emotionally paralyzed

I wish I could communicate this to friends and family: reassembling a dismantled sense-of-self is possible and it is well worth the effort. 

All I do know is as we age the weight of our unsorted baggage becomes heavier . . . much heavier. With each passing year, the price of our refusal to do that sorting rises higher and higher.
― Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run 

We honor our parents by carrying their best forward and laying the rest down. By fighting and taming the demons that laid them low and now reside in us.
― Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run  

 I think that your entire life is a process of sorting out some of those early messages that you got. ― Bruce Springsteen