Everybody feels dead inside at sometime or another. Nobody can tell you or anybody else that feels that way how to deal with it. They can give advice in the form of suggestions, they can perhaps tell you of a time they felt the same way and what they did, or they can offer their support in other ways (maybe even just listening to anything you have to say). What they can't do is fix it for you. It may not even be something that can be "fixed" but rather reconciled and overcome.
The point in the saying that "life is for the living" is that you shouldn't dwell on those that have died. They are gone, and they will always be gone. You are alive, and so are the other people in your life that are living, and that is what you have to focus on. Grief is a necessary process, but it is not a way of life and becomes unhealthy when it becomes an obstacle to living. If you didn't feel anything at all when someone dies or exits your life, you wouldn't be a human being or you are suffering from brain damage or a mental illness.
Although it is much more shocking and deeply troubling than nostalgia or a wish of returning to the good old days, it is mostly the same principle. You have to appreciate what you had, and accept that you will never have it (at least not where, how, or exactly in the way you had it) again. You have to look to your present (or future if you like) and enjoy what you have. You might not appreciate it all now, but you will wind up feeling the same way again sometime in the future, looking back now. So, in this way, you have to accept what has happened in regards to your loss. You have the memories of what you had, and you will keep them forever in your heart and mind, and you will at least know that you had what you had and that it was possible to ever have it, even if by the end of your life, you only had it once. But, there is more out there in life, and more to life than what you have had in life so far. New times and new people are in your future, and you will have different relationships and experiences with all of them that will mean something different but possibly just as much as what you think means so much to you right at this moment.
As a more personal response to feeling dead inside, I have to say I am quite familiar with the feeling. When I was depressed the three times I had been, I felt dead in the way that life was utterly and hopelessly bad. And even not depressed, ever since a concussion of mine (which I've now had two, don't know how much that has effected things) and being in the military, I am unable to feel full emotions anymore. I understand labels of what I should be, and feel very weak and hollow emotions, but honestly they're as good as not there. I am essentially dead inside in this way. Sometimes it actually gets to me, but many times I'm unable to even let it get to me because there is no way it actually can due to my lack of feelings. The times it does, I really wonder if there is a point in continuing living because it's like a very significant and integral part of living is completely missing. It's just gone, and there is no sign of it ever coming back. I can't properly feel anything related to love and as a result (among other things) have almost no fear of dying at all. In a way, I'm almost ready for it. The reason I continue to live and have vowed never go kill myself, however, is that a) I'm going to die either way, and b) there is so much more life to live. Despite feeling like I've had plenty of experiences, there is so much more ready to be had. I don't know what life is going to be like in the future, and any feelings I have of knowing what it will be like are honestly just that-feelings. They are neither true, and believing too strongly in what will happen is honestly just a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you determine life will be a terrible and negative place for the rest of your life, ultimately it will be. For as far as I know, I'm going to go the rest of my life without the ability to properly feel emotions at all and without the ability to feel or reciprocate the feelings of love. My father has a degenerative back disease that has caused him terrible chronic pain since I was born, and has only gotten worse over the years. Both of us choose to keep living and to view life in a positive way. I don't mean to say that if you are incapable of doing this that you are a bad person or wrong or anything. Also, I am not trying to say that both of us have it so bad that anybody should be able to get over the negative things that happen to them in life. I am merely using us as examples and success stories, proving that it's possible to do.
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