Feeling Empty Inside: Internal Starvation and Its Causes

While internal starvation may not sound as dire or devastating as physical starvation, it can lead to some similar problems within the mind. When a person is physically starving, their bodies are yearning for something they don’t have access to — the nutrition needed to sustain bodily energy and functioning.

When a person is experiencing internal starvation, they’re feeling those same sensations of yearning for something missing. Rather than experiencing a dire need for food, the internally starved are plagued with a feeling that they’re missing something that would boost their emotional and mental health back to normal.

Internally starved people have dire needs deep within their emotions. There are a variety of causes that can lead a person to experience internal starvation.

Cause 1: You experienced a major life change.

Big life changes can spark feelings of internal starvation. While most folks think of life changes as happy occasions — for example, moving to a new city, starting a brand new job, or having a new baby — they can also lead to internal starvation.

Making a big life change causes the other aspects of your life to shift around with it. Usually, what makes a big life change “big” is the fact that it also causes some major turbulence in other areas of your life as you settle into a new routine.

Take the example of accepting a brand new job: The new job will require you to meet a new group of coworkers, adopt a new commute, perform new tasks, and learn a new workplace culture — this is a big list of changes you’ll need to make as you adapt to the new job.

Having to adapt to all these changes at once can leave you feeling a little empty inside; you may experience some internal starvation as you adapt to this new routine and say goodbye to the old one you associated with your previous job.

Cause 2: You experienced a major change in a significant relationship.

Relationships can end for good and bad reasons. Cutting a toxic person out of your life would be considered a good change — even if you really miss them, you know in the long run, you’ll feel better without their toxicity impacting your life. When a relationship changes or ends for a bad reason, such as an argument or breakup, it can leave you feeling devastated and emotionally exhausted.

Regardless of the reason why you’ve experienced a major change in one of your significant relationships, it can lead to feelings of emptiness. As time goes on after the relationship experiences its change, you can feel internally starved — you were accustomed to the relationship being a part of your life. Now, the role that person played in your life is either significantly altered or gone altogether and it leaves you feeling emotionally dismayed.

Cause 3: Your mental health is struggling due to existing challenges.

Folks with mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive disorder (just to name a few) have likely experienced some internal starvation at one time or another in their lives.

Mental health challenges can be extremely exhausting and all-consuming, especially before the person experiencing them finds a treatment plan that helps them cope and heal.

If your mental health is struggling due to an existing challenge, you may notice yourself slipping into stages of feeling internally starved — your mental health challenge may cause you to feel like you’re missing something important in your life, or that you don’t feel right. Because mental health is tied so closely to emotions, it’s not uncommon to feel some internal starvation from them.

Cause 4: You have a lot of people in your life demanding your attention.

Another common cause of feeling internally starved is having a lot of people in your life demanding your attention. This isn’t inherently a bad thing; usually, this means a lot of people look to you for help and trust you to assist them. This might include…

● Elderly relatives who depend on you for care

● Children who depend on you for care

● Coworkers who depend on your assistance to help with projects, answer questions, etc.

● Friends who depend on you for emotional support or advice

While this is a sign that you have a lot of important relationships in your life, it sometimes leads to feeling overwhelmed. When you find yourself constantly “on call” for other people’s needs and requests, it can be a challenge to make sure you’re adequately caring for yourself. Though your relationships are numerous, you can still feel internally starved.

Cause 5: You’re experiencing major burnout.

“Burnout” is a term coined to describe the feelings of complete and utter exhaustion brought on by a demanding situation. There are quite a few factors that can cause a person to experience burnout, including…

● Feeling unappreciated and undervalued

● Being expected to complete an unreasonable amount of work, especially when compensation isn’t adjusted to account for it

● Having your personal life invaded by outside demands and expectations (such as longer hours, skipping social events, etc.)

● Losing an overall interest or desire in the situation

When factors like these begin to compound into each other, you can experience burnout quickly. Feeling burned out leaves you feeling totally and utterly exhausted — even the idea of going into the situation seems uninteresting, unappealing, and emotionally challenging. Something that once interested you leaves you feeling vexed.

Feeling this type of emotional challenge makes it easy to experience internal starvation. When you lose all interest and desire, but must do it anyway for financial purposes, you can feel like you’re forcing yourself through a routine that has no real meaning or purpose for you anymore.

This is an emotionally stressful endeavor that can leave you feeling empty and internally starved, especially if it drags out over a long period of time.