Emotional blunting is a symptom. There are a variety of possible causes. These include:

▪️Antidepressant medication: Research suggests that some people who take antidepressant medications like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) experience a reduction in their ability to experience emotions.
▪️Alexithymia: A little-understood mental health disorder, alexithymia is marked by a difficulty in recognizing emotions.
▪️Schizophrenia: People with schizophrenia often experience “negative” symptoms that make them reduce or lose their ability to function normally, including their ability to experience emotion.
▪️Major depressive disorder: Depression (and the medications used to treat it) can cause feelings of emptiness and make it hard to feel either positive or negative emotions.
▪️Alcohol use disorder: Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant that can have a strong effect on a person’s mood. For some people who live with alcohol use disorder, alcohol can create feelings of numbness.
▪️Drug use: For some people living with substance use disorders, drugs like cannabis or opiates like heroin can cause emotional blunting. This is because some drugs, like alcohol, can depress the central nervous system.
▪️Borderline personality disorder (BPD): BPD is a personality disorder marked by intense changes in mood. However, in moments of severe stress, people with this disorder sometimes experience dissociation, emotional numbness, or detachment from their mind and body.
▪️PTSD: People with PTSD or complex PTSD (CPTSD) also may experience dissociation while having trauma flashbacks or facing triggering situations.