Feelings of Emptiness

The Number One Reason Your Feelings of Emptiness Won't Go Away If You're a Child Abuse Survivor

The people of Emotionville are celebrating. You see every year they give an award to someone who has overcome the biggest emotional problem and went on to live a happy and productive life. Typically, it's given to a child abuse survivor. This year is no different. This year Jenny won this award because she finally conquered her feelings of emptiness.

Jenny steps up to the podium to reveal how she did it. She's ready to tell the audience how she discovered the one reason her feelings of emptiness persisted and what she did to overcome them.

Photo courtesy of Randombassist

But before Jenny gets to her answer, she wants to give a little background...

She wants to explain that it wasn't the child abuse that kept her down for so long. Because after she moved away from Abuseville to Emotionville, she left her parents far behind. But somehow, she still felt emotional pain. Many times, she wondered what was wrong with her. There was no reason to feel sad, yet she still had these feelings of emptiness.

Her psychologist, Dr. Laura Swanson, explained to her that these feelings of emptiness were a natural side effect of the child abuse. Dr. Swanson then explained the concept of shame. She explained to Jenny that shame is a psychological concept that means you feel bad about yourself or that you're somehow defective. Her feelings of emptiness were a sign that Jenny was suffering from shame. These feelings were also why Jenny sought approval from other people so much.

Now, as she worked with her therapist, Jenny's self-esteem improved, but somehow the emptiness persisted.

Jenny explored all the things she never got to do as a kid. She took dancing lessons, learned to garden, and she even went parasailing. She made a few new friends, and gradually, her life gave her a whole lot more reasons to smile. She read tons of self-help books, but still, that sense of true happiness eluded her. She still kept feeling empty.

Then one day, at Dr. Swanson's suggestion, Jenny read a book called The Magic of Grieving. It suggested that Jenny spend some time focusing on some of the sad times in her life and have a good cry over them. This would help her in overcoming shame. At first, Jenny didn't want to do this. She thought she had been through enough. After all, her life was good now, wasn't it? Why focus on painful times?

But with the encouragement of her therapist, Jenny slowly began to grieve.

She cried over the fact that her alcoholic father never had the time to take her for ice cream. She shed tears when she remembered how her mother got mad her after being fired at work and took it out on Jenny by throwing out all her favorite candles from her candle collection. She bawled when she remembered how her mother used to hit her everyday, usually after her father had beaten her mother.

And as she waded through her pain, Jenny felt bad for awhile. Sometimes she would cry at night alone in her bed. Other times, she would have to stop gardening and go inside her house to have a good cry. But slowly she began to feel better. Life began to feel a little bit lighter. And slowly, very slowly, the emptiness went away

"You see," Jenny told the audience, "that was the one reason my feelings of emptiness wouldn't stop."

She continued, "It's because I had never taken the time to grieve over everything I had lost. I had been taught to always keep a stiff upper lip and not complain. But when I learned how to grieve with the support of my therapist, they finally went away."

The people of Emotionville were moved. They were applauding now. But the happiest moment of all was reserved for Jenny. Because Jenny didn't really need other people's approval anymore. She had finally stopped feeling empty. She was finally happy and felt free to be herself for the first time in her life.

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