Variable being erased inside of if statement

[deusablutum]

On the program I'm currently working on I have a variable that disappears at an if statement and I can't figure out why. Here is sort of what the code looks like:

while (iteration_index < data_iterations):
	
    Do some stuff...

	for something in something_else:
        
        my_variable = something
	   
        Do more stuff...
        print(my_variable) # variable still there
		
        for something_else_2 in more_things:

		    filter_a_dataframe = an_unfiltered_dataframe
          
            print(my_variable) #still looks good
			
            if (not filter_a_dataframe.empty):
                print(my_variable) #my_variable has been erased here
				break
			else:
				continue

Oddly, if the if statement changes from

if (not filter_a_dataframe.empty) 

to

if (filter_a_dataframe.empty)

the variable doesn't get erased. Any ideas why this is happening? Also, I can provide the specific code if that helps. I was just trying to simplify it for easy reading.