Absence of emotions

[NarcKiddo]

Does anyone else have experience of someone who is so adept at hiding their emotions that they actually don't seem to have any?

When I realised my mother has narc tendencies (to put it mildly) and started reading about it I assumed my father is her enabler. She has been my primary problem in life and I have no relationship with him to speak of, so it was easy to put him in the enabler box and forget about him.

Now I am interested in thinking more about my father and have been discussing the family dynamics with my therapist. It seems he, too, has narc tendencies at the very least. My parents are still together. I don't think my mother could cope without him but I think he could cope just fine without her.

He is capable of conveying "minor" emotions. I can tell if he is amused, satisfied or irritated. I have never seen him display fear, delight, awe, exhilaration, love, sadness, joy, fury. I've hardly ever even seen him acknowledge or respond to these in other people. If my mother explodes at him (she does a really scary line in fury) it's as if he turns into a block of wood. He just literally sits there and does nothing whatsoever. She can be blaring right into his face and he does not even walk away. On one occasion when I knew he must be angry about something I had done as a teen I noticed him tapping his foot under the table as we had an unpleasant conversation about it. That has been his one display of anger in my presence. I was terribly upset when his mother died and he patted my arm by way of comfort. That is the one and only time he has done anything like that.

I have a huge archive of family emails in connection with any crisis. I have gone through the whole lot of his looking for any reference to or sign of emotion in him, or him asking about someone else's. There is nothing. An AI bot would be more emotional than him.

I'm not sure I particularly care, as this has always been so, but it just strikes me as odd. I have been trained to hide emotions so the family can present a certain picture to the world and I have trained myself to hide emotions to protect myself from mother. This worked very well for half a century but the strain on me has been immense and I can't bottle it up any more. It's taken its toll physically and mentally. And yet he sails on, apparently completely fine.

Can anyone relate?

[Call Me Cordelia]

I'm married to a guy like that. It's taken me a long time to accept that for him, it's certainly in large part his natural temperament that protected him from his childhood. Stuff just doesn't stick to him like it does to me. In the four temperaments paradigm, he is extremely phlegmatic. Nothing much makes an impression on him, and when it does, it usually doesn't last long. I am the opposite. Choleric with a bit of melancholic thrown in. So I am very sensitive, very emotional, and I stay that way for a long time. I need both understanding from other people and solitude to regain my equilibrium. So when I cannot express the emotions, I definitely have the bottle-up effect you describe and it's come out in body armouring, chronic autoimmune disease, insomnia, all sorts. The body keeps the score. I used to assume that at some point DH would have things catch up to him like what happened to me and we'd be in for a massive massive explosion. I no longer think that's the case.

The other difficulty I had to work through was I took his insensibility as invalidating my own experience. Also not the case.

I don't know what's going on with your dad, of course, but it can be both who he is and how he's been conditioned. Nature and nurture, so to speak.

[Amy-Rose]

My beloved Dad could be a little of the way you described but he'd been brought up in an era where men must be strong and men couldn't show emotions as a sign of weakness. But he did show emotions in other ways and could be very kind, patient and gentle. He spoiled me and his pets but kept his circle very small. Once he felt a loyalty to someone he kept that forever, even with my Mother. After their separation, even though things were uncomfortable for a while he still stood up for her if he thought something was unfair to her. Growing up with this I've never had a hard time with people who are reserved or constricted with their emotions. My close friend lost her sister, they were very close. Never saw her shed a tear and has a matter of fact attitude about it: "it was an unfortunate accident" kind of thing. But she talks about her all the time. ALL the time. These people are pretty consistent. They don't show and great deal and maybe release it all in private or simply show it in other ways and that's fine. It can be frustrating when little to no love or affection is shown.


My bigger problem is with those whose emotions keep changing and I find it puts me off kilter.

A friend and neighbour of mine is the perfect example of this. So her sister lives 8 hours away and I never got the vibe they were that close. Then suddenly her sister dies and my friend is so, so upset. Understandable sibling relationship they're an pain in the arse until something hurts or upsets them.
I'd only known her 3 weeks but she comes round my house for support and so the next day I text to see how she is. She replies with how heart broken she is, how shocked...later that day I'm coming home from walking my dog and see her going to her car all dressed up to go out to lunch with a friend. If your sister suddenly died, potentially suicide, do you go out to lunch in a public place with a friend?
She came back laughing with this friend, went in, got changed into other clothes and showed up on my door all weepy again.
I thought, maybe shock emotions.
10 minutes later I find myself helping her walk her dogs and she laughing again.
Still thinking, you know, shock.
Two days later, loading her car up to go and dog sit for a friend 6 hours away for a week. ??

Two years later and this is still a common thing. She has a massive row with her father while I'm standing there. Has a good cry about it and 20 minutes later is talking about something else and cheered up. Her emotions seem very fleeting and only ever temporary as in minutes. Anger never lasts. Sadness comes and goes. Happiness comes and goes. Hobbies and interests come and go. She's all bereaved about her sister one minute then going on numerous holidays the next. Worried about her nephew's drinking one minute and then had nothing to do with him for weeks the next.  I just never said anything but her emotions do seem all over the place.


One minute all forlorn and the next laughing and joking all within 30 minutes. That's an extreme swing and for it to have continued. And friends have said she's always been like that which makes it hard for you to know if she's ok or not. Is she really that bothered by anything? Or is she bothered and needs more support? It's the mix of one extreme to the other quickly and the one minute acting like she cares so much and the next acting like she doesn't. She acted (at times) like she cared for me but the moment I ended the friendship due to feeling used and being lied to, she seemed quite happy to block me and walk off into the sunset. No attempts to take accountability or sort things out with me. It's those big shifts I find hard because it's hard to tell whether this person's emotions are even real. Is her care just pretend? No idea.

[Poison Ivy]

I echo this comment: "It does NOT mean we don't feel deeply. I have the entire range of emotions inside, just as much as anyone."

I have strong feelings, and I choose carefully when to share them. Often, not sharing everything is polite; it often is a self-protective mechanism as well.

My ex-husband has strong emotions but struggles to express them appropriately.

[pianissimo]

Does he have friends or family members he feels close to? His relationship with them could be further information for you.

[Lookin 2 B Free]

There can be another flavor to this, too.  Freeze.  As in fight, flight, or freeze.  My trauma T also calls it collapse, which resonates with my internal experience of it.  It's a trauma response of shutting down.  I'm not sure if it's the same as learned helplessness, but it has that feel to me.

When I'm with someone in collapse, they seem checked out, not really there as opposed to someone who is engaged but just not showing any emotion.

Then there's the "Don't let the sharks smell blood" reaction which kicks in around PD's or otherwise unsafe people.  I learned that early on.

Good luck with the new puzzle pieces, Narckiddo, and getting a fuller picture of what went on.

[NarcKiddo]

Thanks for your comments, everyone.

Several have commented that just because emotions are not displayed does not mean they are not felt. I totally get that - as I said in the OP I am pretty good at hiding emotions which I feel greatly. I'm also familiar with the freeze response where everything shuts down as I have had that response too. My father generally remains engaged and attentive in all situations.

Pianissimo asked about friends or family members he feels close to. He doesn't have any that he reports feeling close to, or any that he appears to be close to. He maintains polite contact with his sister but is not regularly in touch. He has a wide circle of acquaintances and he keeps up with them. If a "friend" came to visit while I was still living at home both parents would without fail criticise the person to some degree after they had left. If I now ask him how a visit went he will either make fun of the friend in some way or will report very factually on their health, family news and what activities were undertaken during the visit.

user suggested I ask him how he best conveys what he is feeling. I simply can't ask him that. He would think I had gone mad and would most likely tell me that he has no desire to convey what he is feeling but if there were to be some necessity then he would convey it using plain English.

[Poison Ivy]

NarcKiddo, I recently had an experience with my mom that might be similar. My dog died last week, and a few days later, I visited my mom and my sister, as I have done almost every week for the past six or seven months. My mom seemed very interested in the "how" of the dog's death (I chose to have the dog euthanized at home), but she didn't  express any sympathy. I'm not entirely surprised, but I am disappointed. I mentioned this to my sister, and she agreed with my observation. I probably won't mention to my siblings that I feel especially bothered by this because I have regularly been labelled by my mom (and by my dad, when he was alive) as the family member who doesn't have feelings, and that label is wrong.

[NarcKiddo]

Poison Ivy - I am so sorry for your loss. It's the last kindness you can do them, and yet so painful. I remember losing mine as if it were yesterday and yet the last one was well over four years ago.

[pianissimo]

Pianissimo asked about friends or family members he feels close to. He doesn't have any that he reports feeling close to, or any that he appears to be close to. He maintains polite contact with his sister but is not regularly in touch. He has a wide circle of acquaintances and he keeps up with them. If a "friend" came to visit while I was still living at home both parents would without fail criticise the person to some degree after they had left. If I now ask him how a visit went he will either make fun of the friend in some way or will report very factually on their health, family news and what activities were undertaken during the visit.

He is capable of conveying "minor" emotions. I can tell if he is amused, satisfied or irritated. I have never seen him display fear, delight, awe, exhilaration, love, sadness, joy, fury.

Perhaps that's the flat effect they mention in relation to personality disorders.

My parents do get emotional (they rage, my mother gets overexcited), and they seem to have somewhat sincere and normal state among some of their friends, but, in my childhood, I remember them not being happy about good news I'd share with them. When I heard about the flat effect, I remembered those moments. At the time, I thought my news weren't good enough for them, but, now, I can see they probably couldn't feel much.

[rockandhardplace]

There's a condition called alexithymia that means people don't feel emotions or can't properly identify their emotions. Before I knew about PD's I thought my uPDh had this. He even told me early on in our relationship that his friends thought he lacked emotional awareness. I remember trying to talk to him once about an argument we had where he'd yelled at me and he just repeated his points from the day before never acknowledging the emotional side of what happened. I think for years I made excuses in my head for his behaviour thinking it was just him not understanding emotions. What's weird is that now I see that it's not that he doesn't have emotions it's that he only expresses one emotion- anger. I'm not sure how closely related PD's are with alexithymia. Probably in my uPDh case it's why raging is the main PD behaviour. There is never any self reflections or even hoovering / crying or acting sad or fearful or anxious. Only anger and rage. But what's made me recognise the rage is really emotional not just tactical (might be that too) is the way he can't control what he says in emails and texts. My friend divorced her narc and had the most awful time seems so like mine but he would never say anything nasty on email or text.

[Breadroll]

Was reflecting on xpdh- in early years of relationship, I was so confused by behavior - and it struck me that he had only two emotions - happy or angry ( anger could go yo rage- kicking walls etc).  I was still deep in fog at the time, searching for empathy and an emotional connection which of course, could never exist. 

Later on, there was a small range - brooding anger with contempt, jubilant happiness ( success) - and of course charm for the right people.  He got strangely excited if he could simultaneously charm someone whilst keeping me  as the contempt / anger focus. I did not understand this until after leaving- I was in quite a bad way, - it's taken several years to be this objective. He was dangerous- certainly to me- had started to leave hunting knives in the house.
This would be very different to " normal range people" hiding emotions in public to avoid conflict- or as someone here said - do not let the sharks smell blood!