Numb From Pain Quotes & Sayings

When you numb your pain you also numb your joy. — Brene Brown

I think there are times in life when you need something to lose yourself in, something to take away the pain, take away the feeling of everything else. Something to numb it. Just for a while. - Nash — M. Leighton

Here's the thing. Here's the thing I hate: His concern is like a really warm drink when your body is cold, and you feel it go all the way down your throat and then into your stomach, where it pools and spreads out.
But the problem is, that cold is good. Cold is numb. And when you're numb, you can't feel pain. You can't feel pain until some stupid warm drink makes you not numb anymore and then you can feel again. — Barry Lyga

I'm sorry. About screaming at you yesterday.
I've heard worse, she says. You've seen how people are, when someone they love is in pain.
Someone they love. The words numb my tongue as if it's been packed in snow coat. Of course, I love Gale. But what kind of love does she mean? What do *I* mean when I say I love Gale? — Suzanne Collins

Suppressing your hurts is like not tending to a bullet wound. Eventually you will bleed out. Dont numb pain, express it. — LeCrae

To love women, to love our vaginas, to know them and touch them and be familiar with who we are and what we need. To satisfy ourselves, to teach our lovers to satisfy us, to be present in our vaginas, to speak of them out loud, to speak of their hunger and pain and loneliness and humor, to make them visible so they cannot be ravaged in the dark without great consequence, so that our center, our point, our motor, our dream, is no longer detached, mutilated, numb, broken, invisible, or ashamed. — Eve Ensler

I needed to pay attention, to be ready to step through and descend into it, whatever it was. It felt archetypal. Something in me was being slain in the fires of pain so that some new thing could be born. I knew it and went with it, and in the alchemy of my pain, like flowers whose seeds open only in the presence of fire, tendrils of something new began to sprout. Pain for me was a Trojan horse, penetrating the protective walls I'd erected around my heart, bearing within it hints of a future I might never have awakened to had I tried to numb myself with busyness. — Jane Fonda

Warmth flooded her body and she felt her skin flush, sweat prickling her hairline. Pain dissipated to nothing but a numb, hollow feeling. Some combination of drugs seeped into her, promoting pain relief and relaxation. She felt her taut muscles yielding, even as a network of filamentous webs encased her and tugged her lower into the gel. Her arms grew heavy and sank into the gel of their own volition. Or had they been pulled there? — Jennifer Foehner Wells

I just let the pain take over, allowing it to numb the pain of being left behind. — Jessica Sorensen

You really need better spatial awareness." A familiar, deep voice from behind her made her jump out of her skin.
Feeling almost numb, she turned to find Graysen West standing there - and looking way too sexy for his own good. Or for her own good. She'd thought she was completely alone in the elevator.
She blinked once. Yep, he was still there. Well over six feet of raw masculinity, bright blue eyes she could drown in, and a disapproving frown that somehow made him look sexy.
Isa felt almost possessed as she lashed out. A year of built-up anger and hurt came bursting to the surface. Her arm was moving before she'd processed what she was doing but when her fist connected with his nose, she cursed at the pain that jolted through her hand. Punching someone hurt. — Katie Reus

The time groaned by as John made a fool of himself. Eventually, he grew numb to the death and sin around him. He even came to enjoy gallivanting cross-country like a true crusader. His name brought tears of joy or pain of anger to those he left in his wake. The result of his own unresolved pain. — Solange Nicole

When the black thing was at its worst, when the illicit cocktails and the ten-mile runs stopped working, I would feel numb as if dead to the world. I moved unconsciously, with heavy limbs, like a zombie from a horror film. I felt a pain so fierce and persistent deep inside me, I was tempted to take the chopping knife in the kitchen and cut the black thing out I would lie on my bed staring at the ceiling thinking about that knife and using all my limited powers of self-control to stop myself from going downstairs to get it. — Alice Jamieson

I want to taste and glory in each day, and never be afraid to experience pain; and never shut myself up in a numb core of nonfeeling, or stop questioning and criticizing life and take the easy way out. To learn and think: to think and live; to live and learn: this always, with new insight, new understanding, and new love. — Sylvia Plath

He thought perhaps it was a woman's way, to come out of such a storm of emotion and pain as if she were a ship emerging onto calm seas. She had seemed, not at peace, but emptied of sorrow. As if she had run out of that particular emotion and no other one arose to take its place. — Robin Hobb

These times are hard, but I won't walk away jaded, darker, different. I feel. I cry to heal. If you saw me in those moments, maybe you'd think I was a mess. But I don't call it a mess. I call it strength.

Real strength isn't about building walls. Real strength is about staying open, no matter what. It's about taking life - with all the pleasures that fade and all the pain that sticks around for too long - and not shutting down, not closing down, not building up those walls.

Resilience isn't hard, impenetrable, iron. Resilience is flexible, soft, warm.

Stay strong. The real kind of strong. Don't let your automatic mind reflexes make you jump away from pain and towards pleasure. Make choices. See clearly. And never, ever, stop feeling.

Don't go numb. The world, even with all its horror, is too beautiful to miss. — Vironika Tugaleva

Oddly, the burned hand didn't seem to hurt much anymore; it was only numb. It would have been better if there had been pain. Pain was at least real. — Stephen King

What was she hoping to gain from his death? That it would numb the pain of his betrayal, or heal her injured pride? Her red sister didn't know much about love. — Cornelia Funke

Cynicism is a powerful anesthetic we use to numb ourselves to pain, but which also, by its nature, numbs us to truth and joy. — Rachel Held Evans

I've never formally trained for pain management, but I have a good understanding of how to conquer it. I just analyze the pain, feel it in the moment, and then mentally become numb to it. — Criss Angel

At times it may seem worse - harder, at least - to live through the despair of this loss without the temporary comfort of our addictive behaviour. We cannot drown our sorrows. We must face the fact that we don't know, really, where we are, how we got here, how long the pain will last, or how to move past it. That uncertainty may be the most painful part of not knowing a God: no one is there to reassure us that a God will take the pain and confusion away. We simply don't know. And we have no way to numb ourselves or to forget the condition we're in. — Marya Hornbacher

And suddenly I was lying on the floor looking up at the ceiling, my face numb. At least, numb until the adrenaline vanished and pain flooded into every nerve of my skull. I blinked away stars and Tweety Birds, to see Dec and Abe standing above me and looking down, both of their faces frozen in different ways:
DECLAN / ABE
Worry / Worry
Shock / Shock
Anger / Mortification
Rage / Guilt
hating seeing loved one hurt / hating having hurt a friend
about to go Hulk-like / wanting to run, but standing his ground — Sean Kennedy

It's going to be okay," she said.
The woman slowly nodded, then started crying. Khaki pulled the woman against her numb shoulder, keeping an eye out as the sounds of sirens approached from a distance. About time.
As the sirens got louder, Khaki wondered again why she wasn't in more pain. And why the hell had it taken backup so long to get here? — Paige Tyler

We conform to pain until we don't notice it anymore; it's what you call - numb - and it tragically blots out our pleasure too. — Bryant McGill

In a culture of electronic violence, images that once caused us to empathize with the pain and trauma of another human being, excite a momentary adrenaline rush. To be numb to another's pain - to be acculturated to violence - is one of the worst consequences our technological advances. That indifference transfers from the screen, TV, film, Internet, and electronic games to our everyday lives. — John Naisbitt

That's the great paradox of living on this earth, that in the midst of great pain you can have great joy as well. If we didn't have those things we'd just be numb. — Kathy Mattea

I used to cry to the stars in the sky and begged them to have mercy on me cause I longed for the moment when the amount of pain I felt would be unbearable and I would simply go numb. Numb. The very taste of that word was a sweet symphony to me. A relief. An alleviation in my unendurable existence. A cure. I ached because of more reasons than I could contain. My mother's cancer, my unrequited love, my worn body. The absence of my dignity and innocence. The utter feeling of abandonment. My yearning for love and family. My beloved father who left me. My freakiness and lack of belonging somewhere. My bisexuality and faith deprivation. My poverty, being insolvent most of my life, having no money to my name since forever. My shack of a house, cold and loathed from the very first days. My sorrow and grief caused by my weaknesses and deficiencies... — Magdalena Ganowska

If a man does not die of a wound, then it heals in some fashion, and so it is with loss. From the sharp pain of immediate berevement, both the Prince and I passed into the gray days of numb bewilderment and waiting. So grief has always seemed to me, a time of waiting not for the hurt to pass, but to become accustomed to it. — Robin Hobb

The pain is such that I refuse to acknowledge it. I feel numb. I have somehow escaped from my body and am now a casual observer to this unfolding tragedy. — E.L. James

Sometimes I wonder if there are some memories the mind doesn't want to deal with and that if it really wants to, it can block out the images, shut down, numb the pain connected to what we saw - what we didn't want to see. If we allow it to, the numbness can drown out everything, even the spark of life inside us. And eventually the person we once were is nothing but a vanishing memory. — Jessica Sorensen

The inartistic methods that we use to blunt anxiety and unartful expedients that we resort to in order to escape pain and numb banality reveals what we dread most, the act of suffering from a mortal loss or the debasement that we earn by wallowing in our decadent acts of escapism. — Kilroy J. Oldster

There was no other way to say it. After being heartbroken for so long, I had made myself completely numb inside. Maybe not from physical pain, but anything emotional, yes. Sexual pleasure? Numb to that, too. I'd have been a great actress. After all, I had the perfect, mind-blowing orgasm down to an art. Suppose I deserve an Oscar for that. — Jennifer Salaiz

I'm going void
which is like numb
but higher up on the pain scale — Melissa Severin

Sometimes at night
when the moon is almost
full and my hands go
numb from writing, I cleanse
myself of her poisoned love.
I welcome the water, the
inevitability of
death and embrace
the long painful road out
of love. — A.P. Sweet

I notice I am taking risks with my own security and losing my sensitivity to danger. I don't know it at the time, but the effects of war are reaching into me in unexpected ways, and I am being changed by them. I am surrounded by destruction and the randomness of death, which I cannot fathom. I have felt the closeness of death as tangibly as the whisper of a murderous seducer, and felt the richness, twinged by guilt, of having escaped its grasp. I have seen too often the numb lost look of men consumed by undiluted grief, and heard the howl of children as their mothers are pulled from the rubble of a rocket-blasted home, and I am coming to understand the long dark pain of those who silently endure what first seems unendurable. — Jason Elliot

It was too much.
The comfortable people made comfortable jokes
about weather and things
but I sat mostly silent
saying a word or so when necessary
a word or so
trying to hide from them the fact that I was a fool
and feeling terrible
And I was numb,
numb again,
numb
again
again and again,
numbness and pain swelling in
me. — Charles Bukowski

It is never possible to completely reconstruct a person's life from what they leave behind - the absurdity of it all, the pain, the triumphs. What's lost is lost forever, and the silences are telling. But why mourn what we'll lose anyway? Laughter truly is the best medicine, and I find whisky tends to numb and burn what's left behind. — Thackery T. Lambshead

We do that by numbing the pain with whatever provides the quickest relief. We can take the edge off emotional pain with a whole bunch of stuff, including alcohol, drugs, food, sex, relationships, money, work, caretaking, gambling, affairs, religion, chaos, shopping, planning, perfectionism, constant change, and the Internet. And just so we don't miss it in this long list of all the ways we can numb ourselves, there's always staying busy: living so hard and fast that the truths of our lives can't catch up with us. We fill every ounce of white space with something so there's no room or time for emotion to make itself known. — Brene Brown

Now he was going numb, and that scared him more than pain because it meant he might just...fade. Fade right into death without noticing. — V.E Schwab

I was poisoning myself with alcohol and medicating myself. I was trying to numb things. I was trying not to feel things, and that's ridiculous. It's one of the dumbest things you can do, because all you're doing is postponing the inevitable. Someday you'll have to look all those things in the eye rather than try to numb the pain. — Johnny Depp

Just like using drugs and alcohol to numb the pain can -- and does -- lead to addiction, using social media to fill the void of relationships, or other needs, often leads to addiction, as well. — Mandy J. Hoffman

Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all those who don't numb themselves to really living. — Ann Voskamp

When I'm invisible I don't have to feel anything. The pain and grief and fear goes away. I go numb and quiet. — Cecily Anne Paterson

Hell was grey. Dim and lifeless... I felt numb and in pain at the same time and that was not supposed to happen in heaven. But you would think that with all the queers they had sent here since time began, hell would have a better decorating job. — J.M. Redmann

Some scars don't hurt. Some scars are numb. Some scars rid you of the capacity to feel anything ever again. — Joyce Rachelle

Though there are many barriers to expressing unreserved love, no such impediments to a developing a loving and generous heart deter a spiritual warrior. He who is without love is bereft of richness of life. Compassion, empathy, kindness, tenderness, and patience are essential for love. Anger, frustration, jealously, greed, and hatred are the antonym to love. When we love other people with all our ferocity, we transcend the misuse, waste, pain, tragedy, death, anguish, erotic obsessions, unaccountable confusion, and self-absorbed personal ambitions that, if left unchecked, numb our earthly existence. — Kilroy J. Oldster

It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something numb
It's so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone. — Linkin Park

For all the pain I saw at Paterson, it is nothing compared to the pain that people inflict upon each other in the real world. All I can think of now is that it is not right for me to be unaware of that pain, including the pain that I inflict on others. Only how is it possible to live without being either numb to it or overwhelmed by it? — Francisco X Stork

Gideon and I sit there in the dark, wordless for a while, only our ragged breaths disturbing the silence. Memories of my sister overwhelm me - I see her impish grin as she leans over me at the orphanage, tugging on my hair until I wake up. I remember us climbing up to the roof as kids, sitting cross-legged next to the herbs and vegetables our caretakers were growing while we read the English books Rose had "borrowed" from her class at school. And then there was L.A. - all of our hope for a better life so quickly crushed, but Rose never let despair overtake her. She was there after every single night to hold me until the pain went away. And later, when I got numb to it all, she still made a point of holding me, of promising me that one day things would be different. — Paula Stokes

If you love somebody deeply and you lose that relationship - whether through death, rejection or separation - you will feel pain. That pain is called grief. Grief is a normal emotional reaction to any significant loss, whether a loved one, a job or a limb. There's no way to avoid or get rid of it - it's just there. And, once accepted, it will pass in its own time.
Unfortunately, many of us refuse to accept grief. We will do anything rather than feel it. We may bury ourselves in work, drink heavily, throw ourselves into a new relationship 'on the rebound' or numb ourselves with prescribed medications. But no matter how hard we try to push grief away, deep down inside it's still there. And eventually it will be back.
It's like holding a football underwater. As long as you keep holding it down, it stays beneath the surface. But eventually your arm gets tired and the moment you release your grip, the ball leaps straight up out of the water. — Russ Harris

I was not allowed to think of him. That was something I tried to be very strict about. Of course I slipped; I was only human. But I was getting better, and so the pain was something I could avoid for days at a time now. The trade-off was the never-ending numbness. Between pain and nothing, I'd chosen nothing. — Stephenie Meyer

I've perfected the art of the fake smile. It's not so difficult when you are completely numb. — Bethany Griffin

What do we do after things fall apart? Do we run to the familiar once again? Do we attempt to numb the pain with distractions? What do we do after things fall apart? — Benyf

Bound for your distant home"

Bound for your distant home
you were leaving alien lands.
In an hour as sad as I've known
I wept over your hands.
My hands were numb and cold,
still trying to restrain
you, whom my hurt told
never to end this pain.

But you snatched your lips away
from our bitterest kiss.
You invoked another place
than the dismal exile of this.
You said, 'When we meet again,
in the shadow of olive-trees,
we shall kiss, in a love without pain,
under cloudless infinities.'

But there, alas, where the sky
shines with blue radiance,
where olive-tree shadows lie
on the waters glittering dance,
your beauty, your suffering,
are lost in eternity.
But the sweet kiss of our meeting ......
I wait for it: you owe it me ....... — Alexander Pushkin

Maybe being numb to the mediocrity of one's life is the price people pay for true happiness. Maybe bliss blinds a person to the fact that they could be something more than normal. Maybe if everyone grew up in happy houses with happy lives void of pain, we'd still be living in caves and beating animals to death with a club to eat. — Selina Rosen

With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself - one of the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad. It was invested with the woe of unnumbered generations, this plaint by which Buck was so strangely stirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was with the pain of living that was of old the pain of his wild fathers, and the fear and mystery of the cold and dark that was to them fear and mystery. — Jack London

Defrosting is excruciatingly painful. You have been numb for so long. As feeling comes back to your soul, you start to tingle, and it's uncomfortable and strange. But then the tingles start feeling like daggers. Sadness, loss, fear, anger, anxiety - all of these things that you have been numbing with the booze - you feel them for the first time. And it's horrific at first, to tell you the damn truth. But welcoming the pain and refusing to escape from it is the only way to recovery. You can't go around it, you can't go over it, you have to — Glennon Doyle Melton

It was strange how in that moment of tragedy, it had seemed so unreal, like an old-fashioned movie reel playing on a screen for my eyes only. The pain and broken heart were blocked off for a little while, leaving me numb with disbelief. Shock is what Dad called it. But after a while, the cruel reality started to seep into my tissues, and my body became a sponge, just sucking it all up until, finally, there was so much grief inside, I couldn't help feeling it.
That's how it happened for me. First, the numbness right after she died, next the agonising pain and then the place I was at now - the land of perpetual depression. — Karen Ann Hopkins

Anti-depressants are just tools, one of many, which we use to try and ease the suffering, numb the pain and disperse the dark clouds in our mind in the hope that maybe, just maybe, a little sunlight will shine through. — Samuel P Fields

Now I know I'll never be numb again. A mother is condemned to feel everything forever. And I'm finally afraid, condemned to fear everything forever. But that makes sense: feel someone else's pain, feel someone else's everything.
And he's my baby, so everything's okay. — Kristin Hersh

Emily woke to shadows and their voices. They looked different today, because the entire world hurt. The numbness had worn off sometime between sleep and awake, and she was seeing red. The shadows on the walls were not shadows at all, but red blobs consisting of teeth and claws. Her house reeked of pain.
The whole world was fucking bleeding. — Allie Burke

The problem with thick skin is that it leaves you impervious to the sharpest of pins. Everything becomes dull. But without that sense of pain, there cannot be that sense of relief. Ultimately, the thickened skin leaves you numb, incapable of feeling the highs and lows of life. It leaves you rough like a rock and just as inanimate. — Michael Soll

My tattoo

Tattooed in my memory and the pain it brings me. I scream within.
All cried out, not a tear to soothe me. Drugs and Alcohol numb me.
People say to see a therapist. I don't think so.
Christians say to forgive. I don't believe so.
My pain will never let me forget.
my tattoo is permanent. — Juanita Ortiz

I know what it feels like to be hurt,and I don't want to cause that pain to any other person or creature. But somehow, in society, we numb ourselves in order to make money or to feel better about ourselves, such as with cosmetics or food. We say to ourselves, I'm going to use this animal. I'm going to say it doesn't have much worth so that I can allow myself to do these cruel things. And that just isn't fair. — Alicia Silverstone

It does not hit you until later. The fact that you were essentially dead does not register until you begin to come alive. Frostbite does not hurt until it starts to thaw. First it is numb. Then a shock of pain rips through the body. And then, every winter after, it aches. — Marya Hornbacher

Abuse manipulates and twists a child's natural sense of trust and love. Her innocent feelings are belittled or mocked and she learns to ignore her feelings. She can't afford to feel the full range of feelings in her body while she's being abused - pain, outrage, hate, vengeance, confusion, arousal. So she short-circuits them and goes numb. For many children, any expression of feelings, even a single tear, is cause for more severe abuse. Again, the only recourse is to shut down. Feelings go underground. — Laura Davis

If seasons diseases be, consider human's too, his fate same it's true
Rudest time steels, and murders through fever, pain, amid all in woe.
Swelling then cold, yet numb, in young and old, fearing wildest swell,
See it turns the sweetest singers throats, and morrow, a garland will.

On 'Seasons A Dirge'-A Dirge
For A Diseased Friend Who Died Of Fever In 2013 — Nithin Purple

In the dead of night I stirred. Wakefulness flowed back into me. I was a cup full of sorrow, but that sorrow was stilled, like a pain that abates as long as one does not move. — Robin Hobb

Elation and pain are experiences that make you realize youre alive. Thank God you feel them; otherwise youd be numb. — Darren Hayes

Now, in a shift of light, the shadows of birds are more pronounced on the gallery's white wall. The shadow of each bird is speaking to me. Each shadow doubles the velocity, ferocity of forms. The shadow, my shadow now merges with theirs. Descension. Ascension. The velocity of wings creates the whisper to awaken ... .
I want to feel both the beauty and the pain of the age we are living in. I want to survive my life without becoming numb. I want to speak and comprehend words of wounding without having these words become the landscape where I dwell. I want to possess a light touch that can elevate darkness to the realm of stars. — Terry Tempest Williams

I contented myself with whiskey, for medicinal purposes. It helped numb my various aches and pains. Not that the alcohol actually reduced the pain, it just gave the pain a life of its own, apart from mine. — Haruki Murakami

He fucks me. It's powerful. Brutal. Hips slam into me from behind as he fills me deeply, over and over. Skin slapping noises echo through the room as he drives me into the table so hard it starts to move. I grip onto the edge of it, trying to hold on, trying to stay still, but he makes it impossible. Pain and pleasure merge inside of me, consuming me, and it doesn't take long before I start to grow numb. Tingles encompass me. My mind blanks out. Nothing exists except his cock inside of me, him on top of me, slamming into me from behind. I cry out with every deep thrust, incoherent noises, like everything inside of me is being purged. — J.M. Darhower

Grief mixed with shock is such a difficult state to be in; it's hard even to describe it. On the one hand, I was numb and felt like I was in some sort of dream state - I couldn't believe Natalie was gone, but I knew it was true. And despite the shock, which makes you feel like you're muffled in cotton, my nerve ends were screaming. I was in emotional pain so intense it was physical. — Robert Wagner

He felt strangely numb. As though from a great distance, he was aware that he was being beaten. The last sensations of pain left him. He no longer felt anything, though very faintly he could hear the impact of the club upon his body. But it was no longer his body, it seemed so far away. — Jack London

I am both numb and oversensitive, overwhelmed by the need, the raw and desperate need of the girls I am listening to and trying to help. I'm overdosing on the trauma of others, while still barely healing from my own.
I cry for hour at home and have fitful nights of little sleep. My nightmares resurface as my own pain is repeated to me, magnified a thousand times. It feels insurmountable. How can you save everyone? How can you rescue them? How do you get over your pain? How do you ever feel normal? — Rachel Lloyd