Chronic Emptiness...

[dakinijones]

I have a PD but not BPD so chronic emptiness isn't supposed to be one of my symptoms. However, I related to what was shared by the person who started this thread. To me that seems like emotional numbness/detachment. As an abuse survivor myself it is something I've suffered from and it's also something I've found some good techniques to recover from. Basically any meditation technique that involves feeling the sensations in the body will help. The trouble is that we usually detach because we can't face the pain of feeling, so choosing to feel isn't something we can always do. But in the past I was detached/numb about 95% of the time. One feeling a day was about as much as I could manage. With some recovery under my belt, I have a certain amount of choice about being detached and probably only spend about 10% of the time emotionally numb... and usually conscious of why I choose to do that at the time. Generally because otherwise I'll be emotionally overwhelmed - as someone else mentioned on this thread. BTW I've just seen that there's a whole sub-forum on dissociation, which I guess covers what I've been talking of as detachment/emotional numbness. Sometimes all these technical terms seem to make it harder to talk about the actual experience!

I have a friend who's diagnosed BPD and she talks about how she feels like she's never had a life like everyone else. Somehow she doesn't see her own life as real or authentic. I had assumed that this was what the phrase "chronic emptiness" means in the BPD diagnostic criteria.

[angel tears]

I feel emptiness as utter boredom, i feel so numb, bored fed up yet i cant focus on how to fill my time either. Then when i do feel satisfied it is usually through excitment, chaos, problems or by being impulsive, not good!!

[frostfern]

I'm not sure I have BPD but "emptiness" is probably the worst demon in me. I've taken so many anti-depressants but none of them seem to touch it. That's what makes me wonder if I don't have ordinary clinical depression but something more.

To me there's different shades / varieties of it. Sometimes it feels like simple loneliness, other times it's kind of an existential boredom/ennui, or it can be a feeling of being "trapped" inside my head where my feelings have no where to go. When it gets bad I feel so alienated from the outer world that it all feels painfully sterile and suffocating, like there's nothing I can say to express it and no one who could possibly comprehend it. I just feel completely alone and cut off.

Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in a container where all the oxygen is slowly being sucked out and I have a desperate urge to break out. Sometimes the emptiness flashes into anger and I have violent hateful thoughts or I feel like I want to punch/break something. If I can cry sometimes I'll feel better, but usually I can't cry until whatever negative energy it is has been released.

[Barebones]

i just wanted to respond to the bpd criteria post.

If its to vague? try not having a critieria or anything?

its all bast on stastics, to past and commen link.

Science is not full prrof or even god or what ever u fancy.

science is about trying, finding, giving, and so many other things, just to help and give fact, and so much more.

I feel many forget that we may be in times of going forward allittle, but really, what do u expect from a human being? noone has the answers.

we may think and try, and yes some good things have come, but, come off it? its not long ago, we was put away, even with health, u died, do u really

think that its soo easy in finding new ways and helping?

I frustrate myself, due to, i know i can adapt to change, but how many other can? change can mean little or nothing. where would u want to be? 15th century? or here?

give a thought about what is happening and what u expect.

[icu_baby]

Gone I agree with you, the DSM is something to be desired. It is very vague and far from being scientific. It should only be used as a guide to help give the right treatment to people and nothing else.

[sarabpd]

“A borderline suffers a kind of emotional hemophilia; they lack the clotting mechanism needed to moderate their spurts of feeling. Stimulate a passion, and the borderline emotionally bleeds to death.”

I can't get to grips relating the physical to mind imagery. I suppose it's the fantasist in people that describe it this way or trying to get over a description that all will understand.

Haemophillia is bleeding within but has limited time to bleed before it is too late but BPD seems to go on forever.

My nephew has haemophillia and if he bleeds he gets an injection. We get nothing :(

[shawnm339]

pretty much like the other guys have put so well...even now I'm sat here and I feel nothing...the wife has took her kids out for the day so I've got peace, I've treated myself to some new games to play on you think I'd be happy yeah? I feel not a thing...it's like you just exist I am empty....I have to force myself to check out the sun shining and a beautiful sky it just passes me by....I could win the lottery now and just shrug my shoulders it doesn't mean a thing

[Emily Tyler]

have you got that feeling that you havent found yourself yet? taking on other peoples personalitys because you havent found yours yet? you feel empty because everyone else seems so comfortable with themselves but you dont you dont know who you are and no matter how hard you try you can never get there and you feel empty. to me i feel like a shell of a person with nothing but disorders inside of me. i look like everyone on the outside but on the inside i am empty. i get what you mean compleatly. hope you get me to :)

[RevolutionnX]

omg i'm so glad to read this topic because chronic emptiness is what has driven me mad my whole life.Its that dead feeling.Hollow someone said.i'm so glad to know i'm not the only one.i remember driving around and around at night scared to come home because i'd have to face the emptiness again. and i never knew what i'd do to myself. would i finally kill myself this time? i would think. i didnt know.i couldnt be alone with myself.at the moment im not so bad.i havent been that bad in a long time.its a desperate feeling too.

[Elke]

I struggle to feel emotion, like happiness or sadness (although I can feel utterly depressed). Even something like love, I KNOW I love my husband, well in my head I do, but I don't feel it in my heart.

Often I know I should be feeling something , or even that I am feeling something but I can't put my finger on it - I can't identify it in my head. A T at the TC once described it as standing at a bus stop with all the busses passing by, without stopping to let me on.

Another one of the psychotherapists who is attached to the TC but doesn't actually work in it said that this kind of detachment from emotions is quite common in people who have been ab*sed

So anyway, yeah, is this what is meant by "chronic emptiness", you know the good old BPD symptom???

Jay

I can relate to this - I often "live in my head" and am cut off from all feelings. But I wouldnt see it as emptiness, as there is still something going on, only just in my head.

Then something will trigger and I am totally all emotions, like a horse thats lost the rider to control it. Losing my head. That is whats meant by emotions regulation, they just run away with me and cant control.

But emptiness to me is something else. It is like not having both. Nothing on your mind and no feelings either. Just an empty shell.

[xeon]

A lot of people described emptiness as having a whole in your stomach....this is actually quite a common way to describe it. I really can't identify with that though, to me its more like a blackness in your heart.

For me emptiness is part of my depression. When you have no goals or ambitions, when nothing fulfills you and when you lack enjoyment out of life for the things you used to enjoy such as exercising, going to the beach, a party etc.

External excitement seems to be the only sort of stimulus my wife enjoys... her thing was spending and now with tighter finances she can't do that as much and it hasn't been a good thing.

I feel emptiness as utter boredom, i feel so numb, bored fed up yet i cant focus on how to fill my time either. Then when i do feel satisfied it is usually through excitment, chaos, problems or by being impulsive, not good!!

I'm not sure I have BPD but "emptiness" is probably the worst demon in me. I've taken so many anti-depressants but none of them seem to touch it. That's what makes me wonder if I don't have ordinary clinical depression but something more.

To me there's different shades / varieties of it. Sometimes it feels like simple loneliness, other times it's kind of an existential boredom/ennui, or it can be a feeling of being "trapped" inside my head where my feelings have no where to go. When it gets bad I feel so alienated from the outer world that it all feels painfully sterile and suffocating, like there's nothing I can say to express it and no one who could possibly comprehend it. I just feel completely alone and cut off.

Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in a container where all the oxygen is slowly being sucked out and I have a desperate urge to break out. Sometimes the emptiness flashes into anger and I have violent hateful thoughts or I feel like I want to punch/break something. If I can cry sometimes I'll feel better, but usually I can't cry until whatever negative energy it is has been released.

Wow, thank you for sharing!

As a spouse of someone who seems to be BPD... thank you for giving me a glimpse in.

[Elke]

Emptiness is like a void in my stomach, which I feel compelled to fill with benzo's and alcohol. Trying to fix it, but with the wrong kind of things. A desperate longing to feel like a whole person.

I can relate to this. Thts the point I have reached myself atm.

[musinglizzy]

Same here. I struggle to do so many things. My bills are always late just because I don't "feel" like doing them. The money's in the account usually, I just don't feel like dealing with them. So I don't. I am a mom, and raised my son to be self sufficient, and he's doing a great job. I lack motivation. Instead I can just sit and stare. I spent hours on my bed this afternoon with music on, just staring out the window at the rain coming down. Because I couldn't do anything but. Sometimes I wish my roommate would lay down beside me and just talk....but she's going through hell right now and I can't ask her to take care of me, too. I have always felt like something is missing. There's something empty inside. I almost feel guilty when I laugh. Like I'm not supposed to. And then I hear myself laugh, and think how silly my laugh is....and quit. I'm crazy. Just know it. LOL

[Data]

How can you have a "chronic feeling of emptiness", for fucks sake. If you feel something, you are not empty!!!!

[Threemoons]

I think the feeling of emptiness is not the absence of feeling but more probably the feeling that something is missing for you to be complete.

[musinglizzy]

Exactly, Threemoons..... to me emptiness is just that.

[Becca95]

Wow, this is how I've been feeling recently. I thought I was the only one but turns out I'm wrong wish I could feel again, it's kind of scary and frustrating

[Elke]

When I was in high school a lot of people noticed the emptiness - only I didnt because I never felt anything and to me it was normal. But my bf once told me: "You´re just going through the motions!" or another "You´re not in contact with your feelings". Do others ever notice the lack of emotions in you?

Now I understand and can notice the emptiness in myself. Its taken more than half a lifetime. My ex-T once said I was living in my head. Even my on and off estranged son recently said "I feel so numb when I am with you". I wonder if he has a problem himself or if my emptiness has such an effect on him, that he also feels it.

(Please dont imitate) I have began drinking alcohol because its the only thing that helps me to feel again. And I know I am not doing myself a favor becoming an alcohol, but what else helps? When I wake up in the morning and the affect of the alcohol has worn off - again, I feel like I am already dead.

There IS a way out. The way I found OUT of the deadness was (So my T stated) the aggressor (my mom) suddenly had a change of heart and became my friend. Only to return to enemy status again. Marsha Linehan even suggests finding a good friend can help someone with BPD heal.

Elke

[Elke]

True Threemoons. Some"one" is missing. A positive person with positive feelings for you - its catching.

[Elke]

Try to make sense of it - my dad died 7 years ago. He was very cruel and degraded me often. But one day I asked him if I could go along with him on a hike. He talked a lot and I listened and suddenly he said "Thank you, Elke". It nearly knocked me down. My dad appreciates me???? He then got cancer and I spent a lot of time care-taking and he was grateful. He said "I am so glad to be with you, Elke". This was the FIRST time in life I ever heard any positive things he said to me.

When he died, I went to his grave 3 times a week, I missed him so much.

Then mom was suddenly "alone" and she realized how horrible it must be for ME to be so alone. And now SHE began having compassion and her life-long hostility vanished.

I "could" interpret it as: Now they are old and they need their daughter. And resent them for using me. But I do cherish the positive experiences, that we caught up on.

Make sense of it. I cant. I only know what I experienced and felt.

[timbawundakin]

i think with bpd, you have gotta take each emotion you feel with a pinch of salt most of the time as they invariably turn out to be just tricks of the mind. Empty feelings are okay and I think the best way to deal with them are to treat them as a passing phase rather than a genuine affliction.I know how hard it is.Sometimes I hate the emptiness but other times I long for it.