The Narcissist is completely empty

There’s a book called "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" (meaning basically toxic parents), that I believe I suggested to you before, which says that if you’re not seen and valued for who you are as a child (spanning from outright abusive to simply over-working/worked and thus emotionally neglectful parents) you develop a fundamental loneliness:

“These parents may look and act perfectly normal, caring for their child’s physical health and providing meals and safety. However, if they don’t make a solid emotional connection with their child, the child will have a gaping hole where true security might have been. The loneliness of feeling unseen by others is as fundamental a pain as physical injury, but it doesn’t show on the outside. Emotional loneliness is a vague and private experience, not easy to see or describe. You might call it a feeling of emptiness or being alone in the world. Some people have called this feeling existential loneliness, but there’s nothing existential about it. If you feel it, it came from your family.”

I believe this can happen with other significant others as well and I think this is what I started to develop when I had a toxic partner, due to the fact that basically everything about the relationship felt contingent and conditioned. (Not going as deeply as what you describe though; probably since I was at least partly seen and cherished as a child.) And yes, the difference is very striking. This was what made me realize there actually is “something there” to fill the void. It’s really hard to describe though, because it’s a… calm, a no-void if you will. It’s like breathing. It usually doesn’t reach the level of consciousness since it’s the default mode, but once you’ve been out of air for a minute and a half (or so), it becomes quite obvious that what you took for granted was actually pretty desirable. After my toxic relationship I’m really cherishing it.

Anyway, if the author’s right as to that being the cause, the best option of moving in a more curative direction seems pretty straightforward: to find people who can see you and value most of you for what you are, warts and all. Which probably means doing the same for them, or at least learn the behaviors that show you’re really trying to do that, so they get comfortable enough to start reflecting it back on you.

Narc's have a problem for every solution. This is the best way to describe it 😀

It is "love" what's missing. That's what makes you feel full in the chest and stomach.

True NARCISSIST...✌✌✌

I absorb other people's inner world (genuinely). I've therefore felt the narcissist's void. It's absolutely horrific. I don't know how NPDs function at all. That void (how it felt to me) is extreme emotional numbness. An endless space with no boundaries, no warmth, and no light. Have you looked into neuroplasticity at all?

Hmm to me, emptiness is related to the disconnect I feel with others and even myself on a soul level, and it is heavy (feels like a burden), and not feeling empty feels light and I feel inspired and more connected.

These videos are great.

As a non-narc I can only describe it this way: I definitely feel it in my heart and stomach. My heart has been shattered into a million pieces, there is deep pain, loneliness, felt abandoned, wounded, but never empty. There is always substance that helps to put the pieces back together. In the hardest of times, there still was gratitude …. For so many things, even the shattered pieces. I think gratitude is the glue. During my best times, there is so much love, joy, happiness, contentment… etc. I feel it so deeply - it is hard to explain. I always thought that everyone feels the same way - until not too long ago. I think your video indirectly explains why relationships w/ narcissistic people fail - we cannot possibly know what that emptiness feels like and the narcissist cannot possibly know what such deep and wide range of emotions feel like. As partners, we are writing completely different chapters - is not even in the same book.
A person with such deep emotions becomes complacent - totally happy with their “deep love” for their partner - it is enough for us, but the narcissist gets bored and wants anything but complacency. Our “deep love” is torture to the narcissist…. We have a hard time comprehending that our feelings are not transferable- you cannot give us your emptiness and we cannot transfer our deep love, no matter how much we want to.
Thank you for making this video.

I'm not a narcissist, and pretty sure I'm not a borderline either, but I have experienced the emptiness you mention. I would describe it more as a hole that needs to be filled. Again, although I am not an addict of narcotics etc, a friend who was recommended that I do the AA Steps Road to Recovery. The 'course' was God focused, as it was originally meant to be, and not allowing you to believe in whatever you think is your 'higher power'. Id say the Road to Recovery 'course' is more intense than regular meetings, and the inventory is very very detailed. I would say that after I had finished the 'course', which took at least 1 year, maybe a bit more, and after Step 7, asking for forgiveness from God and giving it all up to God, something happened to me, something 'POPPED' and it was like a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders and the hole, the void, was filled with God. It is a God shaped hole and nothing else can or will ever fill it. Denial of this fact will keep you in turmoil, a living mental hell. Something happened to me, something spiritual, I cant describe it other than that. Since then, I am reflective, I am emphatic, I am not selfish and I feel compassion and love and I know happiness. p.s. Before doing The Steps, I was not a Christian, probably hadn't believed or prayed to God since I was a child. The void is the disconnect from God, in my opinion and experience. Shame makes you think that connection is severed forever, but its not, you are always welcome back.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS THAT YOU KNOW THE PROBLEM AND THAT YOU BRAVELY STARTED THIS CHANNEL. TALKING ABOUT YOURSELF, GETTING BACK-UP FROM OTHERS AND TALKING AGAIN WILL HELP EVERYONE. DISORDERS ARE ON A SPECTRUM, THIS IS WHY EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. GREAT JOB ! YOU ARE PROGRESSING !

i have the cluster a schizoid trait but can relate to feeling this gut-wrenching emptiness felt in my chest and throat. Existential dread.

As I'm not cluster b myself I have never felt empty or a void within my body, chest, stomach or mind. Even when I was drinking alcoholically.

There's no emptiness within myself at all for one moment at any moment, or either an all pervasiveness of emptiness. I've never had that or felt that.

For me despite being co-morbid ADHD and acute anxiety disorder, dyslexia, reformed secondary psychopath (not primary psychopath mind). It's just about feeling internally satisfied and content and at peace, despite external problems and internal problem's of physical or mental bad health.

That satisfied feeling goes up and down to in percentage depending on external circumstances and our internal healthily regulated moods.

But there's no filling it up inside with external thing's to make us feel peace, joy and satisfaction internally, because there's nothing to fill in the first place.

For example I feel satisfied internally every day 100% from dawn till bedtime , it feels ok and it's generated from within me.

But for example, if I go wash the dishes that internal satisfaction and peace, and dare I say inner joy for me personally will shoot up by about 40% from 100% to 140%.

Nevertheless, I don't need to wash the dishes to feel satisfaction, joy, peace etc. Why not? Because it's already there internally to begin with.

But that doesn't mean I walk around daily with an all pervading peace going through my mind and body and i feel totally ecstatic mind you. It's just there internally in my mind, chest-heart etc.

Where does that inner joy, inner peace and inner satisfaction and inner contentment at whatever percentage come from?

Answer. The finer and positive emotions of love, compassion, empathy etc.

NPD's sadly don't have those finer emotions because they were robbed from you when you were children through no fault of your own, by your adult abuser or adult abusers, and that's probably why I would suggest as my own theory as to why you feel the way you do.

That's my experience.


I hope this helps.

Blessings.

Saint Anger

This emptiness must also connect to the lack of connection and vulnerability with others. Connecting with others can bring so much joy, but if you always have walls up for one reason or another, you cut yourself off from that connection.

I wonder if cracking your knuckles and joints is connected to NPD? Lol. My love cracks/cracked his knuckles all the time.

My narcissist husband loves to spend time living in his childhood, which was super abusive, but he lives in those memories of fun times in his childhood. Like that's the only time he was happy in his life. Very annoying because obviously all the twenty years with me and his children give him no beautiful nostalgia? And why live in the past instead of living in the present? Or is it because as a child, he "felt" something more than emptiness?

I would imagine that maybe the fullness or lack of emptiness in neuro typical people is the presence of the rest of the range of emotions that don't seem to be felt by cluster b's so the crayon box is full. Another thing I keep leaning back to is the chakras. I'm not super woo wooey but I think that I read that our childhood trauma is stored in the sacral chakra. If that is closed or blocked it would probably hinder the chakras up into the heart chakra and maybe even up into the throat chakra for some, leaving the upper mental chakras on over drive. I really have to wonder if doing deep chakra work especially on the sacral, the solar plexus and the heart chakra with guided meditation or a reiki practioner could really really be beneficial.❤

I can't feel being full. It's just a known psychological way of me. One thing is for definite is that I never had a void or emptiness I needed to full. The sensation of being full, for me, is having a full heart. A full heart to me, if I can paint a picture for you, it's a bunch of people and things that I love and give happiness to my life and all these things are real estate on the land of my heart. For example, these things are so abundant that the land of my heart is of infinite measures. I have family, friends, strangers that I connected with, flowes I love, animals I love, the sun, children, the color teal, the snorks, chocolate, memories...its every single thing I identify with as making me feel full inside with content and love. Not to sound like a human care bear walking around beaming a rainbow from my belly, but that's kind of how I generally feel inside. It's my normal baseline. I've dated someone with npd and he often described always feeling empty, and I never understood what that meant. He unfortunately used women to constantly fill up the emptiness. But it never quite did it for him. It was described to me as filling a bucket with holes up with water. He never felt full inside.

Still love you dude 🎉

Maybe emptiness is a lack of self object constancy? It’s my theory for now

My ex has a t shirt that has a skeleton in a coffin that says "Dead Inside". I swear we had a soul swap at the end. I felt a physical emptiness in my chest, like a gaping hole where my heart is. I've never felt anything like that before.. just disconnected and unable to tap into my heart. It took weeks to subside. It was absolutely awful and if that's what he experiences consistently, I understand him a whole lot more.
I felt a tangible, physical difference from how I usually feel. It's really hard to explain, and people will roll their eyes, but I think it's more of an energy thing. If you look into the human having a toroidal field that goes through the heart..if your heart is energetically closed it will cause a disconnect. Like having a chain link fence running around a yard and there's a break/gap in the middle and then continues on the other side of that gap. If the fence could feel, it would know at some point there was a break in the connection. Best I can do lol.

Yes, your intelligence and high iq still shines through. You mentioned before you feel like a tool sometimes when you mispronounce words. It's no big woop, esp. being online, it's going to happen. Pretty cute when you do flub them badly, then it's just a bit funny. Just try and remember when you flub a word or can't pronounce it right, we're mostly all empathizers and we're all feeling that along w/ you. Rooting for you and thinking of our own flubs, so not at all a biggy.

I keep thinking that NPD ad BDP are perverted childrend... U have emotions, like all humans, you laugh, are sad, happy, feel love... etc. but they have been twisted in childhood... now as an adult, your brain is telling you that it is not right... and its confusing.

That's the proverbial empty schizoid core

Is your intention to enlighten other narcissists??

Emptiness like no soul? Do you feel like your body is overtaken? And how do you explain the meanness and pleasure in causing suffering? There is much more here than human logic can explain. When people vacate the body due to huge trauma, entities occupy. And they feed off the suffering they cause to you and the ones you abuse.

I always feel a ball of love inside. I think that's where Jesus lives in me 💕

As an Autist I do feel empty from time to time.. the emptyness is all throughout my body and I feel like a floating head. Other times I feel overwhelmingly full. Imagine being filled with light.. to the point the light builds up and feels like its going to burst out.. kind of like Cyclops from X-men. The intensity becomes such that if I'm disturbed while going through the process the disturbee receives the full of my overwhelmed intensity. Usually in the form of yelling and feeling the need to defend and drive people out of my space. Clearly they dont deserve it, but my friends who know me don't confront it and usually it ends up being fine later. That being said theres a middle ground of being balanced.. neither full nor empty. Its peaceful and I can hear my thoughts and work out my emotions (they're hard to distinguish at times) Thnx for bearing through my detailing keep up the good work. Your extremely fascinating and are helping me to understand an NPD friend.

I feel like a empty tin can. The psychologist Karen Horney called narcissistic people Depressive Personalities. She was a child of narcissists.

I say it feels like weighted blanket of satisfaction for achieving something or feeling that existence is nice instead of hellish lol. Um I understand the emptiness part of it too. But there is hope in the emptiness for me. Like I can always see the light at the end of the tunnel even when Im depressed or anxious. I believe in myself in the end and hope Im right. Does that make sense? Like there are aspects or layers to personality or percentages to what comes out in the end. But wholeness is always possible. Good luck to you I am liking your content. I think what you are doing is very important for many people to hear.

Emptiness is a very incisive way of describing the general feeling of CPTSD, or narcissistic abuse syndrome. I also think that many psychiatrists and psychologists misinterpret this state as being indicative of schizophrenia or any psychotic disorder, especially if it involves agoraphobia. In fact, lack of motivation, thought disorder, a feeling of pointlessness and emptiness and its long duration (it will often go on for years, especially if the abuse is still continuing) are often features of schizophrenia. But narcissistic abuse syndrome is clearly not a psychotic disorder, as you might assume. What separates them is really that psychosis involves false beliefs, and more extensive thought disorder. CPTSD involves thought disorder I believe but not to the extent of forming many false beliefs and non-sequiturs. CPTSD is also not characterized by self-destructive thinking, and thought which is very unpleasant, as you see in psychosis.

I will point out though that I am sure that a narcissist would love his victim to actually become psychotic at some point. They want anything that feeds their feeling of grandiosity. The accusation of mental illness is very common among narcissists and they feel that the accusation of psychosis will further paralyze and terrify their victim without creating for them too many collateral issues they will do it.

Professional psychologists and psychiatrists define this feeling from a lack a self or personal identity,
having no core, narcs get a picture of themself from others their achievements and possessions eg theirJaguar in the drive way parked outside their mansion narcs typically don't like their own company🤔

Hey Jacob SheShe here 😁 As a cluster B/clusterf"*k yes that emptiness is a horrible thing! I tried to fill it with massive amounts of drugs, relationships, work, spending $ OMG I tried everything external I could think of almost to death (no kidding). No wonder I was diagnosed bipolar back in the day 😮. PD's weren't ever discussed so I went on a bunch of meds that didn't work. Geesh, such a waste of time, so much angst my gawd, I tried religion, NA, sh*tty therapists, suicide what a journey! Thanks to your lovely channel with your self awareness and willingness to be open and massive amounts of work I'm starting to feel so much better! I promise all this hard work Jacob is not in vain! Deeply grateful for you my friend ❤

“Do you feel like, flesh and bone in there?" No, I feel like there’s a person in there. It’s me. The fact that that will blow your mind, blows mine.

I just think of Meghan Markle !!! An unaware empty narc.

She needs to watch your videos !!!❤

I Have Never Felt Empty.
Seriously, I Cannot Connect w/ Feeling Empty.

My ex told me once i dont want to be with him because he is a black hole . I never forgot that about ten years ago..why would someone say/think that about themselves

Emptiness is only felt when I’m sober, which is why I’m rarely sober. 😂 It’s a painful sensation in the chest, for sure. I subconsciously fill it with substances. The emptiness is likened to being suddenly devastated at the loss of someone you love, that’s the closest thing I can compare it to. You feel like you can’t process it, you’re frozen, suspended in time, while the world is still moving forward and you’re just watching it go by. The only thing real in that moment is the sensation in your chest, heartache(emptiness).

Ever since being mortified on a few occasions, being aware of my own behavior and coping mechanisms, I feel like it’s hard to rebuild myself because I’m consciously aware of the process, then I realize I’m being stupid, so I stop. When I was a kid, I would just imitate my favorite characters from movies, shows and anime. Then when I realized it wasn’t giving me the attention I desired, I’d find someone else to imitate.

As I got older, I took traits from people I admired and integrated it into my own personality. But being mortified and self aware, I have a difficult time doing this. So I walk around an empty shell all the time, no personality, no ability to mirror people around me so they like me, nothing.

It’s still so strange to me that there are people who have inherent personalities, like they have something stable and grounded within them that makes them a person. I used to think everyone did the same thing I did, when I was a kid. I got older and realized they don’t do that, so I formulated this delusion(of grandeur) that I was special, unique, different.

Somehow I’m enlightened or smarter than everyone because I understand how to adapt and change everything about myself in order to fit within any particular group. I believed I couldn’t be conditioned by society or culture, that I’m immune to brainwashing and fear mongering of government and religions. I’m God.

with my exgf, i dont think shes empty - its all buried deep down. while she was asleep, it all came up. she wae was very agitated in her sleep. woke up to aching muscles and teeth from the wild contractions she had while asleep. i was always really sad to realize how much shit she has in her. it was her childhood. i still love her in a way, because i am sure ive seen the human deep inside - and her assholery is defensive in the end.

I would describe the opposite of the emptyness not like a physical sensation of fullness but like a vague awareness of something being in place. I call it my 'okayness'. It's kind of like contentment I think. It's this sense that I might be on this planet for a reason, or maybe not, but I'm at peace with whatever the answer is. I accept my decisions, imperfections, and situation, even if it's less than perfect. It's this internal assurance that, ultimately, I'm going to be alright.

I have felt moments of emptyness before but they are very brief and scary. They usually precede panic attacks for me because I'm so used to not feeling empty.

Since I've become more aware of myself I notice I have a tendency to find and attract people who feel empty and I want to pour some of it into them. I've also learned that it doesn't work that way unfortunately, but I wish it did.

I also noticed my okayness got more consistent when I was put on the right cocktail of meds. I have CPTSD and used to feel the bouts of emptiness a lot more.

Well done on the smoking, keep it up. ❤

What do you do to fix that?

I feed myself with making meaning, being creative, caring about others, and trying to do positive things. If one spends all of their time in defense mechanisms, and taking from others, you're not spending any time feeding your inner self in a way that fills you up. After years of not feeding your inner self it seems fitting that you would feel empty...

Everybody has to be found by love at a young age. I don't mean necessarily romantic love, but rather the affirmative love of a person of authority, a parent, a relative, or maybe a teacher. Somebody who recognizes us and digs out who we truly are.
Maybe for Narcs something like this never happened.

The feeling of emptiness is actually dissociation. Dissociation is a response to trauma.

Interesting! I have a cluster C personality disorder, AvPD, so I experience things very differently. However, I think perhaps I also experience feelings of emptiness sometimes? Not sure if that's the AvPD, one of my other mental health issues, or if what I'm feeling is within the neurotypical range of emotions.
It's interesting comparing and contrasting how the different PDs work. I'd say one thing avoidants and narcissists share is that we care too much about how we are perceived by others. We have extremely different patterns of behavior, but we have that excessive need for validation in common.
Thank you for sharing your experiences!

My heart grieves for you, for having to feel all of that. I know there is Someone divine, who can fill your void with love that you’ve never experienced before, God’s redemptive mercy. He saved me and He can save you too. Please look up Romans 10:9-13. 13- All who call upon the name of the Lord (Jesus) will be saved. And read the gospel of John, which shows his deity. May God bless you sir.

I dont know what you mean never have felt that I'm filled w the holy spirit. Makes me super sad for people w npd. Doesnt mean I'll ever be around them but I do feel for them.😢

So narcasists are atheists.

Empty=no God.
You need God.

It's sad, should narcassists just be with narcassists. It's so painful to just be discarded, kinda like, please pass the salt. The narcs feelings just disapate. On to their next fantasy, to ruin someone's life. I honestly think the next person I'm with will ask them to take narc test. I don't want to go through it again.