I am beginning to appreciate who I am more these days.. I am seeing there was nothing wrong with me for feeling out of place or out of step with the world at times.. I saw it most clearly when I got out this morning for my morning coffee. I am a watcher like a lot of HSP’s I tend to pick up on things. I do think if we suffer a lot of pain and lonelieness in our life and family it does mark us out in some way.. If we have no one around us to truly mirror us as we are its tough as a young one, we are also very open to the unconscious of our parents as young ones, energetically we can be picking up on a lot but we may have no help much in sorting it all through until much later in life and, luckily we can correct this sense of feeling like a misfit later in our life.
Living with what therapist Elaine Aron calls an undervalued self is no picnic and things will not get better for us until we learn to value that true self and also to understand it in depth,including the ways that in trying to protect we may also push away new relationships with others.. It takes emotional maturity and insight to respect differences and to not end up making either ourselves or others wrong for having them
Another important issue is that sadly for many of us our protests, anger and frustrations may be not be understood as a cry to be seen and heard but they may provide, in later life, the biggest clues as to why and as to what hurt and still hurts us. Sadly, the damage of Complex PTSD as well as invalidation and neglect abuse may leave us foundering in deep emotional seas that we come to fear in ourselves and others. Add to this the complication that as empaths we often pick up on and absorb others emotions so navigating relationships later in life may become a mine field.
In later life it is my understanding that only we can take the steps to learn about ourselves and others, at some point we may have fallen into an underdog or victim role and for sure we will often identify with the outsider.. We know how it feels to feel as if we are on the outside so very often in our life.. this can have blessings, marking us out for creative pathways and pursuits.
In addition, we may need a good therapist if we are empaths as narcissitically wounded parents, siblings and caregivers may hate or actively shame qualities in us and aspects of our whole self that actually have high value.
I thank God for my years in AA as I know the people I met there were mostly a rare breed, feeling themselves out of step they danced to their own drum and sometimes sadly sought the ‘numb’ due to feelings being a no go in their upbringing.. We have those wonderful souls who started to get sober over 30 years ago to thank for wising us up on the deeper emotional problems and early attachment issues that dog many any addict.. I also think that, in addition, many of us who go down that path suffer an identity disturbance, we cannot claim what we do not love nor understand in another unless we can claim and acknowledge it in ourselves and so we often fall foul of others who would like to change us..
I found this talk interesting listening last night on how and why the narcissist wants to change you. Though I am wary of labels now and putting people into a box it did make sense but I also thought a lot about my last relationship.. He wanted to change me more than vice versa but at times I also wanted him to be different.. This was a recipe for disaster as we cannot be with someone we cannot accept in peace and as Thich Nhat Hanh says, we cannot love a person fully that we do not understand.
No one likes to be changed, no one should have to apologize for who they really are and it is my belief that society should honor and respect differences. Hopefully we are moving in this direction but it is always a case of maturity coming on the back of growing self and other awareness. We may have to go through a lot of pain and chaos at times to get to this place of knowing who we are and being capable of allowing each other the freedom and right to be, free of pressure that only ends up making others feel. even more alienated.
Emerging From The Dark Night 