Attempting to cross a wide abyss on a tight rope, who among us wouldn't cling to something, anything that might keep us from tumbling?

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The operative word here is thing. Some-thing. Any-thing. No-thing.

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So many of us are haunted by absence ("nothingness" and "forever empty"). It is of clinical interest that this absence is always accompanied by a phantom sense of pseudo-presence, usually in the form of an internal voice that can seem utterly convincing and absolutely real.

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Counter-intuitive though it may seem, our experience of absence always manifests within the context of this convincing presence; the ghost of a "not really here, but always here" companion following us through each day.

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This companion is almost always negative. (When it's positive, it is merely an idealization crafted to cover over something negative, with the hope of happiness, success or perfection.)

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Some people call this negative internal commentary, "the Voice."

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• Life sucks. I suck. That's all there is to it.

• There may be an answer, but I'll never find it.

•   If only I tried harder, did more, were better or more perfect, then ...

• What's wrong with me?

• What's wrong with you?

• You're perfect (because I can't risk feeling you have any flaws).

• I'm hopeless (or unlovable or destined for failure).

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The Voice has (at least) eight common themes:

 

1. You're not worthy.

2. You're unwanted.

3. You're too different.

4. You're not enough or you're too much.

5. Everyone will leave you.

6. No one will ever understand.

7. Your future will only get worse.

8. You have no right. (Who do you think you are?)

 

We don't typically see these messages as strategies to stay out of the void and yet they always are. At their core they follow one simple principle: Something is never quite right or always wrong. And someone (often us) is to blame.

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There is always something negative accompanied by a harsh companion that promises to keep us company.

 

Think about it. Your depression or anxiety or chronic disappointment or self-criticism (whatever this thing/problem will inevitably be accompanied by a Voice, a negative commentary that remains ever at our side or your negative certainty shows up in) always has a subject; something bad or not so good is currently the focus of your attention. Something is always wrong or about to go wrong; missing or about to go missing. The focus is on something, either outside of you or inside of you. ("My future." "My badness." "This loneliness." "This unworkable relationship.")

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Unable to stand absence, we're continually finding a form of psuedo-presence, something (a problem) to cling to. This thing/problem will inevitably be accompanied by a Voice, a negative commentary that remains ever at our side.

 

For example, the person with an eating disorder is always seeing images of herself as "too fat" with a corresponding Voice reminding her that she will never be thin. Or the person with chronic anxiety will see images of malignant cells accompanied by a Voice that tells him the current pain in his stomach is most likely cancer. Or the perfectionist is always recognizing mistakes and the Voice is either devaluing her for being a failure or someone else for not meeting expectations.

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Just like the little boy set ablaze by his mother, we can't not be connected. As we just saw with the baby in the above video, being in relationship is, from the point of view of emotional survival, as important as air is for physical survival. In the absence of true presence, we listen for and cling to the nagging internal Voice-as-companion (negative presence).

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As Judith Viorst so poignantly tells us, no child can withstand complete absence. Somethingness, even if continually devastating, is experienced as safer than absolute nothingness.

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There’s a boy in you about three years old who hasn’t learned a thing for thirty thousand years. Sometimes it’s a girl.

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This child had to make up its mind how to save you from death. He said things like: “Stay home. Avoid elevators. Eat only elk.”

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You live with this child, but you don’t know it. You’re in the office, yes, but live with this boy at

night. He’s uninformed, but he does want to save your life. And he has. Because of this boy you survived a lot. He’s got six big ideas. Five don’t work. Right now he’s repeating them to you. - Robert Bly

 

 

This child had to find a way to save us from moments of absence ("When I get sad, she gets upbeat," "When I'm upset, he gets more upset," "When I'm confused, she changes the subject"). This child-now-Voice doesn't have a clue, but does want to protect us. Her (or his) message was learned in a void. We keep thinking it's the way out.

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