Chronic emptiness and a loss of hope

I've been in therapy for few weeks now. I suffer from chronic feelings of emptiness a lot, to the point they sometimes provoke anxiety inside of me.

I try to avoid these feelings by focusing on something else like work, hobbies or friends and it partially helps, but they always come back and they're really strong.

My therapist advised me that I shouldn't try to avoid these feelings and that I should try to feel them and understand them... Well I did it and what I've found is worse than I thought and I think that I need some advice or at least a kind word right now.

As a child, I used to be full of curiosity, passion, hopes, big dreams, expectations and ideals. But as I grew older, those hopes, dreams and expectations were left unfulfilled. I think that this to a certain point happens to anyone, but for me those things were extremely important.

After watching most of them fail, they were starting to slowly die inside of me. But since I considered my ideals and dreams to be the building rocks of my identity, I refused to let go of them , even when they were just a bunch of dead bodies lying inside of my mind.

I realize that those dreams are dead, but I can't stop clinging on them, because they simply mean too much. Bu there's also no more hope inside of me, that they would ever come true.

With the death of hope for my ideals to ever be real, there's really not much left. There's nothing to believe in, none to be, nowhere to go and nothing to do and everything seems just empty and hollow.

I try to give my life a meaning and feel the meaning and hope inside of myself, but without dreams or ideals, I cannot do so. I say that I still have them and force myself to believe in something at least, but... it's not real, it's not really there and it's just a copying mechanism to keep my emotions safe.

Right now, I just feel like I should lie down on the floor and never move again, because there's nowhere to go for me. The emptiness is there because everything I ever hold dear has simply died inside of me and I don't think that I can bring it back to life.

I'm sorry you're struggling with this. I've felt it too, and still do in a few areas. It's hard to learn to be content with what you have when it's not what you've dreamed of. It might get easier in time. Maybe you'll even find a way to still achieve those dreams, even if to a lesser extent than is ideal. I hope you can find peace either way, it's a horrible feeling to be lost in your hopes and dreams.

I hope that, in some way, you can find a path to deep peace within...