Venting I'm doing everything right in my life but the feeling of emptiness is destroying me

[deleted]

I'm eating well and going to the gym 6 times, my body is defined again, I'm working hard, I'm taking care of my appearance, I've cut out one or another toxic person from my life and apparently everything is going well, but I still feel this emptiness destroying me, sometimes I hold back tears on the bus, or when I get home, I hold back tears while making food, these days I let a tear fall at the gym but no one noticed, how can I fix that? I just feel like a robot who is forced to do absolutely everything, from waking up, breathing, eating, when I try to distract myself by watching a movie or reading I also feel absolutely nothing.

 

[Alexei_Kirillov]

Just checking since you posted this on Offtopic, not Recovery; are you looking for advice or commiseration?

 

[deleted]

Just checking since you posted this on Offtopic, not Recovery; are you looking for advice or commiseration?

advice.

 

[enduringwinter]

You dont like those activities. Find things you like, it will take a while.

 

[astr4]

i've been here before. had a boyfriend was working towards my degree going out dancing on the weekends. deep down it all felt empty and hollow and… idk. shallow? fake? vapid?

like it felt like i was just going through the motions and wearing the mask because it was what was expected of me. none of it actually felt meaningful in a core way, none of the friends i had felt authentic.

that was a little more than half a decade ago, in that time i've been to therapy, and i've realized a lot of these feelings come from a place of trauma. relationships can't feel authentic to me because i don't genuinely believe people want to be my friend unless they're trying to get something from me. going through the motions of school and work are just reminders that other people are constantly evaluating my worth as a human being.

one of my fears is that i'll put in all the work to "get better" and heal my trauma, but nothing will be different, life will still be meaningless, so i'm scared to try, tbh. i applaud you for taking all the steps you have to improve your life. but i wonder if maybe you have the same problem as me, which is trauma and loneliness which makes everything "good" feel empty.

 

[BoulderSoWhat]

Does the emptiness and nothingness feel more like you're not finding enjoyment or satisfaction in all those things, which you thought would bring enjoyment and satisfaction? Or does it feel more like, you're doing all these things to better yourself, but everything still feels like the world is happening around you and you're not part of it? Loneliness I guess, or not having genuine authentic relationships (acquaintances, friends, or otherwise good people)?

I can relate in some ways. I just started a new job that I think will be really good for me. I'm trying to keep myself busy, going outside, or otherwise not just stay in my apartment alone in all my spare time. But, even though I'm trying to do things for myself, there's still some kind of dissatisfaction that is haunting me in the background. For me, I think it is loneliness. I found SaSu recently and it has been good for me to interact with others here. I'm alone in real life. My coworkers are good, I'm attending a monthly NAMI group, I'm doing therapy.

But still of course, I'd like to experience that human thing called having friends in real life. People who I can see time to time and talk to about anything, like I have nothing to hide or hold back when talking here. But it's also the most frustrating thing to try to figure out, because in most aspects of my life, I value being independent and not needing anyone. But having a friendship or other relationship is not a solo activity unfortunately. I have to risk and I have to trust and I have to give up control to have good relationships with people, if that's what I want.

I don't know if any of this helps, but I could relate to what has been talked about here.

 

[Alexei_Kirillov]

advice.

Just to preface this with: I've been there. Even the part about having to hold back tears...

A couple suggestions:

• Try to identify stressors in your life and either minimize or remove them altogether. For me, the gym was a major stressor due to its interactions with my eating disorder and how wrapped up in my identity it got. Stopping going there was a huge positive development in my life. Looks like you've already started this by cutting out toxic people.
• Take a look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs and identify which parts you're missing, starting at the bottom. You didn't mention your social situation anywhere in your post, so it's possible that that's the area that's lacking.
  
• Ask yourself what your body/mind might be trying to communicate to you. Don't get bogged down into thinking that there's "something wrong with your brain" or that you just have a "mental disease" -- not yet, at least. Lack of interest/emptiness is often one of the first tricks your mind uses to signal to you that something has gone off-kilter and your situation needs to change. In my case, when this signal first occurred to me, it was my body telling me that I needed a romantic partner. I didn't take this warning seriously and eventually my depression morphed from a communication tool to an end unto itself, entrenched in my being and significantly more difficult to uproot.
• Think of ways you can recharge your "life battery." I've found that it helps to think of our ability to deal with the burden of existence as a battery percentage. When you're at 100% battery, you're able to readily confront life's challenges and find the basic burdens of existence (eating, sleeping, etc.) to be weightless. Life events and plain ol' wear and tear can deplete your battery over time, and if you never recharge it, you'll run out of energy to participate in even the parts of life that are supposed to make you feel good, because those require effort too. For most people, they recharge via loving and feeling loved, but there are other sources too. I managed to marginally recharge my batteries recently by going on a road trip where I had no care in the world for a while except the patch of road in front of me.

Hope you find at least some of this helpful.

 

[astr4]

Just to preface this with: I've been there. Even the part about having to hold back tears...

A couple suggestions:

• Try to identify stressors in your life and either minimize or remove them altogether. For me, the gym was a major stressor due to its interactions with my eating disorder and how wrapped up in my identity it got. Stopping going there was a huge positive development in my life. Looks like you've already started this by cutting out toxic people.
• Take a look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs and identify which parts you're missing, starting at the bottom. You didn't mention your social situation anywhere in your post, so it's possible that that's the area that's lacking.
  View attachment 150398
• Ask yourself what your body/mind might be trying to communicate to you. Don't get bogged down into thinking that there's "something wrong with your brain" or that you just have a "mental disease" -- not yet, at least. Lack of interest/emptiness is often one of the first tricks your mind uses to signal to you that something has gone off-kilter and your situation needs to change. In my case, when this signal first occurred to me, it was my body telling me that I needed a romantic partner. I didn't take this warning seriously and eventually my depression morphed from a communication tool to an end unto itself, entrenched in my being and significantly more difficult to uproot.
• Think of ways you can recharge your "life battery." I've found that it helps to think of our ability to deal with the burden of existence as a battery percentage. When you're at 100% battery, you're able to readily confront life's challenges and find the basic burdens of existence (eating, sleeping, etc.) to be weightless. Life events and plain ol' wear and tear can deplete your battery over time, and if you never recharge it, you'll run out of energy to participate in even the parts of life that are supposed to make you feel good, because those require effort too. For most people, they recharge via loving and feeling loved, but there are other sources too. I managed to marginally recharge my batteries recently by going on a road trip where I had no care in the world for a while except the patch of road in front of me.

Hope you find at least some of this helpful.

your 777th post, how auspicious

 

[TheSoulless]

I'm eating well and going to the gym 6 times, my body is defined again, I'm working hard, I'm taking care of my appearance, I've cut out one or another toxic person from my life and apparently everything is going well, but I still feel this emptiness destroying me, sometimes I hold back tears on the bus, or when I get home, I hold back tears while making food, these days I let a tear fall at the gym but no one noticed, how can I fix that? I just feel like a robot who is forced to do absolutely everything, from waking up, breathing, eating, when I try to distract myself by watching a movie or reading I also feel absolutely nothing.

I've also lived my best and trying so damn hard, but my apathy doesn't seem to change. Strength to you.

 

[Davey40210]

I've felt the same as well. The problem I have though (don't know if you can relate, OP) is that I have no idea what it is then that I'm supposed to be doing to recharge or be happy. So I just do the things that "bring me further".

I tried quite a few things (mainly through being pushed by my incredible ex gf), like went to puppy yoga and took care of dogs for others (because she noticed I like dogs so much), went to play board game events (because my gf noticed I liked board games), traveled a lot, and did so many different things.

But right now nothing makes me happy. I just think about my ex all the time and how I messed things up. And before we broke up I also didn't really figure out what makes me happy.

Only thing right now that I kind of look forward to is going on this website and thinking about CTB.

But yeah, I do agree with the others that you should probably listen to your body/mind to figure out what it is trying to tell you.

 

[Warlord's Pulse]

That's totally me, tho I admit sometimes I can't maintain consistency at gym or work etc

 

[Higurashi415]

I'm eating well and going to the gym 6 times, my body is defined again, I'm working hard, I'm taking care of my appearance, I've cut out one or another toxic person from my life and apparently everything is going well, but I still feel this emptiness destroying me, sometimes I hold back tears on the bus, or when I get home, I hold back tears while making food, these days I let a tear fall at the gym but no one noticed, how can I fix that? I just feel like a robot who is forced to do absolutely everything, from waking up, breathing, eating, when I try to distract myself by watching a movie or reading I also feel absolutely nothing.

I feel you. My therapist says meds are the only solution to this, and I beg to disagree, both because the scientific literature is pretty clear on the fact that meds suck, and because I've already tried the meds that would supposedly help me.
So, what I'm trying to do now is accepting that this is just how I am, and I've been feeling somewhat better.
I still fight it, mind you, but I "accept" it.
Also, I don't know how old you are, but do bear in mind that some of this gets shaved off as you age, it's a documented phenomenon, so don't beat yourself up too much if you're, say, younger than 35

(I don't want to discourage anyone over the age of 35, as you probably know change is still definitely possible, and to some degree even easier as you have a fully developed brain)