Meaning can be frustrated the way hunger can be frustrated—through absence, obstruction, or confusion about what matters.
This frustration is not automatically pathological. A person can be distressed by meaninglessness without being “sick.” The distress may even be evidence of a healthy conscience.
The risk is what happens next: when the question of meaning is avoided, trivial substitutes rush in—status, distraction, compulsive pleasures, mechanical routines.
The practical question becomes: is the pain pointing toward a necessary change, or is it being anesthetized into long-term emptiness?