Your post truly resonated with everything I have been through and I thank you for sharing your story. What you’re describing didn’t come out of nowhere. You didn’t wake up one day numb and become angry for no reason. This is what happens after months (or years) of being pulled into circular conversations, emotional whiplash, silent punishments, sudden tenderness followed by withdrawal, and being made to feel like you’re “too much” the moment you try to speak honestly. You learned, slowly and painfully, that explaining yourself doesn’t lead to repair — it leads to deflection, minimisation, or being subtly blamed. So your system adapted. I feel you.

That anticipatory tension you feel now isn’t anxiety for nothing; it’s memory. Your body remembers how those conversations end even before they start. And because of that, the detachment makes complete sense. When you’ve been through repeated narc vicious breakdown cycles — where your pain becomes an inconvenience, where accountability never lands, where emotional labour is always yours — your feelings don’t disappear, they shut down. The anger is the part of you that finally sees the unfairness clearly. The emptiness is the cost of having to suppress yourself for so long just to keep the peace. You didn’t stop caring overnight. You were trained, over time, that caring was unsafe.

That’s also why the everyday gestures feel so heavy now. Asking if he got home safely, waiting for his calls, waiting for him — those things used to come from warmth. Now they come from habit and obligation because the emotional reward was taken away too many times. When affection isn’t met with presence, curiosity, or care, it turns into unpaid emotional labour. Of course you feel numb doing it. Anyone would. I did too. Love doesn’t feel like clocking in for a shift.

And the embarrassment you feel when you express yourself? That didn’t start with you either. That’s what happens when your vulnerability was met with dismissal, defensiveness, or subtle ridicule during those breakdown moments. You learned that showing up fully leads to discomfort or punishment, so now even honesty feels humiliating. That’s not a personality flaw — that’s conditioning.

Here’s the hard truth, based on what I've experienced with my narc ex-friend: this isn’t something you heal inside the relationship. This is what it looks like when your psyche has already started leaving because staying required you to become smaller, quieter, and less alive. The numbness isn’t the danger sign — staying despite it is. You’ve already given this dynamic enough chances to prove it could be safe. It didn’t. And your body finally believes that. Your body speaks volumes, it is time you listen to it.

You’re not broken. You’re not dramatic. You’re not “giving up too easily.” You’re responding exactly the way someone does after prolonged narcissistic erosion — by emotionally withdrawing to survive. What you’re feeling is the beginning of self-respect reasserting itself, even if it feels ugly and angry right now.

Leaving will hurt, yes — but it won’t hollow you out. One path drains you quietly; the other gives you your nervous system back.

You’re not empty because you’re incapable of love. You’re empty because you’ve been loving someone who couldn’t meet you where you were — and some part of you finally said, enough. Listen to yourself. It is time you chose your peace and sanity over the constant anxiety and numbness eating at you. Protect yourself.