BPD and Emptiness

Hello, everyone, here we are at another Thursday and that of course mean time for a little more about BPD and this week we are looking at chronic emptiness.

It seems that people with BPD feel a pervasive sense of hollowness, which can start in early childhood for some suffers this would include my sister. I feel she has felt this hollow, empty feeling for most of her life.

I can remember Sue referring to herself as the black sheep of the family because she felt like she never fitted in or belonged and that we didn’t want her around. It would make me angry because I never thought of her in that way. I now know that this is due to her BPD but back then none of us had heard of BPD.

I also now understand that episodes of trauma can exacerbate these feelings of emptiness and trust me Sue has experience several traumatic events in her life.

What I didn’t know until recently was that to fill that void those with BPD would look for external rewards such as shopping, eating, drugs or sex. Of course, these things would only temporarily fill the void and like being on a blow-up raft with a slow leak you need to constantly top it up.

The emptiness they feel is like chronic depression, extreme boredom, being completely disconnected from like and apathy.

This is why someone with BPD strongly desires to feel whole to the point of it being overwhelming. They often don’t know who they are and are always desperately looking for a solution. They want and need for the emptiness to end and to feel part of something.

This emptiness they feel can be incredibly anxiety provoking to the point of traumatic, it can and does also make someone with BPD feel as if they are broken which causes them immense anger, shame and fear. They will often feel they are not good enough and wonder why the hell anyone would want them in their lives.

It is hard on those of us who love and try to be as supportive as we can because there is only so much, we can do and say. Sometimes all we feel we can do is give a hug.