When you are feeling empty inside, it doesn’t always look dramatic; sometimes it just feels like quiet numbness you can’t explain. And the truth is, feeling empty inside often has less to do with who you are and more to do with what you never received.
This kind of emotional emptiness is one of the most common outcomes of childhood emotional neglect, and it shows up in subtle ways long before you notice the deeper ache.
If you have ever wondered about the signs you feel empty inside, or why you are feeling numb emotionally, you are not alone, and you are not broken.
KEY POINTS
- Emptiness is a quiet signal that your emotions may have been overlooked in childhood.
- Feeling empty often drives unhealthy coping, like overeating or overdrinking.
- What feels missing is your own emotional validation; it’s not a flaw in who you are.
- You can begin to fill the emptiness by reconnecting with your own feelings.
It’s like I have no emotions; I’m numb a lot of the time.
Something is missing in me.
I have no idea how I feel about anything.
Sometimes my chest feels hollow.
I feel empty inside.
Related: Emotional Emptiness: What To Do When You Feel Emotionally Empty
What might seem like five unrelated statements is actually five different people describing the same feeling. It’s a difficult emotion to identify, and even harder to put into words.
Everyone says it differently because there is no standard label for it. But for these five people, and thousands more, it is the same feeling, caused by the same problem.
The one word that sums it up best:
Emptiness
Of all the different emotions that a person can have, “empty” is one of the most uncomfortable. To feel empty is to feel incomplete. It’s a feeling of something absent or missing inside of you, of being different, set apart, alone, lacking, numb.
This is a feeling that can drive people to do a myriad of unhealthy things, like overeat, overdrink, overshop, or even use drugs. This is a feeling that gradually, quietly erodes a person’s joy, energy, and confidence.
It flies under the radar and carries with it a tremendous power to degrade your quality of life.
Just as every feeling we have tells us something about ourselves, so also does emptiness. It tells us that we are missing something vital in ourselves. Something that is required for happiness and fulfillment.
Is it something different for every person? I don’t think so. What’s missing is the same for most who feel empty.
What’s missing is:
Emotion
From talking with scores of people who have this feeling of emptiness, I have been able to identify what I believe is its cause. It’s a childhood experience that each has lived, but few are able to remember. It’s childhood emotional neglect.
Each of these people grew up in a home in which their emotions were not accepted, responded to, or validated enough.
Our emotions are hard-wired into us. They are the most deeply personal, biological part of who we are. When you’re raised by parents who ignore, invalidate, or fail to respond to your emotions, you learn quickly to do that for yourself.
It’s not a child’s conscious choice. It’s an invisible message with invisible power. The adaptive child automatically adapts. They ignore, invalidate, and fail to respond to their own feelings.
So, as an adult, when you feel empty, what is missing in you is the same ingredient that was missing in your childhood: acceptance, responsiveness, and validation of your emotions.
But now, in adulthood, it’s not from your parents that you need this acceptance. It is from yourself.
“But I do have emotions,” you may be saying to me right now. “So why do I still feel empty?”
Picture a wall inside yourself. On one side of that wall are your feelings, and on the other side is you. Your feelings exist, and they are real. Sometimes one breaks through the wall, and you feel it. But the wall is still there.
Feeling Empty Inside: 7 Signs That You Feel Emptiness
- At times, you feel physically empty inside.
- You are deeply uncomfortable with feeling, or appearing, needy.
- Sometimes you feel numb.
- You question the meaning and purpose of your life.
- You feel mystifyingly different from other people.
- Some important ingredient is missing from your life.
- Deep down, you feel you are alone.
Related: 10 Signs Of Emotional Numbness and Ways To Recover
If you feel this article applies to you, please know this: Yes, something is missing. Yes, it is vital. You are not needy, and you are not numb. You are not different, and you are not alone.
Everything you need to fill yourself is already there inside of you. Waiting for you to open your eyes, break down the wall, and see.
The fuel of life is feeling. If we are not filled up in childhood, we must fill ourselves as adults. Otherwise, we will find ourselves running on empty.
Jonice Webb, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and author of two books, Running On Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect and Running On Empty No More: Transform Your Relationships.
To learn if you grew up with Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) Take The Emotional Neglect Test. It’s free.
A version of this article also appears on my website.
© Jonice Webb, Ph.D.
Written by Jonice Webb Ph.D.
Originally Appeared on Psychology Today
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