I finally wrote to a couple of internet friends today. About 2 weeks ago, I guess it was, I had sent each of them a note saying I would probably not be in touch for a while. I had run into some interpersonal difficulties (anger & arguing) related to a volunteer position I have held for the past two years. I don't handle conflict well. I never have.

In the midst of interpersonal conflict I become deeply depressed & riddled with anxiety. So, as a result of this most recent episode of interpersonal conflict, I had developed my normal depressive / anxious response. I felt emotionally empty. Just the thought of writing e-mails was more than I could handle. I felt similarly about posting here on PC. About the most I could manage, on-line, was to watch YouTube videos... mostly science documentaries & a few new videos uploaded by YouTube friends.

Part of the problem is, although I have known for many years I have this response to interpersonal conflict, I am a person who feels they must take a stand on any issue I feel is important. It's simply not in me to just duck & run for cover, even though I know what the result is going to be. I can see it coming a mile away. But I am powerless to prevent it. So I do what I think needs to be done, I get beat up for it, & I become submerged in new depression & anxiety. (There's another round coming later this next week...)

Anyway, as I was writing my first e-mail today, I was thinking about feeling emotionally drained... feeling empty. And, as I ruminated about this, a thought occurred to me. "Once the feeling of emotional emptiness arrives, the journey toward enlightenment can begin." Before one can begin the journey toward complete inner peace, one must lose one's hold on all of the ways we typically buoy ourselves... all of the ways we make ourselves imagine we are content. I suppose this idea belies my Buddhist leanings.

It is not unusual, here on PC, to read a post from someone who is writing about feeling numb... completely empty... as though absolutely nothing matters. I'm certainly familiar with this feeling. And, whenever I have felt this way in the past, my desire has been to have the feeling (or lack thereof) gone... to find some way to fill the void. But what if feeling numb... feeling emotionally empty... is the jumping-off point for the journey toward ultimate peace... but we just don't realize it; & so we don't know what to do with it Perhaps those of us who are deeply depressed & emotionally bereft are actually standing at the passageway to the journey toward enlightenment But because we don't recognize it, instead of moving forward, we step back. It's an interesting thought...

[DogTired]

I love that idea. I'm not fully ready to adopt the thinking yet - still wishing my depression and dark feelings would just be gone - but your thinking fits very well with the cognitive behavioral therapy stuff I'm supposed to be doing in between therapy sessions. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this.

[TheOriginalMe]

I do feel more comfortable when the numbness and emptiness kicks in, it is far easier to deal with than the guilt or paranoia or anxiety or self hate. I'm attracted to the peace of emotional numbness, so I do appreciate what you're saying. I don't understand why I give up the peaceful state and re-engage with my emotions when they are so painful, moths and flames spring to mind.

[Abe Froman]

Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I think you hit on something there. I want to talk to my T about it eventually. When I'm most depressed and feel closest to the edge, that's when I'm the most creative. That's when I do my writing that's actually worth anything. But of course I don't want to hang out on the edge, too easy to slip on one foot and then....

I don't want to say it's almost euphoric, but definitely in touch with my deepest parts of consciousness, perhaps even beginning to get in touch with the subconscious. I'd like to one day find a way to reach that state without feeling like I'm on the edge, oh, and without using illegal narcotics either. That's a no-no in my book.

Seriously though, not related to this subject, but T has recently suggested meditation for me. I haven't tried it yet. But makes me think if it is for me, that one day I could use it to get to that state, but yet be at peace while there. Who knows

Thanks for the thoughts, very insightful and stimulating.

[waterknob1234]

I'm with you in that I don't like conflict either, but I find I can't always run from it. Sometimes you have to make a stand and in doing so you will ruffle someone's feathers and it causes stress. But sometimes its just unavoidable.

On the emptiness and depression issue. I somehow think I might be moving from miserable depression to that numbness and emptiness stage. Numbness and emptiness is better than feeling agonizingly miserable. I feel like I need to move forward somehow but can't bring myself to do so.

[vonmoxie]

Dear OP, your post here had me thinking today. I'm familiar with the premise of nothingness being an apt predecessor for creativity and progress, the proverbial blank canvas, but I had never considered it in the context of the emptiness experienced as part of depression. These things always seem more obvious on reflection, though. Of course! Eureka! And so on. Thank you so much for sharing your view on it, which was very energizing to my own thought process.

It occurred to me, in the same context, that the SI experienced on occasion by some and including myself, could benefit from the same kind of interpretation: that it clearly is our desire for transformative change, when things seem absolutely wrong to us; when we wish for change so big that it would indeed involve a type of death, a giving up of something, of perhaps ego or some other revolutionary but not particularly tactile realities, and so we personify it as physical death because that's a concept we can get to with our minds, and because in the moment its more tactile nature allows us to feel less distanced from the possibility of achieving than would considering some more nebulous concept. But it's just a metaphor for these other things, and noticing that there is a difference even when we can't fully understand it, between our real intent and what we are imagining, is what has stopped us from acting upon so many instances of ideation.

Finding deeper meaning for these thoughts surely beats demonizing them, which at least for me, I know happens a lot and creates a circular pattern of negative thinking that is more difficult for me to deal with than any of my original thoughts ever are to begin with. I can't stop my busy brain from thinking "something" about these things, so I might as well give it some things positive to chew on.

Many many thanks.

[Altered Moment]

I am a pretty big believer in "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today" "Total Surrender" "Radical Acceptance" "Cease fighting everything and everyone" "Total acceptance of the way life is at this moment in time"

I heard Eleanor Roosevelt say the same thing on the recent PBS special. Paradoxically it does not mean giving up as some people think.

I believe it opens us up to natural, intuitive, changes and solutions we would not be open to otherwise because we are to busy battling everything. Let the great spirit or forces of the universe do the work or however you want to look at it. It goes along with Buddhist thinking.