Chronic Emptiness as Affective Ground State Erosion: Identity Vacuity, the BPD-Spectrum Architecture, and the Return to Authentic Presence

Chronic emptiness—the persistent felt absence of self, meaning, and affect—is here formally reconceptualized as a wrong attractor W_CE arising from affective ground state erosion. The healthy ground state S^0 is defined as affective continuity: a stable, continuous sense of self with characteristic emotions, preferences, and meaning persisting across contexts. W_CE arises when identity structure is insufficient to anchor affect, producing a characteristic phenomenology: hollowness, nothingness inside, the sense of being an actor without a script.

The displacement cost D(xi) tracks energy required to maintain functional selfhood without genuine affective ground. Nine formal propositions characterize the biosocial mechanism (Linehan), Kernberg's object relations architecture, the dissociation-emptiness interface, stimulation-seeking as pseudo-filling, and relationship-as-container dynamics. Return paths include DBT skills, mentalization-based therapy, and the gradual construction of affective continuity.