I've never been a very emotional person. From a very young age, I remember trying to distance myself from my "uglier" emotions. But I was never able to distance myself from just those emotions, I'd end up shoving most of them down.

Over the years, as the actual "feeling" of my emotions got farther and farther away from me, the better I got at faking them. This worked for me, up until my symptoms started appearing. Over the past three or so years, I've lost my ability to replicate the emotions of those around me. It's become that, while I can still recognize all the tiny details, that give depth to emotions, I can no longer relate or recreate. I can still tell WHEN I should be feeling something, but the WHAT and the HOW are hardly there.

This became very clear to me, a little over a year ago. During the fires in Arizona, I lost two cousins who were in a Hot Shots team. When I read my uncle's Facebook status, it was as if I was reading a news post off of Today I Learned. It didn't even hit me that I should have felt something, until I told my mom, and she immediately burst out sobbing.

We went out to visit my relatives, picking up a different cousin along the way, and when we got there, I had the fact that I had lost touch with my emotions, shoved in my face.

The entire TOWN was grieving. They had lost nineteen of their 20 or so, in the fire. It being a small town, everybody pretty much knew everybody, and so, it seemed to be highly personal.

When we got to my uncle's house, there were maybe nine people sobbing and weeping and wailing, and then I was sitting in the middle of it, feeling mildly awkward for not crying along with them.

Over the next ten days, that feeling of mild awkwardness intensified, as I had to sit through seven different memorials and funeral services, including one, that was put on by the government, which was giant, televised, and had the Vice President as a speaker.

I did not shed a single tear, did not feel sad or grief-stricken, did not feel any of the "camaraderie through trauma" that seemed to include everyone in the town, or visiting, except for me, no matter how hard they tried to include me.

I've been through several similar experiences, since then, and have never been able to connect with anyone in that sort of way. It has become very frustrating to have this seemingly impassable wall, between me and everyone that I meet.

Which is always bitterly ironic, in that, when I get angry, I have no problem expressing THOSE emotions.

I guess that I'm posting this because I wanted to get a feel for what everybody else's experiences with this sort of thing are, and if you've had them, how did you deal with them?

Tl;dr: I don't really have emotions anymore. What do?