Picture this: you have everything you've ever wanted. You go to a good school where no one's mean to you, you're popular, you've gt your best friends and the perfect boyfriend. Something feels off, though. There's this small void inside you, and it keeps reminding you that it's there. Eventually, you just learn to shut everything out. You don't feel any emotion, and your parents think that you're depressed. You're not depressed, though. You're only internally numb.
It feels like it sounds: like your body lives on novicane instead of blood. If someone tells you a sob story about their grandmother dying, or if they tell you a happy story about their dog, you can't feel a thing. All you can do is smile and nod. Only, in some cases- the grandmother dying, for example- it doesn't really help to smile, it's better if you frown and pretend to look genuinely sad.
It get's really annoying, though. Like, if one of your best friends get's dumped by their long-term boyfriend, and they start getting mad at you because you're trying to comfort them and it's not working, since you keep saying stupid stuff to them like, 'Well, there was that time where you hit on his best friend, maybe that's why he dumped you.' or, 'You should have broken up with him first, the bastard had it coming.' And eventually she get's really angry and then you start to blame it on your 'internal numbness' and she doesn't believe you, since she's never suffered such a thing before.
And that's usually when you realize it: 'Internal Numbness' is just a side effect of depression. The funny thing about depression though; it'll get better.