“How strangely you react.” “Yeah, you’re crazy.” “Don’t beat yourself up.” Our feelings are often devalued and stigmatized even by those who do not wish evil at all. What could be the consequences of this relationship and how to regain the right to own emotions?
“I’m paranoid,” a friend told me with a smile on her face and sadness in her voice. “I guess I’m really mentally ill already.” Since it is difficult to imagine a more “grounded” and emotionally stable person, I was surprised. In recent months, many have been “carried out” into alarm. But it was still hard to believe that in her case we could talk about a serious illness.
It turned out that her husband repeats these words to her because the wife continues to constantly wear a mask, regularly wipes her hands with a sanitizer and tries to avoid contact, refusing to go with him to visit numerous friends. He himself, like mutual friends, practically gave up on all precautions. Not recognizing himself as unduly careless, he hastened to brand her as “paranoid”.
Pathologizing other people’s emotions
It often happens that, for one reason or another, others pathologize the personal experience and experiences of another person, hastening to brand him as a “crazy”, “sick”, “pervert” or “prudent”, “atheist” or, conversely, “Orthodox”, and so on. . This usually results in the devaluation of the other’s feelings.
The desire to instantly label and thereby deprive a person of “legitimate grounds” for their own emotions is a common reaction for many people. This is usually followed by an attempt to “correct”, to convince that the “correct” feelings in a given situation are those that the critic experiences or would experience in such a situation. This is how the defense mechanisms of the ego work.
Childhood experience can also play an important role. Those whose emotions were devalued by their parents, already in adulthood, have to go the way to respect and understanding their own value. But not everyone does it. The parental pattern of behavior can manifest itself in them and in relation to others.
Unfortunately, such an attitude of close, significant people cannot but influence a person. Therefore, the friend, accustomed to listening to the judgments of her husband, was ready to pathologize her own feelings herself, to treat them lightly.
It is much more difficult – but more correct and with great respect for a loved one – to show curiosity, to try to understand why he perceives the situation in this way, even if he is very different from us in this.
The flaws of this approach
It is important to remember that emotions are not something we do. This is what arises in us. We have to deal with the fact of their appearance. And everyone has every right to experience everything that he feels in response to the situation, other people’s words, actions.
By acknowledging and being aware of our feelings, we understand what exactly is wrong in the situation that caused them. Not trusting ourselves, laughing off or accepting the stigma of “abnormal”, we cannot influence the circumstances, change them for the better.
How to learn to trust your feelings? Deep work with childhood experiences and other reasons for this self-perception can be done in sessions with a psychotherapist.
writing practice
But there are questions that you can try to answer yourself. Written practice, where the answers are recorded on paper, and preferably by hand, will help build confidence in your own feelings.
- Describe the situation as you would describe it to an independent observer.
- Remember when the feeling that you are experiencing arose. What was going on in your body at that moment?
- Who said it’s wrong to feel this way? Was it someone from outside, or was it the voice of an inner critic?
- Reread what you wrote in paragraph 2. Tell yourself that you actually felt it. “Legitimize” these experiences for yourself. Perhaps the power of feelings has already subsided. The goal is not to call them back, but to acknowledge your right to them. Every time a voice inside you or someone from the environment convinces you that you are reacting “wrongly”, “thinking up”, that this is “abnormal”, re-read what you wrote down.
- Ask yourself, what could this feeling mean to you? If it is fear, what aspects of security are you worried about and where do you see the vulnerability? If anger, where exactly were your boundaries or interests violated? Without seeking to define your emotions as “good” or “bad”, “normal” or “abnormal”, try to understand what they are telling you.
- Re-read everything written in a day or two, when you calm down. Perhaps a fresh look will give more insight. Based on self-confidence, try to find ways out of a problem situation.
- Find in your environment those who are ready to hear you without judgment, show respect and empathy. Lean on these people when others question your “reality”.
Working to start trusting your feelings is not at all aimed at inflating conflicts and disputes with others. Its value is to understand yourself more deeply and, focusing on your emotions as a compass needle, try to find a direction to improve your life.
As a result, the friend was convinced that foresight seemed to her more justified than the carelessness of her husband. Taking quite reasonable security measures, she felt calmer.
Moreover, she conducted a “test” of her strategy, focusing on logic and statistics. Having regained confidence in her own feelings, she did not begin to prove to her husband that he was “abnormal”. Perhaps the more we learn to trust ourselves, the more we recognize the right of others to their own feelings.