The only other thing is Nothing

Elisa A. Escalante/ LCSW/ 01-21-2025

“When you don’t want it anymore, but you don’t know anything else. It’s a loop of hell that consumes you. When you free yourself, you strip away the torture, but you strip away your identity along with it.” -EaE

Thirteen months ago I had my more recent break up. I remember, as usual, I would go to work with dread. I wanted to get through those difficult work days so badly. After all, I was grieving while talking to mentally ill patients. When the work day ended I remember feeling a sense of relief, only to feel dread right after. I was sad to go to work. I was sad to be at work. I was sad while heading home because home reminded me of the traumatic aftermath of that break up. Home was haunted. The break up I had in Brooklyn (My ex ex) at least offered me a glimpse & sliver of hope, as I was moving from NYC back to CA. But this time, I had no hope. I either felt completely sad and hopeless, or I felt nothing at all. There was no connection. There was no more love. There was no more purpose. What was scary is that I did not feel the slightest bit compelled to try to regain anything back. I was done. I went on autopilot. Going through the motions of the days in a situation that felt like it would last forever. My father was my rock during this time.

I made sure to get myself back into therapy ASAP. And through the months I reached out to my friends and family when I wasn’t hiding in my shell. I traveled, I talked to people. I worked out more regularly, once again. I went on a dating app, but that did not last long. I didn’t feel the urge to meet anyone. I started to write darker poetry. I read some self help books. I made sure that this time when I felt lonely, I actually sat in the lonliness without giving into the compulsion to immediately hunt for a dopamine source. My therapist helped me work tirelessly on my new non negotiables and boundaries because, clearly they were not working for me. As my dating history showed a reoccuring pattern of me giving into what my exes wanted only to be stuck in situations I was not happy in. This is also known as fawning and self abandonment.

When someone has a history of serial dating/ relationships, and they finally commit to being single for a good while, they learn new things about themselves. I would say very quickly I learned why I compulsively dove into relationships head first. That initial feeling of lonliness is excruciatingly painful. Even when you know it’s for the best (the break up), your body and mind will still go through severe withdrawals. This part of the experience is so miserable that many people will take their exes back, or they will jump into rebound relationships with new people rather quickly. Because anything feels better than ‘nothing’. Sometimes ‘misery feels better than peace. Sometimes, suffering feels familiar while ‘peace’ will build tension/ suspense. Relationships for me were no longer bearable, therefore I chose what I considered the ‘lesser of two evils’; singlehood.

I changed other aspects of my life as well. When I wanted to do more drugs, I chose to do less drugs. When I wanted to look at a man until he got the hint and flirted, I instead chose to avert my eyes and act like he didn’t exist. When I wanted to give in and help someone, I chose to walk away and let them figure it out for themselves. When I felt compelled to overwork, I chose to sit in more silence. The hardest thing of all? When I wanted to run away from my life, I forced myself to sit in the normalcy of it. Work, pay bills, come home, workout a bit. Write, and maybe cook…. and do other important chores that I had been putting off. The best thing I’ve done in the past thirteen months? I nearly eliminated all of my to do lists and my financial debt. This could only be accomplished because I had no one else to think about except for myself.

Minimize and Shrink

Deep down, I know that it is not my fault what happened. I provided for and took care of my ex to the best of my ability, and yet he still chose to drug binge and sabotage our relationship. However, I have a natural guilt that I have carried since toddlerhood. It stems from a sense of never being wanted, and feeling like I was a burden to those around me. Hence, I still blame myself to some degree. I was in the relationship too… after all. I didn’t feel deserving of the house I had bought. I did not want it either, as it felt haunted by the ghost of boyfriends past. I sold it. I chose to move to a much much smaller place, I do not ‘deserve anything lavish’. I also did not want the responsibility of too much space, or too many things. I decluttered and got rid of soooo many items. Good riddance. I also broke up with a former friend who was also suffering from a substance abuse issue and kept pushing/ coercing me into enabling their habit. I just kept shedding and shedding and getting rid of things until my entire environment and my entire life looked completely foreign and unfamiiliar.

‘Why do I deserve good things when so many people are suffering?” This is still a question that haunts me. Why is ‘having nothing’ so terrifying, that I settle for misery loves company instead? Why did I fear that peace and solitude would lead to misery? And why did I seek out things that actually led to misery? The only other thing beyond chaos appeared to be, nothing at all. And so many times in the past thirteen months, I have sat in nothing. No stimulation. No boyfriend. No dates. No prospects. No attention. No drama. No problem to solve. No fire to put out. Nothing but my own chaotic thoughts. But, beyond the sense of having nothing and being lonely, there is room for growth. Think of it in the sense that a fire scorched down your entire land and left you with nothing. Something new will grow, but it will take time. And if we’re being smart about it, we will not let it grow back exactly the same. A new foundation may require new crops. Change. It’s not ‘nothing’, it is something completely different. But, it feels like nothing when you are freshly grieving.

What stops many of us in our tracks? Fear. We suffer a lot because we fear that on the other side of suffering is an even deeper type of suffering. But, this keeps us frozen and unable to find better for ourselves.

Here are some other great quotes on this topic:

We tend to prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty” – Virginia Sati

Adversity is like a strong wind, it tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.” – Arthur Golden