Escape — Candace
As Candace walks through the door, finally arriving home from a long and very stressful day at work, she is looking forward to the big, warm hug her husband Thomas always gives her in greeting. But as she enters the living room, Thomas does something unexpected. He yells in an angry voice, “Where the heck were you? I expected you 15 minutes ago!”
Feeling attacked and burdened, Candace says blandly, “I got stuck in traffic,” and walks straight through the house to the bedroom where she turns on the TV, plops on the bed, and starts watching a comedy. Before she knows it, she is laughing.
Dodge — Kaylee
Kaylee has no idea that her entire life is driven by a need to avoid something. It’s like playing a game of dodgeball every minute of every single day. The “ball” she is dodging is a painful feeling that arises whenever she has a moment of quiet—when she is not busy, not distracted, not running from place to place, or absorbed in work, Kaylee feels a vague threat from inside—a deep discomfort that she has never consciously acknowledged. It resides in her chest and belly, and it drives her to stay occupied. That’s Kaylee, always busy, always moving. Always, always dodging.
Minimize — Leon
Standing next to his father’s grave, Leon watches as the coffin is lowered into the ground. Anyone looking at his face right now would see a man struggling with complex emotions. He feels raw grief and loss, tremendous sadness combined with a layer of anger at his father for dying without ever saying, “I love you.” But if you asked him what he was feeling, Leon would say, “Yeah, this is sad, but I mean everyone’s dad dies. He was in his nineties, and he lived a long life. I’m fine.”
It would be difficult to discern if he was trying to convince you, or himself, that he is not feeling any pain.
Every minute of every day, all around the world, people are running. I don’t mean in sneakers and sweatpants on bike paths and sidewalks, I mean a different sort of running that is far less healthy.
I mean the kind of running that involves something inside of you driving you—some untamed force that threatens to overwhelm and perhaps bury you drives you out and away to escape it. You are not running toward anything; you are running to get away from something. You are running because, in the final analysis, it is all you know.
So, you distract yourself like Candace did to make her anger go away, you stay busy like Kaylee does to avoid dealing with the empty hole left in her by her narcissistic mom, or you talk yourself out of your feelings like Leon so that you don’t have to feel them.
Whichever one you use, it may seem to actually work! You may perceive in moments that the pain goes away, and the more your pain goes away, the more you use it. Escape, dodge, or minimize. It’s all you know to do when you feel something.
It’s a good question! And, of course, everyone is different. But when it comes to this question, I have an answer that does apply to most people, so probably to you, too.
You likely treat your feelings this way for one simple reason: It’s the way your parents handled their own feelings, and it’s also the way they treated your feelings as they raised you. It’s all your parents knew, and it is an actual form of neglect.
It can happen in even the best of families, and it happens automatically in abusive or trauma-filled homes. It’s called childhood emotional neglect.
When you grow up with your feelings ignored or minimized in your childhood home, it is natural that this is the only emotion skill you learn. You internalize this habit, especially since it seems to work!
But, sadly, it does not work at all. Minimized or avoided feelings do not actually go away. They stay and grow and look for opportunities to emerge again. Your feelings are messages from your body, and your body does not give them up until you have listened and attended to them.
Do not despair. There are answers! You can learn the emotion skills now.
When you escape, dodge, minimize, or avoid your feelings, it may feel like the easiest and best solution at the moment. But all these defense mechanisms require an incredible amount of energy. In the big picture, they drain you and point you in the wrong direction. You miss out on the valuable messages from your body that your feelings represent. So, what seems easy is not easy at all. And what seems to work only makes you work harder.
So, now is your time. Your time to face those feelings that dog you. Your time to choose to start listening to your feelings and accepting and managing them instead of avoiding them.
No more wasting your valuable energy and running from your power. Like Candace, Kaylee, and Leon, when you start running toward your feelings instead of away, you have the opportunity to listen to your feelings—important messages from your body—and learn to express and manage them better. All of these skills can make a profound difference in your life.
© Jonice Webb, Ph.D.
References
To determine if you might be living with the effects of childhood emotional neglect, you can take the free Emotional Neglect Questionnaire. You'll find the link in my bio.
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