Feeling empty and fed up

[Boatsetsailrose]

This is just a general blurt

Sometimes I feel fed up and empty - it doesn't happen that often thankfully but when it does its full on
Then I am thinking well people without cptsd feel this and have difficult times

I think what it flags up for me is the lacking in myself of emotionally coping and being kind to myself -
When I look objectively I seem like an empty shell who is in distress ...
As I'm writing this I can see that the ability to be objective shows I'm here and present for the distress somehow ...
I'm wondering if the 'being in distress is connected to ef ? I'm not even too sure what that means in relation to an inner experience
I feel frozen when I'm like this -

I just get fed up with 'working on myself ' and at these times I want to add insult to injury and use something to numb - tonight the best I have is tv ( not so bad eh

[Indigochild]

Hey Boatsetsailrose
Sending you hugs. 
Im so sorry you feel this way.
I have times like you where i feel this way too.
I know you said its just a ramble / offload-
so sorry if you dont feel like answering my questions. Maybe some time when you feel better, or you could just use them whenever you feel like it, to have a think?

Trigger allert....

My thinking is that people with out Cptsd do have difficult times, but do they feel empty? Hollow?
With the reading ive done that isn't too much, emptiness isn't something a human should feel, and if at all, I'm pretty sure its not on a rota like basis like how we feel it (keeps coming round and round like a cycle)

Sometimes I feel fed up and empty - it doesn't happen that often thankfully but when it does its full on

Aparently, according to videos i have watched from the experts etc. the emptiness is because we dont have a self. And also because we dont *feel* our feelings.
There may be more reasons for this too. Im no expert yet.
If starved of love as a child, you dont learn how to nurture and take care of yourself. You grow up feeling empty. You are devoid of the love you should have had.
What we have to do now is give that love to ourselves, and if we are unable to for the time being, we feel empty.
This is my understanding of this anyway.

And omg. I am an empty shell too, I feel empty sometimes, - in distress, just doing anything I can to get through, at my stage- when flash backing and when feeling that the past is really happening again, and you have no way of knowing till your T tells you your partner is not like your parents, and that you misunderstood / had too high expectations of love.

Can you determine weather you were in distress before you felt empty?
Could be perhaps?...that you are disassociated right now, due to stress / EFs, so you feel numb and empty??
Recovery sounds hard and very back and forth. (Im only just starting)
Just guesses here. Perhaps you are being too hard on yourself about recovery. Sometimes people fill themselves up with spirituality and learning and healing. i guess emptiness can be caused by being hard on ourselves.

Maybe you could try to get in touch with exactly what it feels like to you when you feel frozen?

It sounds to me like your might be trying to self destruct when you say,
-and at these times I want to add insult to injury and use something to numb.

You have to do what you have to do. I hope you can work through this.
ps. perhaps feeling empty, reminds you of feelings you had as a child that were the same or very similar.
Therefore you may be tempted to resort to numbing out further to deal with feeling empty- its a cycle.

I really hope you dont mind my speculations and I really hope you can figure things out in time.
Feeling empty is horrible and self compassion is what is needed - even though i know its incredibly hard.  I am very afraid of the consequences that will come if i am good to myself or compassionate, so i often turn to negative behaviours in order to cope, as that way, in my head, I wont be punished and the world wont crumble as I wasnt good to myself.

Look after yourself. 
Indigo

[Indigochild]

I feel I'm so rubbish at replying to posts.  I tend to ask more questions as maybe I'm not any good with the empathy. 
Im very conscious of this, so sorry if this is the case.
I never want to overwhelm.

[woodsgnome]

Boatsetsailrose wrote: "I...get fed up with 'working on myself ' and at these times I want to add insult to injury and use something to numb;" and "when I look objectively I seem like an empty shell who is in distress ..."

That's a tendency I have, especially after the 'working on myself' part unravels. I want to understand so much, and kind of wander shotgun around this/that/other and frustrate myself, when the reality is probably I'm just tired of the whole trip. "Empty shell" is an apt description for something so indecipherable.

Afterwards, I realize this was an opening and it's okay. It's okay to pull back, forget about this elusive search for self. Notice I said afterwards, 'cause I get so frantic while in search mode I forget the open part. Open implies space, and it doesn't need immediate filling. That's usually my realization later; unfortunately it doesn't always match the reality at the time it goes off the rails.

For me, it's that okay realization that's made some difference. Judging myself at having missed the boat on this self-understanding business doesn't help. Maybe the numbness is really an invitation to relax, put the books back for a while, stop analyzing my journals, and just be; no judgements, just be, just let stuff happen. Speaking of books, though, I'm reminded of a favourite which is titled simply "The Importance of Being Idle." Yep.

[Boatsetsailrose]

Indeed woods gnome that perfectionist stuff - must find all the answers - must explore it all - collapse into nothing -
Making progress with the perfection stuff and the have to know it all is good
Being idle yep and doing it mindfully not in a collapsed way is a work in progress

Search for self - when it's here all along -

Past in the head - mind processes - attitudes and feelings

It's good to find balance in all this

I'm coming off anti dep now so watch this space - 😀

Yes indigo that self love is def an area that I am into lately - a part of me that is quite void but am getting to see it more clearly and nurture me some more
Very grateful to not be fixing on externals and be able to do this through spiritual / psychological and social means

[Indigochild]

Thats great Boatsetsailrose, I wish you luck and also, luck with comping off the anti deps.   

[Golden Tapestry]

For a long time I have felt anywhere between empty, angry, hurt, scared, in shock, embarrassed, etc.  It's hard to comprehend how a person can feel so many different emotions but still feel empty.  Reading all of these posts have made me realize that "love" has been missing from the list....  I know I can love because my heart feels full when I think of my children even though I've actually wondered if it was love or need.

I think I can say now that it is love that I feel but it's been "self love" that's been missing....  Maybe that is why sometimes the emptiness is there.  Because we have to work at feeling the self love and more comfortable giving it to others as we have been conditioned to do in so many ways. 

I read that it's a fine quality to have when we show compassion to others but we are taught not to feel compassion for ourselves because it's selfish.  For "normal" people, I guess growing up, they didn't need to teach themselves compassion because it is given by caregivers.  When we are deprived of that, we don't know that we are allowed to have a self let alone nurturing the self. 

I've been spending most of my time nurturing myself (child within) and sometimes even that seems like soooo much work.  But when I'm in there with my child I'm so happy.  So I keep forcing myself to do it.  I've been getting sad lately because she's been sad but at least I'm feeling something.  I'm angry that so many fundamental things were taken from me but I keep thinking of my sweet revenge of not being broken. 

We are here for a reason.  We are not broken.  Sometimes we just get tired.  You're allowed to be tired sometimes so rest up and love again.  xo   

[coda]

...we are taught not to feel compassion for ourselves because it's selfish.  For "normal" people, I guess growing up, they didn't need to teach themselves compassion because it is given by caregivers.  When we are deprived of that, we don't know that we are allowed to have a self let alone nurturing the self. 

I only felt alive and whole when I was in the service of others, as taught by a mother who defined my goodness (in fact my reason for existing) as being good to/for her. Then whether it was family, friends, coworkers or bosses, becoming indispensable became the only way around the emptiness. I can almost remember when I gave up trying for myself, when her almost constant external carping about being selfish, silly, weak or mean became my own inner voice. It just replicated itself in a thousand ways. Wanting, needing, trying, failing, having -- all turned radioactive. The stuff of life is incremental, but we didn't get to experience that.

Sometimes I felt...and can still feel...that I was simply her creation, and what little of me was left intact was in frozen, still waiting to be born. Realizing this is hard and depressing work, and it takes a lot out of us.

[Boatsetsailrose]

Thank you golden tapestry
My t gave me a link to this http://www.compassionatemind.co.uk/resources/training_materials.htm

It looks really good - but I just don't seem to have it in me to take something else on 'to work on ...
Maybe I'll do mini bits

Yes coda indeed - and taking what is rightfully ours and claiming it -
I had to go through an awful stage of feeling guilty of not care taking others and I still am a work in progress re giving others to much power but can now see the recovery I've made thus far

Just for now I've taken an hour to be in bed with a candle and gentle Henry ( the bear ) he reminds me to be gentle -
My drive to 'do is crazy it never wants to stop and the perfection streak -
But I know today that is about a false sense of controlling the outside to feel safe -
When I meditate inwards and then open my eyes - something shifts - that focus becomes more in -
So now I am writing this realise that is compassion and love to me -
Thank u for being here
It's so validating and supportive 🌸🌷

[Pixelpixiestick]

It's that feeling of being so hollow that it would be sickening if you weren't so empty. It's the feeling that you are nothing more than a mirror, a reflection of your current environment. Your responses and actions seem involuntary in a regurgitated, almost actively listening form. It's from hiding yourself. Hiding everything, bottling it. It's like you feel like you need to just let it all out for the world to hear, but you can't and you won't because it may offend other people. At one point, you would have been embarrassed, but now.. You can't even feel that you deserve that amount of self preservation...

This is how I feel at least.

[arpy1]

Hey Pixelpixiestick, just want to say, it's ok. i read your other post too and i really feel for you, i know what it's like when it gets like that. one of my ambitions, don't laugh, is to become a real person.  not sure how, but i would like to be one, one day.

i also want to say that you might find you can maybe do a bit of letting all out, as you say, here. people do seem to get it in a way that other folks who don't have the same battles, can't. something to do with all being in the same boat? i am finding i safely can reach out here.

anyway, lots of support to you, glad to meet you, don't think i have seen you around before...

[tired]

when i'm stressed i go for that empty feeling. i want to feel it and i make it happen and i curl up in bed with mindless tv.  when i feel stressed i look forward to it as the only thing left for me.

[Boatsetsailrose]

Pixel

quote ' nothing more than a mirror a reflection of your current environment '
Such a profound way to say what I haven't been able to have words for -- thank you
Being so hyper aroused is  exhausting and the vigilance that we carry
Have you heard of Pete walkers book - and website - I am just reading a page a night and he gives so much identification of  cptsd I breathe a sigh of relief and breathe in hope each time I open the book
You sound tired out pixel and I wish you comfort and rest in this stage of your recovery

I get you and you get me and that means such a lot

I have done a fair bit of therapeutic body work / workshops I recommend doing things that you can emotionally express in. A safe environment
I used to go to quiet spaces outdoors and roar it used to help me a lot

[Indigochild]

I agree with you about Walkers books and articles Boatsetsailrose.
I have to ask- what type of outdoors did you go to to roar?
I have been needing to do this. I believe head in anger along with stresss is making me physically ill.
I dont want to in the house with partner there.

[Dutch Uncle]

Excuse me for butting in, y'all.
@ Indigo:
While I live alone, I can vent some of it at home. Yet I live in a very 'noisy' apartment, so I'm pretty careful still.

So I go out for walks, and usually just talk out loud. If people think I'm a freak, I have stopped caring. In this day and age though you can pop in a phone-earplug, and people will think you're on the phone with somebody, and suddenly you will not be a freak anymore who talks in him/herself. 
I don't bother, but I have thought about it.

Large parks with few people, the beach, forests, farmland... any place that gives you enough 'security' you won't be spotted will do. Do you have a car? I don't, but I guess taking an easy drive where you can shout all you want in the privacy of your 'cabin' might work as well. WARNING: It should be an easy ride, with little traffic and no pedestrians/bikes around I guess. Do it in a parking lot?

Then you're just faced with your own shame about 'shouting out'. It's not an easy feat. I still struggle with it. But it has become a sort of habit, so it has become easier over time.

But in the end (at this very moment that is) I feel it has been a tremendous help for me to access all that hidden anger, hurt, resentment, vengeance. Finally I'm letting out what was not allowed to be 'out'.
In quite a literal sense I'm finding my voice.

It can send me "off the deep end" at times, so I actually end up worse than before I started.
But also it has lifted me up at times, and suddenly I find myself bursting out in laughter. When I see the total idiocy I have been in. Or the times where I actually have handled a situation in an awesome way. "YAY", i then shout.

So, it's a two edged sword.
To cut through all the crap. 

I wish you strength to do it. And strength to face the results. And joy as well. That will come, I promise.