I'm empty and that doesn't bother me. What's happening??

Clinical depression has been a major part of my life for about 6 years (I'm 18 now). I've been through severe bouts of depression in my life, but since taking the correct psychiatric medication (I had to cycle through several before finally finding a good fit), I've- for the most part- been able to cope and lead a functional lifestyle, until a few weeks ago.
I stopped feeling everything.
No sadness or depression. No anger or joy or anything. Nothing. In fact, I can't even bring myself to even be worried that I'm not feeling anything. I know that to be completely emotionally vacant isn't normal for me, but it doesn't even seem to bother me. I don't feel like a real person anymore, and I think that this should scare me, but it doesn't. I feel very very very distant from myself. Like my emotions are locked behind a door in my brain for which I don't have the key. I'm solely operating on ritual: nothing is new or exciting. I've lost interest in everything. Everyday brings the same vacancy.

I can't cry anymore.

I feel very alone, and while that used to be a fear of mine, it no longer fazes me. None of it does. There is nothing inside me and there is nothing that can bother me or make me happy or sad. I'm just so unaffected by it all. Like my brain has had enough of all the years of cycling between severe depression and normality so it turned off all the emotions that perpetuated that cycle.

Being dead doesn't seem like it'd be any different.

I'm not suicidal though. It just doesn't make a difference to me whether I live or die. I don't think that "living" and "being dead" are any different to me at this point. It's all just infinite nothingness. But what's more is that I can't even imagine myself having a future. I quite literally can't imagine doing anything with my life. If I try thinking about what I want in life (what I want to be, what I want to do) nothing seems right. The same thoughts come to mind over and over. "You won't do that." "You can't do that." "You're pointless." (That last one sounds much more malicious, but instead it seems as simple and honest as saying "I'm wearing a blue shirt today." I have find no offense in it, nor comfort.)
I want nothing. I want to do nothing. I've become a rock: unfazed and unmovable. Nothing about me feels human anymore.

I don't know what I'm hoping to get out of sharing this. I just thought that maybe it's something I should ask about. Is this normal? Why could this be happening? There didn't seem to be any trigger; no trauma or anything that typically sparks this kind of... dissociation? Is that the right term for this? I don't know.


I should say that emotions have never been "normal" for me. I used to have to train myself how to react to people when they talk. It was acting. I didn't know if I was feeling the "right" emotion for the situation. For a short period before I lost touch with my emotions I was actually having a lot of difficulty even identifying what emotion I was feeling at any given time. If at anytime someone were to ask me how or what I was feeling, I would have been able to say with complete honesty, "I don't know."
Now it not a matter of what I am feeling, but if I am feeling. And the answer to that, as we know, is that I am not.

But what do I do with this? Is this something that can be helped or treated? Is this unhealthy? And also, is there a name for what is happening to me?

This is actually the worst form of depression for me. Most people think depression is crying and sadness. For me it's emptiness. Feeling nothing at all. Colours grayed out, taste buds responding only to extremely salty or spicy things. Lack of interest in doing anything.

What you say about emotions not being "normal" to you... have you spoken to a professional about this? There might be something hiding there that could be helped, either by medication or therapy (I am not a pro and I have no clue how exactly, but my brother has a similar problem and says therapy helps him a lot).

There is also, unfortunately, a chance that meds stop working. It happens. You might need either a change or dose adjustment. Did you contact your doctor about it?

Big hugs if wanted.

Emptiness is considered by some a form of enlightenment, although that word is loaded with meaning that perhaps would be insulting to those who didn't actually seek emptiness in the first place.

It sounds like the fact the emptiness doesn't bother you is, ironically, bothering you. This sounds like those layered mind games we play for much of our waking life. It's like someone saying "I feel bad about not feeling bad about it".

Try to identify how much of your mind is colouring these emptiness thoughts and pick apart the mind's "emptiness narrative", i.e. an inner dialogue that is telling you what you SHOULD feel about this emptiness. What it's telling you is not necessarily true.

For most of us, happiness and sadness can be seen as occupying this emptiness at any given moment. If you are truly empty, you won't feel either, as you mentioned. But through meditation and giving that emptiness close, prolonged attention, many have found something does in fact exist in this empty state - peace. Peace with what is.

There are positive aspects about emptiness. One is that the noise of obsessive thought patterns sinks into the background, meaning more clarity with which to live truly and purely in the present moment, without the taint of the mind's incessant inner dialogue or obsession over past, future and self identity (the conditioned self).

Another is that you become, as Bruce Lee famously said, more like water. You are more adaptable to any situation life may throw at you. You become formless and flow more freely from one moment to the next. Again, peace is the word that comes to mind, and peace is something even those who have been happier than most at some point in their life truly seek to attain.

Peace could be synonymous with emptiness since peace is more absence than content.

Happiness is just a buzz, a high. It is transient. As soon as we come down from the high, we are already seeking our next happiness buzz. Peace is a much deeper seated and more constant state and to attain peace we need to empty our minds of a lot of its most distracting content.

But I understand that emptiness can also become debilitating when the practical things in life need to be done.

Have you tried meditation such as mindfulness? It is possible to place your attention on this emptiness and find within it some meaning or energy. Rather than just feeling the absence of happiness, sadness etc. you observe the emptiness as a blank canvas on which the full scope of your potential can be painted and constructed. It's this potential that starts to fuel the momentum of productive thoughts and actions.

So it's not the emptiness itself that is bad, but you need to treat it like you would a blank piece of paper, with pen/paintbrush in hand. Those first few strokes are always the hardest.

I'm trying not to say anything that might patronise or undermine what you're experiencing, but I'm tempted to say that, by embracing and exploring this emptiness, through meditation and close observation, being empty could actually be an advantageous state to be in.

In other words, your mind may be fighting against this feeling of emptiness (survival), which is causing some friction and unease with it (e.g. "I shouldn't feel empty" or "I don't want to feel empty"). If you can meditate more consciously on the emptiness itself, then from that peaceful state you may find clarity and presence - again, something most people never experience for more than mere moments at a time and therefore many people never know true peace.

It may take time to observe anything arising out of that, but since you already feel empty, you are at least free of the most clinging aspects of the chattering mind and therefore unobstructed in realising a fresh potential when it DOES arise.