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 Post subject: Feeling empty inside.
PostPosted: Wed Nov 24, 2010 1:33 pm 
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Hi,

I was just wondering how to get rid of feeling empty inside? I drink a lot and that seems to satisfy me. Does meditation work because I have been doing that - trying to accept myself and all my faults, trying to love myself. I beleive my problem comes from not being able to accept myself as I am - that's why I find it difficult to accept other people. Does anyone have any ideas about this? I am also trying to cry and feel the pain inside, reparent myself but for some reason I cannot cry any tears. It's very hard.


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 Post subject: Re: Feeling empty inside.
PostPosted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 1:11 am 
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yeah, i have that problem too, unable to accept myself.

I think sometimes we try to hard to make that feeling go away and disappear.

Sometimes, the solution is just in leaving the feeling as it is, and distracting ourselves with other things, like being occupied with stuff, or doing something we know we enjoy. Then you will discover that the empty feeling is not as unbearable as it initially was.


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 Post subject: Re: Feeling empty inside.
PostPosted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 9:32 am 
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Hi,

I've just started doing inner child work and I am finding I feel less empty. There's a brilliant book I've just read called 'Healing your Aloneness' and basically the method it to speak to your inner child twice a day to reconnect it because that is why you are feeling empty inside, you abandoned your child. You speak to your child by writing to it every day in a journal and telling it you are sorry you abandoned it and how does she feel etc. Just being very loving to your child which is located in your solar plexus, gut area. The authors reckon that is why people are addicted and empty because there is no communication whatsoever with the inner child. I will definitely post again about this I've only been doing it 2 days but yesterday the child told me it just wanted to watch TV and relax which I never do! and I did that and I felt soo good it was untrue.


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 Post subject: Re: Feeling empty inside.
PostPosted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 3:22 pm 
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Starryeyed, thanks for recommending that book. I'd never heard of it before and have an interest in inner child work as a part of my recovery work, so a personal recommendation from another BPD'er is an endorsement I value.

p.s. I see we are both new to the forum, with similar "handles". Funny coincidence.


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 Post subject: Re: Feeling empty inside.
PostPosted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 3:28 pm 
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p.s. When you write "I believe my problem comes from not being able to accept myself as I am - that's why I find it difficult to accept other people", I swear that could have come straight from my mouth.

I've fancied myself a very tolerant person for most of my life but the more honest I get with myself, the more I realize how quick to judgement and assumption I am. It's almost as though my default is to dismess/reject most people out of hand, and if I find out they're OK then I can change my mind about them.

What a damaging way to live, for me at any rate. It's living emotionally closed off, like a perpetually frightened turtle. Then of course there is the sociable, friendly face I can project even when I feel like that inside.

No wonder I have so little idea of who I am!

Lots of work to do ... learning to be honest in self-examination without also beating up on myself is one of the chief challenges.


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 Post subject: Re: Feeling empty inside.
PostPosted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 3:39 pm 
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Hi both of you!

Yes. I really recommend the book and method. Honestly, I have been searching for years trying to 'fix' myself and have meditated for 10 years+ and realised it was just a cover, religion was just an addiction to fill up from the outside because I could not fill myself up from the inside. Inner child, personally I think is the way forward if you are feeling empty. Because for me it got so bad where I couldn't socialise at all or the opposite where I would be addicted to people accepting me or loving me etc. So I have basically reached a point where I need to change. No one can help you only you can help yourself.

The guidelines on this forum are helpful but in a way you cannot 'think' yourself better you have to change from within. That's just my opinion anyway. The inner child work in the book they say the change is 'deep and permanent'.


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 Post subject: Re: Feeling empty inside.
PostPosted: Sat Nov 27, 2010 1:40 pm 
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Starryeyed,

I'm glad you are finding some help in that book. I'm learning to self bond too, and it's been a really hard journey for me. It's only recent that I've felt a stronger connection with myself. Man it's hard to write that - and not feel judgment about that. I guess it is what it is. Recently something that helped me was when a relationship ended and I was sorta "forced" to find a way to bond with myself. I think the situation created the boundaries that allowed me/forced me to do it. It just wasn't an option to fill up the hole inside with someone else helping me and basically out of desperation and no other options, I had to find skills I never thought I possessed or had access to and I found that I actually could connect with myself and not feel empty.

You said you've been meditating for a long time...Can I ask what kind of meditating you do/did and what didn't work for you about it? I'm bummed to hear it hasn't helped you. : ( I've been trying to meditate for quite a while now - just the observe your breath kind of meditation - and when you start having thoughts you acknowledge them as thoughts but don't follow them but instead go back to observing your breath. When I am able to meditate it seems like a powerful tool. The problem I have is the concentration is so difficult for me right now, due more to a health condition that will hopefully improve in time. But I don't want to give up on meditating yet.

Usually the meditating itself is almost always an awful experience for me because it challenges my assumptions, my automatic thought processes, but afterward, IF i was able to concentrate to some degree, I feel very different. I look at the world with different (and less painful) assumptions. Sometimes it brings up unfinished trauma or pain and that *can* be difficult to deal with, but *usually* it is serves to help my growth. I am hoping that it will be a helpful tool the more I can do it.


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 Post subject: Re: Feeling empty inside.
PostPosted: Sat Nov 27, 2010 11:34 pm 
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stargazer wrote:
What a damaging way to live, for me at any rate. It's living emotionally closed off, like a perpetually frightened turtle. Then of course there is the sociable, friendly face I can project even when I feel like that inside.

No wonder I have so little idea of who I am!

Lots of work to do ... learning to be honest in self-examination without also beating up on myself is one of the chief challenges.


I so agree with you, living like a perpetually frightened turtle. I so identify with that!


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 Post subject: Re: Feeling empty inside.
PostPosted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 12:25 pm 
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Hello all -
Thanks for all the comments. I am new here. I also feel like a scared turtle. In fact, when I am feeling that knot in my stomach and afraid that others are going to hurt me, I call it being "turtley". I wasn't really wanted when I was conceived and I received little attention in my alcoholic home. I have always wanted someone else to come take care of my Little Me inside, and it was usually a boyfriend. I obsess about him (whoever he may be at the time) and its mostly a distraction. I get addicted to relationships. Or I shop to distract. But my Little Me is screaming, "Someone please pay attention to me." Might as well be Big Me. I need to appologize to her for abandoning her. I need to take care of her now. I am always afraid boyfriends will abandon me. This may projection for always abandoning myself. I realized by listening to the self talk that I feel little justification for being on this earth because of how my parents treated me. Changing this self talk must be my main focus now.


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 Post subject: Re: Feeling empty inside.
PostPosted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 3:35 am 
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WriterGirl wrote:
Hello all -
I need to appologize to her for abandoning her. I need to take care of her now. .


I am recently learning to:
self-soothe
befriend myself like how a friend would befriend another friend - by listening empthatically, assuring, etc

it helped me, try it :)


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 Post subject: Re: Feeling empty inside.
PostPosted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 9:09 am 
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Thanks. I will. :)


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 Post subject: Re: Feeling empty inside.
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 1:24 am 
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WriterGirl: all the best :) enjoy the empowerment that comes with it! :)


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