Is Loneliness Emptiness or Is Emptiness Loneliness?
Loneliness is not black, because black has a color. Loneliness is something transparent—revealing, showing, not hiding; a kind of vulnerability like a “fetus.” The absence of a protective fortress creates a void, yet it is not exactly emptiness. Being tiny in a vast space. Even the word “loneliness” is too crowded for loneliness itself. Loneliness is like “water”—colorless. It actually surrounds deeply but cannot contain. Something you exist within but cannot feel inside; something that always makes you feel outside even when you are within it. Loneliness is an “empty” lap, like a baby suspended in a lap hanging in midair—neither on the ground nor in the air. Loneliness is not pain, not ache; it is like a well-oiled machine. It is the feeling of numbness itself. The emptiness of thought, a stable discontinuity… a bold helplessness.
Loneliness ceases to be loneliness when one can cope with loneliness alone. Being able to stay alone means being able to tolerate oneself and one's selfhood. Being able to sense oneself, to listen to oneself without merely overhearing.
To be willing to listen, to listen without fearing what you might hear. To show the courage to process what is heard. To show intention first and then courage to embark on inner exploration, an inner journey.
Emptiness—I feel it like a lampshade. It has now become an object for me. There are many objects in my life. I do not use them, yet their presence makes me feel good. I do not throw away my old shoes or bags; they take up space, I do not wear or use them. In the past, when I had many people around me, they too were empty; the crowd was empty.
Empty and emptiness; while emptiness fills the inside of my being, it also prepares the ground for my absence. I feel it here, in my chest—sometimes with unease, sometimes with pain, sometimes with a kind of ache… An ache that does not leak. A non-leaking ache that fills my entire being. It does not leak, and to make it “leakless,” I drink alcohol.
Inside me, a feeling of unease begins first. Is it guilt? I do not know. It comes from deep within, originating from inside, spreading everywhere at once, yet its center seems to be in my chest…
Even if we say everyone’s loneliness and sense of emptiness belongs to them, everyone describes similar things. Loneliness and emptiness may appear similar, but they describe different experiences. Yet both originate from within, from the subjective inner self. They surround the self, they envelope the self. They loosen and tighten the bond between the inner world and the self—like a rope being stretched and relaxed. Emptiness wants to be filled, but it does not accept every material. Emptiness does not fill with what one tries to fill it with, because emptiness requires something else. Loneliness tries to relieve itself, yet it sabotages both self-emptiness and the act of being alone. Emptiness is linked to what is external, whereas loneliness is linked to the environment. However, neither is actually related to the external. The remedy for what comes from within lies within.
Some people often describe a painful and distressing subjective experience they call a “sense of emptiness.” Instead of focusing on the reasons behind this inner experience—the emptiness itself, the pain and restlessness that accompany it—people often engage in various activities (alcohol, substances, sex, aggression, overeating, and other behaviors that prevent thinking and feeling the inner reality). In this way, they temporarily escape the painful subjective experience—only momentarily.
Some of those who feel these things choose to mechanize and deaden them, disconnecting the link between the self and the internal world of objects that fill that self. In their relationships, they identify the other as an internal object, cling to them, even merge with them, choosing passivity instead of excessive action. This choice is unconscious. Because it is unconscious, the person explains it through conscious rationalizations, legalizing it in their own mind. Their explanation becomes something like: “I can’t live without them,” “The closer I am, the less likely they will leave,” forming a relationship even they cannot understand. What they think is closeness is actually an attempt to silence an internal anxiety, not an investment in the loved object. The investment is neither in the other nor in the self. Real investment occurs when the integrated self and the self of the other are fully recognized.
Those who experience emptiness sometimes immediately resort to action—behaviors that override thought and feeling. Yet there is no real difference between action and non-action. Those who deal with emptiness through acting out (yet cannot truly cope) usually have a more “labile” personality organization, while those who mechanize their inner world are more “inhibited.” It is much harder to make the inhibited one labile, to enliven what is deadened. For people who experience emptiness, when they are not occupied—when this lack of occupation triggers subjective pain and restlessness—they fall into hopelessness and begin doubting whether they can be loved or can love. This too is a method of coping with emptiness. What happens then is that the emptiness fills with depressive affect. The emptiness of these depressive individuals is close to loneliness, but emptiness is not loneliness. When the person believes there is nothing to desire, they distance themselves from satisfaction and hope—and inevitably face the painful subjective experience they tried to escape.
- Sense of emptiness
- Pain, distress
- Subjective experience
- Depressive–anti-depressive defenses
- (acting out)
- Temporary filling of emptiness
- Sense of emptiness
The individual lives within this vicious cycle and is not fully aware of the distress until their defenses collapse.
These individuals cannot perceive their own self or the self of the other as integrated. Because this integration never occurs, the other is also perceived in a fragmented way. Therefore, the person lives with a false self and a false other in a false relationship. Because integration has not occurred, it becomes extremely difficult for them to tolerate or endure normal traumatic or negative life events—events anyone might experience. Even resolving ordinary relational conflicts becomes too heavy; their tolerance is very low. At such points, due to the fragmented self, they resort to primitive defenses to avoid greater internal collapse.
Because their self is not integrated, they cannot form integrated relationships with others, and thus their love relationships become hollow. Their world consists of lifeless objects; even the things they say they love become meaningless in a painfully empty way. Emptiness is not a depressive position nor a depression itself. Emptiness may trigger a depression, but emptiness is not its product. Experiencing emptiness is related to the inability to reach the depressive position. Emptiness is also not a melancholic state. Loneliness, on the other hand, is closer to depression. Emptiness, by its nature, content, and developmental roots, differs from both loneliness and depression. In loneliness, there is longing for an inaccessible internal object—along with guilt and the superego attacking the self. In emptiness, there is numbness, the inability to feel. Therefore, aside from the described pain and distress, there is no guilt.
The sense of emptiness is like an “inner and reverse current”—felt inside yet externalized, with an unfelt origin whose echoes are experienced through pain and restlessness. Emptiness resembles a schizoid state, a semi-autistic structure. Like a patient who constantly speaks of emptiness, tries to describe their pain, yet smokes so much “weed” that they feel autistic—or “weed-istic.”
References
Kernberg, Otto (1975). Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism.
