought to be a mild injury or sometimes not an injury at all is slowly being recognized.  These men and women struggle to come back to normal life with a wide range of real emotional issues such as depression or anger, but emotional dulling may not show itself as an issue very easily.  It may just seem like distance, loss of love, or just plain cruelty.

I struggled for years to understand and eventually I did heal.  But maybe had I known I wouldn’t have had to spend the next several years repairing the damage I’d done to my family or my friends.