Emptiness is one of the hardest feelings to name, so most people never link it to its real cause.

Feeling empty often traces back to childhood emotional neglect, when your feelings went unseen and unanswered.

You can fill the emptiness now by giving yourself the acceptance you did not get as a child.

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.

What looks like five unrelated statements is actually five different people describing the same feeling.

It's a hard 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 for thousands more, it is the same feeling, caused by the same problem.

The one word that captures it best:

Of all the emotions you can have, “empty” may be one of the most uncomfortable, because to feel empty is to feel incomplete. It's the sense of something absent or missing inside you, of being different, set apart, alone, lacking, numb.

This is a feeling that can quietly drive you toward all sorts of unhealthy things: overeating, overdrinking, over-shopping, even using drugs. It erodes your joy, energy, and confidence, a little at a time. And it works in the dark. Emptiness flies under the radar, which is exactly what makes it so powerful.

What Emptiness Is Trying to Tell You

Every feeling you have carries a message about yourself, and “empty” is no different.

Empty tells you that something vital is missing inside you, something you need for happiness and fulfillment. Is it different........

© Psychology Today