Why do Benzodiazepines Make You Feel Emotionless?

Benzodiazepines are meant to calm you down, but while reduced anxiety and panic can come as a big relief, it can be scary when they numb your emotions altogether. Some people who use benzodiazepines feel detached and indifferent to everything around them. Others feel like they’re just going through the motions, never really enjoying anything at all. If that sounds like you, it’s not a side effect that you just have to live with. Understanding why emotional numbness happens and what may be happening underneath can help you get the right support.

How benzodiazepines slow the brain down

There’s a chemical messenger in your brain called GABA, and its job is to lower the activity of the nerve cells around it. Benzodiazepines make GABA more effective at its job, which turns down the circuits behind anxiety.

The trouble is that GABA receptors sit all through your brain, in the areas that handle motivation and mood as well as the ones that handle anxiety. So when a benzodiazepine turns down your panic, it turns down all your emotions too. That’s why when you take benzodiazepines in large doses, it’s hard to feel excitement, affection, enthusiasm, sadness, or anything else.

The difference between calmness and numbness

When benzodiazepines are doing their job, you should still feel like yourself, with the panic gone but all the other feelings still there. That means you can still laugh when your pet does something funny, and still get annoyed when your bus doesn’t come.

But when you’re numb rather than calm, you lose the ordinary feelings too, not just the panic. Good news and bad news produce the same flat response. It may not always be obvious this is happening because we all have days when we can’t get excited about anything. But if you’ve felt strangely muted or haven’t felt anything for a long time, benzodiazepines may be the reason.

What emotional blunting feels like

The numbing effects of benzodiazepines have been described as emotional blunting or emotional anaesthesia. It means the inability to feel pleasure or pain. Emotional blunting has been shown to be a common complaint among long-term benzodiazepine users, put down to the drugs dampening the brain’s emotional centres.

As well as feeling numb, people often experience less motivation, trouble concentrating, moods changing for no reason, and a feeling of being removed from everything around them. Many who spend years on benzodiazepines regret feeling like they have missed out on family life because they couldn’t feel any of it while it was happening.

Why some people feel number than others

Everyone’s body reacts a little differently, and this comes down to your health, which benzodiazepine you take, how much you’re taking, how often, and how long you’ve been using it.

A short-acting benzodiazepine like alprazolam wears off quickly between doses, so flatness usually comes and goes when you take it. But a longer-acting one like diazepam keeps a steadier level in your body, so you can feel dull all the time for as long as you’re taking it.

The longer you’ve been using benzodiazepines, the harder it can be to notice the change because it can start to feel normal.

When benzodiazepines become a way to avoid feeling

While emotional numbing can be an unintended side effect, some people take benzodiazepines because they want to feel nothing.

If your memories or emotions have been painful for years, a drug that mutes everything can be understandably appealing. You may have started taking prescribed medicine for panic attacks, then after a bad day, an argument with your family, and to get to sleep when your mind won’t stop.

But the problem with muting feelings chemically is that they don’t go anywhere while they’re muted. Whatever was causing them is still there when the benzodiazepine wears off, and they usually become harder to face.

Your brain also adapts when you’re using benzodiazepines long-term, and you can become more tolerant to their effects. This means the dose that helped you avoid your feelings needs to be increased bit by bit until you’re taking far more benzodiazepines than you ever planned or would ever be prescribed.

When the numbness isn’t the drugs

There can be a lot of confusion about whether the numbness is coming from the benzodiazepines or from something else. For example, you can feel just as flat from mental health issues like depression, long-term anxiety or trauma, with no tablets involved at all.

Benzodiazepines are prescribed for many of the same conditions that cause emotional blunting, so some people were already numb before, but it’s put down to the drugs, and nothing is done to address the underlying problem.

In many cases, the numbness comes from both the condition and benzodiazepines at the same time. You may be able to work out when the emotional numbing began and whether it started or has got worse with the drugs you’re taking. All of this can complicate treatment, so it’s critical you receive a proper medical assessment to untangle the causes and address them effectively.

Speak to your doctor before you change anything

Before you make any changes, and especially before you try to quit benzodiazepines on your own, you should first speak with whoever prescribes your tablets. If the emotional numbing is relatively mild and hasn’t been going on too long, they may be able to adjust your dose or change you to a different medicine.

Emotional numbness can be scary, and it’s natural to think about quitting so you can feel something again. But stopping suddenly after your body has adapted can bring on dangerous benzodiazepine withdrawal. In very serious cases, it can cause life-threatening seizures, so you should never stop without speaking to your doctor or an addiction treatment centre.

Get help with benzodiazepine dependence

If you have come to rely on benzodiazepines to numb difficult emotions, or you’re concerned about the effect they are having on your mood and wellbeing, UKAT can help.

When you are dependent on benzodiazepines, stopping suddenly can cause serious benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms. The safest approach is usually a gradual reduction in dose, known as a taper, planned around your individual circumstances and managed by an experienced clinical team. Where appropriate, UKAT can provide medical benzodiazepine detox alongside a residential benzodiazepine rehab programme, giving you the opportunity to address both the physical dependence and the underlying issues that may have contributed to your use.

Withdrawal from benzodiazepines can take weeks or longer, so treatment should never be rushed. Following detox, you can continue with therapy and receive ongoing support through UKAT’s aftercare and alumni programmes.

Contact UKAT today

Deciding what to do next can feel difficult, particularly if you’re unsure whether you need detox, rehabilitation or support alongside prescribed medication. UKAT has experience supporting people with complex recovery needs, and our admissions team can talk through your circumstances confidentially and explain the options available.