Personal experience: yes, the medication they put me on when i was suicidal and stayed at a psychiatric ward numbs you emotionally, which would also mean that the emotional response to awful news is very muted. I did not feel nothing, but it’s a bit like the effect of noise cancelling headphones, but for emotions.

I was not happy about that at that time, but it made functioning and working in therapy a hell of a lot easier compared to the dumpster fire of emotions i had to deal with before that.

And everyone reacts differently to bad news - damn, when my sister was in an car accident where she got pretty hurt, her first reaction was to laugh her ass off, and then hurling abuse at the medics during the whole ambulance ride.