Hello emptiness, my old friend (Part 1)
Coming to terms with the chronic void within that manifests in Borderline Personality Disorder
Trigger warning : mention of suicidal tendencies and self-harm
For those of you who know me or think they know me, they view my life as abundant, filled with diverse experiences, and see me as someone who is constantly championing social change. While this is true, what people often do not see on the surface is the never-ending well of emptiness within. From the time I can remember, I have felt an existential emptiness always running at the back of my being, and over time I have grown to accept that this is part of who I am.
In the first part of this two-part series, I attempt to explain how chronic emptiness manifests. I hope that it may help someone else out there who also experiences it to recognise their patterns.
I will also be writing a second part where I will speak about how I have started to navigate this emptiness and a few tools that are helping me.
‘A sense of purposelessness’ ‘There’s always something missing — I’m looking for something that’s not there’
‘No matter how good things are in my life, I constantly feel like something is missing and I am unable to place a finger on what that something is, no matter how hard I try’
The above statements are to articulate what exactly I mean by the emptiness within. For a great part of my life, in my early teens and early 20’s I had no clue that what I was feeling was a manifestation of my mental health condition. I thought it was a result of relationships that ended, confusions in my social impact career and I attributed it to externalities — which meant it would end some day, at least I had hoped it would. Little did I know it was here to stay. It took me a series of psychological tests, meetings with multiple mental health professionals and a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder to finally accept that this emptiness is here to stay. ‘Chronic feelings of emptiness or boredom’ was included in the diagnostic criteria for BPD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edition; DSM-III)
How does this chronic emptiness manifest?
Dissatisfaction and always wanting more
I can safely say that there has not been one relationship where I have not questioned its existence and value it adds to my life. The danger here is that no matter what my partner would do, I would just not feel satisfied. Not because they were not good enough. This was because no matter how well things went, I still felt hollow and empty. Before I developed this sense of awareness, I would constantly think about breaking-up, wonder whether or not I was truly loved and nothing seemed to make me feel truly satisfied. This has been very painful for people concerned and myself.
In my professional life, apart from my day-job of leading corporate social responsibility at a Bank, I partake in a lot of personal projects I do in the mental health space. I almost fill every waking day of the week with something constructive to do. I still end up feeling like I am not doing enough. I am often told by friends that they are proud of how much I work on things I believe in but I always respond with saying that ‘it is not enough.’
I always want more. I want more out of myself. I want more out of others. I want more out of life. When people are unable to meet my often unrealistic expectations, it hurts me a lot, even though it may not necessarily be their fault.
Impulsive responses, rash decisions
This lingering sense of chronic emptiness when coupled with mood swings and poor distress tolerance can result in a person trying to do whatever it takes at the moment to feel something. It can be as simple as committing to taking on work simply because you think you are not doing enough. It can also be as complex as getting close to people, especially while supporting them in their mental health journey because I feel that they need me and my empathy to feel better. This blurs boundaries and I often end up taking on way more than I actually handle since I have my own mental health to manage.
This sudden rush of emotions I feel makes me feel less empty. It temporarily gives me the illusion of soothing the inner void. This constant cognitive dissonance often results in extreme emotions that put me in danger mentally and ends with a sudden crash leading back to emptiness all over again.
A spiral of self-loathing
The first two manifestations explained above can be very damaging to your self-esteem. Up until then, I actually understood that this is a result of my BPD, I would blame myself and others. Many people have been hurt by my constant rejection of their attempts to do kind things for me. I have hurt myself by constantly hurting people I love and seeing them in pain drives me to loathe myself.
I have lost people I have truly loved, people who have truly loved me and supported me because of my inability to be satisfied. I keep returning to this emptiness over and over again. At times it is so overwhelming that I have suicidal ideation, sometimes engage in self-harm to be able to just feel and do not look forward to waking up and facing a new day.
These experiences can be overwhelming. Even writing about it has been very painful but cathartic nonetheless. The therapist I am consulting currently has helped me put things in perspective. She has made me realise this chronic feeling of emptiness is not in my control but there is hope and that I can learn to cope with it in healthier ways. I am no longer blaming myself constantly for it. They are part of who I am but do not define me.
I have started to practice the tools she is teaching me as part of therapy and the fact that I am able to objectively write this piece is a testimony to my increased self-awareness.
