SCRIPT CHECK · 60 SECONDS
Five quick questions show how often it appears, how believable it feels, and what it makes you avoid. You’ll get one private next step.
This is not a diagnosis and there is no pass or fail. It measures the current frequency, credibility, and behavioral cost of “I didn't feel anything when they died — what's wrong with me”, including the private rule underneath it: If I felt nothing at the bedside, something essential in me is broken. A functioning person would have wept or frozen or needed time. Numbness proves I'm not built for this work, even though I keep doing it.
QUIET
“I didn't feel anything when they died — what's wrong with me” appears, but it rarely gets the final say. Keep this line available for higher-pressure moments: “Numb is what my nervous system learned to do under this exposure, not who I am.”
PRESENT
“I didn't feel anything when they died — what's wrong with me” wins some small decisions before you catch it. Your useful interruption is: “I name the flatness to someone who was there, not to a voice in my head at two a.m.”
ACTIVE
“I didn't feel anything when they died — what's wrong with me” is shaping action often enough to deserve a deliberate counterexample. Start privately and concretely: Write down exactly what you felt (or didn't feel) in the five minutes after the patient died, in plain words, without judgment. Read it back once to see what your own nervous system actually reported.
DOMINANT
Right now, “I didn't feel anything when they died — what's wrong with me” is steering many of the moments you measured. That is a pattern reading, not a diagnosis or character verdict. Begin with one reversible receipt: Write down exactly what you felt (or didn't feel) in the five minutes after the patient died, in plain words, without judgment. Read it back once to see what your own nervous system actually reported.