As we heal we begin to learn who we can and cannot go to with our feelings and pain. I wish I had known about emotional unavailability years ago. It would have saved me a lot of heart ache but that said, not having parents who were there for me emotionally its natural that I would be more familiar with those who didn’t validate me than with those who did. And also I have learned in past years that part of growing to psychological maturity is learning to not always expect others to be there emotionally for us.
That said when we come to choose partners and friends we need to know what we need in terms of emotional availability. Some people just do not have that degree of emotional insight and we don’t suffer as much when we learn not to expect the unexpectable from loved ones who are not emotionally intimate with their own insides. A past therapist would often say to me “Deborah how old do you think this person is inside”, some of us still carry the unmediated inner child within us and its a major task learning to re parent that little one inside.
I came across the following in an article on line today after doing an image search. It made sense of things I went through with family members and past love partners.
Often when the other person resists looking within, being intimate with their own emotions, their darkness, their flaws and humanity, there is no way they will see yours. They will accept yours. Not in a million years.
If they cannot feel their feelings, they will not comprehend what it is like for you to feel your feelings. If the person has not visited despair, they won’t understand what you are going through. In fact they are likely to be terrified by you, by your experience, a foreign object. In turn, they will say the wrong things, shut down and while they can be physically present, the truth is they left you already. They left their body.
Emotions occur in our bodies and those who cannot stay in their bodies find a way to leave and they may often leave us if we are feeling emotions in the body they find too confronting to face. I feel its one of the real reasons my ex husband left me. When I started to feel my emotions it reminded me too much of one’s he had to repress and his family convinced me I was ‘no fun’. Probably true at that point as I had repressed a lot of grief.
Anyway on the healing pathway, just make sure to surround yourself with those who understand you and your emotions. Not people who make you feel crazy for having them.
Source/link to above quotes :
https://psiloveyou.xyz/to-be-emotionally-abandoned-5e5ebdfae9fc
Emerging From The Dark Night 
Some people don’t understand your emotions because they do not understand what you went through and very often they do not have the patience to wait for you to heal from what broke you . Sadly they don’t even understand your fears and sadness all together
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Yes, I know…. There is a limit to what we can expect as we don’t live inside another’s skin but some people just get fearful defensive and run around emotions that is what she is talking about here rather than a simple “sorry I don’t understand” 🙂
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These are very wise words. And it makes a lot of sense. Sometimes I think people are drawn to each other because they offer the very opportunities that could potentially heal… but that also creates a recipe for disaster if one or both cannot go that space, endure and do the work. Easier said than done 😢
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You have true insight. My first husband would not allow me to have my emotions because he had built a wall around his. I thought we could help each other heal but he was already hidden away from me.
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Yes, I believe that is the reason that my ex husband left me too, Mary. He got upset when I was ‘no longer the happy girl he married’, He also lost his father to cancer at the same age as I did. He did not face his pain every and I triggered his. Its taken me a while to stop blaming myself. 🙂
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VERY NICE SAID! I THINK YOU MAY ENJOY MY BOOK, SEEN AND NOT HEARD.
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Thanks ill check it out 😊
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Thank you
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Reblogged this on Emerging From The Dark Night and commented:
I thought this deserves a reblog because emotional invalidation is something I try to raise awareness of in my blog as it leads to so much emotional turmoil and mental illness. This one is pretty recent but its for new followers.
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