Emotionally Empty: Can Developmental Trauma Cause Someone Look Towards People, Places And Things To Feel Whole?

Although someone can feel emotionally empty, it doesn’t mean that they will be consciously aware of this. But, what they can be aware of is their need to attain, achieve and experience different things.

They can then be someone who describes themselves as driven and this could be how a number of the people in their life see them too. By being this way, they could be used to receiving a lot of positive feedback from others.

A Role model

The reason for this is that they are likely to live in a society where being driven is generally seen as the ‘right’ way to be. If one wasn’t this way, then, they could be seen as lacking drive and even as being lazy.

Now, this could mean that they are seen as being successful or it might not; it can all depend on what it is that they do for a living. Also, even though they are driven, it doesn’t mean that they have been able to make a great deal of progress.

Deflated

But regardless of how successful they are seen as being and how much progress they have made, they could be used to feeling down and deeply frustrated. So, after getting their hopes up before having attained, achieved or experienced something, they could soon feel let down.

Ultimately, they won’t feel felt how they expected to feel and this will have probably caused them to feel hopeless and helpless. Yet, before long, they might soon be on their way, with them trying to attain, achieve or experience something else.

The Same Old Story

This is something that may have been going on for a number of decades and could go on for a few more. At one point or another, there could come a time when they no longer have the energy or the interest to live in this way.

If this was to happen, they could see that how they are living is not working and they could come face to face with how empty they feel. It might occur to them that they have been looking ‘out there’ for something that that will allow them to feel whole and complete.

Confusion

But, as this will have been taking place outside of their conscious awareness, it is not going to be a surprise that they won’t have realised this. They will have been more or less completely absorbed in their mind’s conviction that they will be able to find what they need externally.

This part of them, due to its materialistic nature, will believe that something ‘out there’ can fill a whole that is experienced internally. With the right component/s, whether this is a person, place and/or a thing, a sense of wholeness and completion will be attained.

Round In circles

But, as what is going on ‘out there’ cant truly be internalised, it will mean that this approach will never work. And, thanks to the experiences that they have had, this is likely to be only too clear.

With this in mind, for their inner world to change, what is going on internally will need to truly change, not just be temporarily altered. Once this does change, they won’t need anything ‘out there’ in order to feel whole and complete.

A Different Place

They will already feel whole and complete and this will allow them to live life from a place of fullness, not emptiness. Their need to attain things won’t completely disappear, of course, but they will also be driven by their need to express themselves.

Right now, however, they could wonder why they are experiencing life in this way and why they don’t feel whole and complete. They could be this way due to what took place during their formative years.

Back In Time

Practically from the moment they were born, they may have often been left and when they were given attention, it might have largely been misattuned care. Consequently, they would have been deprived of the nutrients that they needed to experience an emotional birth and go through each developmental stage.

They would have not only been born feeling empty and incomplete and continued to stay this way but they would have been deeply traumatised, too. This pain and arousal would have automatically been repressed by their brain, with it primarily being stored in their body.

The Outcome

The years would have continued to pass but the pain and their unmet developmental needs would have stayed inside them. Unknowingly, they would have projected their parents onto people, places and things, and believed that their unmet developmental needs would finally be met if they were with the right person, went to the right place and/or attained a certain thing.

As this stage of their life is over, these unmet developmental needs won’t be able to be met anymore. For them to truly move forward, they will have to face the pain, along with the unmet needs that were not met, and work through it.

Awareness
​
If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.