The Empty Chair Syndrome, How To Fight It
Empty chair syndrome refers to the feeling of losing someone special. It can be a family member, friend, brother, etc.
It could be confused with the sadness that comes from losing someone, but it is called a syndrome precisely to differentiate it, as it increases in intensity when you should celebrate an event with joy and big parties. The empty chair syndrome usually occurs in particular periods such as Christmas, a birthday or other “special” holidays.
Look at this chair in the midst of many others who are occupied and feel an enormous emptiness, an anguish that leads you to suffer from this terrible syndrome.
The empty chair is a silent witness
The empty chair syndrome does not stop being the manifestation of this person who was there before, but not anymore. Especially when we are surrounded by many people, we realize that someone is missing.
This strong feeling has a lot to do with a grieving process in which you too will sometimes have met.
Faced with the loss of someone, there are periods in which you have to get used to living without that person, experiencing an era of intense pain.
The affliction may linger until you try to fight this loss, being able to live life again without this feeling of emptiness you feel in the recent moment of loss.
Importantly, empty chair syndrome can also occur when the person in question is not dead. This means that it can lead to other situations such as loneliness.
When someone abandons you or goes far away, you can also experience this syndrome which does not necessarily have to be related to death, although the latter is probably the most common reason.
Everything can be experienced, but also won
Even if you see everything with the eyes of sadness, especially in the most important holidays like Christmas, there are some ways to stave off this syndrome. It is obvious that one can try, but it is equally obvious that it can be overcome.
First of all, you must put into practice the instructions that we will give you below and that you will be able to use on more than one occasion.
Do not isolate yourself and avoid being silent
When we suffer from empty chair syndrome, we don’t want to talk, moving away from the people we love most. All this to suffer in solitude.
This attitude is not good for you. Make an effort to interact, even if you are not very excited about it. Talk even if you don’t feel like it and seek help if you need it. In these moments, you need someone to listen to you and give you attention.
Change the meaning of the empty chair
Things always take on the meaning you want to attribute. If the empty chair is synonymous with sadness and loss, then why not give it another meaning?
Reinterpret, strive to eliminate the negative characteristic with which you have endowed this chair. Make it your friend and not your enemy.
If necessary, ask for help
We are sure that you can overcome everything and that if you don’t solve the problem on your own, no one will do it for you. However, sometimes it takes a jolt and a little extra help to keep you going.
Never try to alleviate this inner pain with medication and, if you do, that it is by prescription only. However, always try to cure it with other methods.
Why don’t you go to a psychologist? Psychologists are experts and great professionals of the mind. They will help you better than anyone else. Do not be afraid!
It is important to accept in one way or another the idea that sooner or later the people who are part of your life will leave.
Some will die, others will disappear, abandoning us and hurting us, but we must accept all this.
It is obvious that these situations will lead to suffering: we are human and we have feelings. However, you must understand that these are things that inevitably happen and that can get out of hand.
