For years, I went through phases of not feeling quite right. I couldn’t describe my symptoms but they were definitely real, overwhelming and affected every area of my life Recently, after a mental health crisis, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), borderline personality disorder (BPD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The names didn’t mean anything at first, but after months of therapy, I came to understand how each of these contributes to my “not right” feelings. With my PTSD comes flashbacks. These can be triggered by a sound, a smell, a word or even the subject of a television show. When they occur, I’m transported back to a time and place that has only negative connotations for me. I’ve screamed simply from a touch on the shoulder from my husband or child. I’ve broken down in tears because a bedsheet reminded me of an unpleasant event, and I’ve been frozen with fear because of a smell no one else detected. My BPD means everything I feel is multiplied many times over. Whether I’m sad, mad, excited or frustrated, I’m completely unable to control my emotions. As a result, I get overwhelmed, which leads to hysterical fits of screaming, crying and yelling or so much nervous energy I can’t sit down. This means my family never knows how I will react to anything and puts them on edge when a circumstance that will certainly rock the boat emerges. I’m aware of their feelings, which leaves me feeling guilty and ashamed that my family is held hostage to my emotions. Lastly, and probably most difficult for me to bear, is the anxiety. Unbearable and severe, when anyone in my house has tension with another family member or feels a strong emotion, I take it on as my own. I get nervous, shake, cry and sit on edge for hours because I can feel their anxiety as if it were a blanket wrapped around me. Often, even when my family member has managed to successfully cope with their anxiety, I continue to feel it. We watch TV or play a game as a family but I feel awkward, out of place, almost like a stranger because my anxiety is so elevated. I try to hide it from my family, but they all know. It’s rarely spoken about. I have hope that I will one day find a way to cope with my illnesses so they have less of an effect on my family and my life inside the walls of my home. Home should be my safe place. I’ll keep telling myself that as I take one day at a time to press on through the battles inside my head. Photo by Issam Hammoudi on Unsplash
The first item on the Emotional Neglect Questionnaire (ENQ) is: – Do you sometimes feel like you don’t belong when you are with family or friends? I put that question first in the ENQ on purpose. Because it is one of the most centrally defining qualities of a person who grew up with Childhood Emotional Neglect. At first glance, it doesn’t make sense. Why would a person carry around a pervasive feeling of being out of place? Of not fitting in? Of being on the outside, looking in? Especially when among people who love you? It is a difficult to identify, difficult to name feeling; yet it can hold tremendous power over a person. It can make it hard to go to a social gathering, and difficult to stay very long. Perhaps you get irritable when you’re around other people and you’re not sure why. Perhaps you’re good at putting on a show to look like you’re having fun, but only you know that actually, you are not. Perhaps you are actually looking around at other people laughing and talking and appearing comfortable, and wondering what you are missing. In over twenty years as a psychologist, I have heard many lovely people describe this feeling. They each use different words, but they all have one common factor which links them: they all grew up in a household with Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN). CEN happens when parents fail to respond enough to a child’s emotional needs. When you are a child whose feelings are largely ignored, you receive an indirect, but very powerful message from your parents. That message is, “Your feelings don’t matter.” I have seen time and time again, that when children receive this message, they automatically adapt. They push their feelings down and away so that they will not bother anyone. This may help the child survive, or even thrive, in a household that is not friendly to emotion. But in adulthood, it becomes a problem. Your Emotions and Your RelationshipsAs adults, we need our emotions. Emotion is the glue that connects us to other people and the spice that keeps things interesting. When your emotions are pushed away, it’s hard to feel the emotional connection that binds people together at a party. It’s even harder to experience the spontaneous, happy synergy that occurs when people are truly fully present with each other. So instead, you are like a baker without yeast. You are operating without a key ingredient that everyone else has. And you feel it. If you find yourself identifying with this, please remember that while the “On the Outside” feeling is a real feeling, it is not a real thing. The people you are with do not see you that way. They don’t see you on the outside. They don’t feel that you don’t belong. They want to connect with you and enjoy your company. The best thing about CEN is that it can be overcome. 4 Tips to Overcome Your On the Outside Feeling
Childhood Emotional Neglect is invisible and difficult to remember so it can be hard to know if you have it. To find out, Take The Emotional Neglect Questionnaire (ENQ). It’s free. Becoming more comfortable with your emotions is a key part of this process, as well as learning how your feelings (and you) fit into relationships with other people. If you find yourself mystified or daunted by this, you can learn much more about how to use your emotions to enrich, enliven, and deepen your relationships in the book Running On Empty No More: Transform Your Relationships. Once you realize what’s wrong, you are on your way to recovery. You’re on the path to a more connected, more comfortable, and more fully satisfying life. You don’t need to feel on the outside anymore. To learn more about Childhood Emotional Neglect, see my first book Running on Empty.
While it’s generally common to sometimes feel out of place at a social event you got dragged to by a friend, are you aware that there exists a serious disorder related to that feeling? Social anxiety disorder, sometimes referred to as social phobia, isn’t just feeling shy to speak to a stranger. Having social anxiety disorder makes you extremely anxious about other people’s opinions about yourself, how they may judge you and as a result, social interactions with other human beings become an absolute nightmare. Some symptoms of social anxiety disorder can include a marked fear or dread of situations where you’d be forced to strike up a conversation with a stranger. There is an irrational fear that you might embarrass or humiliate yourself to an extent that other people will think you’re weird. In certain cases, this fear exists in situations where you’ll be placed in the spotlight, like giving talks, presentations or leading a roundtable discussion at work or school. Placed in a situation like that, people who suffer from social anxiety disorder develop physical symptoms of anxiety like faster heart rates, palpitations, shaking, sweating, nausea, and in severe situations, a panic attack. It might be difficult to distinguish being socially awkward and having actual social anxiety disorder and as such, here are three features that tend to be diagnosed with the latter: symptoms you possess cannot be a result of another mental health condition, your anxiety is mostly born out of social situations, and that your main symptom is the extreme avoidance of social situations. If you feel like you suffer from these symptoms, it’s best to approach a psychiatrist as soon as possible in order to avoid complicated problems in both your personal and professional life. |
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