Before I did any work on myself, I was incredibly and painfully sensitive. If I felt like I couldn't get a word in in a conversation or I was struggling to take that risk, I would very much take that personally and feel shut out on purpose. Instead of seeing that I kind of maybe needed to just talk over people or give signals that I wanted to talk.
But being shut out was very much like my family as a kid. So do you ever find yourself on the sidelines of a conversation, wanting to connect with a group of people, but feeling unable to jump in? Or have you maybe started friendships only to still feel really left out? Still in those new friendships? Or maybe do you worry that you're too much or too intense to feel part of other people's lives sometimes?
So I'm gonna be exploring three incredibly insightful audience-based questions about patterns that childhood trauma survivors experience about not feeling included, and barriers to feeling included. If you don't know me, I'm Patrick Tian, MSW. And this channel is all about childhood trauma, specifically from family of origin as like a system of abuse, as well as discovering ways to recover for general better mental health.
So let's just jump into the first question. The first question is, is what? I'm just calling, I hate jumping in. Hi Patrick. My question is about being extremely triggered about not feeling included in my work environment, though I think I know why I actually like my coworkers as we're all the same age, which is weird for me 'cause I typically feel more comfortable with people who are older, who are not my age, if that's a thing.
That's actually a thing for childhood trauma of beverage. For some of them, they invite me out for lunch or drinks after work, and when I go, I don't feel super part of, I'm on the sidelines taking their conversation in. I feel like a tag along and I look for opportunities to jump into the conversation, but I get super anxious that I'm not gonna be heard, and I really hate jumping in.
I've decided the last few times to not go because I hate the pressure yet then. Feel extremely like I'm missing out on making friends. I'm worried that I'm just a weirdo. I grew up with religious abuse and my parents were extremely socially off around people who weren't in the church. It was horrific to watch them talk to even the mailman.
They acted superior, yet convinced that the mailman was gonna burn in hell. What is something that I can do differently? So I really appreciate the author's question and for the viewer, like who relates to having to watch for a time to be able to jump into a conversation and getting frustrated or feeling left out that the group isn't picking up on that you might want to talk.
I also like that the author is also really trying and they're trying with open people. Sometimes childhood trauma survivors can keep trying with people who are not that interested in us. Okay? My answer is, and this one's deep, I recommend working with your inner child on the beliefs about how you are in a social situation versus how your parents behaved socially.
So what I mean by that is you're social enough to be part of, but it's the talking and engaging that seems to be triggering for you. And I wonder if your inner child simply does not want to be awkward. Like your parents were awkward. Probably was very shameful or embarrassing for you. And you helpfully discussed all that, like what your parents modeled.
And that shame and embarrassment can happen to a lot of childhood trauma survivors. And we might not be aware that it's subconsciously like runs us. So your parents modeled religious superiority. While being totally oblivious that they were intensely socially awkward, and you might have remembered that shame and that embarrassment from all that, and your inner child might be so focused on not repeating your parents' social awkwardness.
And it's possibly keeping you from being present with people and seeing how you're actually different from your parents. That's what I think what is likely going on, and if any of you relate to that and want to explore how your inner child might put a lot of energy into trying to not be like one or both your parents, I'm gonna put some inner child dialoguing prompts in the description of this video along for each of the other two questions as well.
I'd love this question so much. It's really amazing because it tells the story of how social engagement got wrecked for us as kids growing up in like a toxic environment. Question number two is what I'm calling, just what to say becomes really painful. So, hi Patrick. I have a thing about starting friendships and ending them quickly by dropping off gradually because asking people to hang out or knowing what to say becomes really painful.
Like I think that that's what the author stuck places. I've done this so many times that new friends will text me once or twice, but then they're kind of done with my not responding. While I know that this is crazy, I feel excluded, but it's me. And I also move a lot too to avoid relationships, and I like to start over, like maybe start things over.
I seriously need help with it. When I start a friendship, I get obsessed about what I say. When I'm with them. I feel really bad and will send random apologies like months later after I ghost. The only thing I could think of is besides having a narcissistic mother who oversaw everything in my life, would often interrogate me after I would hang out with my friends about if I was selfish or if I wasn't.
Thoughtful enough, like kind of thank you card kind of things. It felt like she created that. All my friends were disappointed with me because I forgot to compliment them on an outfit or whatever. What is happening to me in friendships? Another really powerful question. Also insightful, and just please know for the author that Child of Trauma survivors can have relational patterns of kind of saying goodbye.
While we're saying hello, it's an important piece to this one. So here's what I think is kind of going on here. Probably your narcissistic mother's voice became your inner critic, turning friendships into like an exhausting performance that you have to do instead of a source of connection for you. So it's painful to be around people because your mother set you up to be drained about what you do or what you say instead of being present with your friends.
So your inner child might sabotage these new relationships by going like underground, not only about being exhausted, but also being afraid of blowing it, which is a huge thing that we struggle with as childhood trauma survivors and somehow being like insensitive. But that's your mother's twisted narrative about you.
It doesn't belong to you, is what I'm trying to say. This question is a really good example about how childhood trauma survivors, people, and relationships can drain us. Not because we're like highfalutin or fancy, but something, but like the last question, we are hypervigilant about not blowing things or making mistakes.
It would be good to reparent your inner child about starting friendships. While practicing connection with others, like maybe in a support group where you're practicing really hanging in there. That's one thing. Like the other question, I'm gonna put some inner child dialoguing prompts for you, for the author, and for anybody else who struggles with this in the video description.
Third and final question is, is am I being too much? Which I really love this question. Here's the question I'm caught between knowing that I'm being excluded and not wanting to be fake. I loathe small talk, and when I'm with people, I want to know what is really on their mind or what they're struggling with.
An old friend who I'm not close with anymore would call me out on whenever we talked and she would mention her boyfriend. I would bluntly ask if he is doing something stupid or sketchy in the relationship, like kind of a joke, but I don't know why I go there. Like someone is always bad in my mind. She called me out for saying that I'm always trying to uncover the villain in people's lives, and I do this at work too.
I'm intense and people avoid me, which while I want a friendship, a big part of me is like F them. They're just not being real. Am I being too much? Both of my parents and sort of my siblings too are all avoidant. They cannot handle anything in reality, my father avoided going to the doctor while having a visible tumor.
My mother is extremely repressed and doesn't know me. But as an expert on how things can go wrong, my father had an affair, and I only know about by finding his email open as a teen, like left his email open. So I guess I want friends, but I don't want avoidance, and most people, to me are fake. What to do.
I really love the honesty in the question. You want a connection, but I'm hearing you never want to be in a situation with people like your family, which is something we can also be hypervigilant about. So my answer here though is you might be scanning for hypocrisy, which is a big childhood trauma thing, scanning for hypocrisy in others because you were raised in a family that willfully avoided the truth.
Due to some selfish avoidance. I would also add that you're not too much, but the truth seeking energy is too much because it's coming from your trauma place, and that is probably sabotaging your connections and not good for you. So the short answer is you're not too much. But the behaviors from your inner child and childhood trauma maybe are pushing people away.
Some survivors can come across as really intense and dark, but people don't want that or don't want that maybe all the time. So it would be good for you to do some work around how sketchy your family was and you were right to be disappointed. You were right to be disgusted that people weren't being real because our families are like living together for years, but they can't be honest.
A lot of us go through families like that. That affects us as a child. That child can become an intense adult who is looking out for ways that people are full of it or not real about other people in their lives like that boyfriend. I'm also gonna put some dialoguing prompts in the video description for the author or anybody else who resonates with this problem about intensity.
Due to family hypocrisy, how to get unstuck, is it gonna be about exploring what you really value and making the truth seeking more right sized? What I mean by that is, is you might value intimacy, but you might need to value the intensity less. You probably value people being honest and doing the right thing, but you might need to let people get there on their own.
I really want to thank the authors and I hope my response to them was helpful, and I hope those responses were not invalidating. These are pattern things that I see in childhood trauma. So here are my final thoughts. Here's what I think about not being included in things as childhood trauma survivors, or it feels like we're not being included.
So before I did any work on myself, I was incredibly and painfully sensitive. If I felt like I couldn't get a word in in a conversation or I was struggling to take that risk, I would very much take. That personally and feel shut out on purpose. Instead of seeing that I kind of maybe needed to just talk over people or give signals that I wanted to talk, but being shut out was very much like my family as a kid.
Also, I was very hypervigilant about what I would say or what I would do, making socializing with new people kind of exhausting. I was really ruled by shame and hyper vigilance around that shame, like the last question. I was also very intense and very dark. I only wanted to connect about problems. I was a lot and needed people to be on my kind of negative level, but people often don't want that.
It took a while for me to soften and really connect from a different place. About the dialoguing prompts that I'm mentioning is dialoguing is a powerful tool that I teach. It's really a written conversation with your inner child. You can learn more about the specific technique and the course right up here.
The link will take you right there. What dialoguing is, is your dominant hand represents your adult wise self. You actually have one. Don't, don't say that's, that's missing, and your non-dominant hand represents your inner child. You ask a question from your inner adult self and you let your inner child answer with your non-dominant hand.
So it's like writing back and forth. And yes, that writing with a non-dominant hand is gonna be messy, but don't worry about it. It's pretty normal. You could try it on your own. And I'll link two videos about an inner child role play that is like dialoguing in the video description. So lastly, the closest this out is about the inclusion triggers is being super positive isn't really gonna help.
Being super accommodating or people pleasing isn't gonna help us kind of be real. Being included more in socially, I think comes down to being more comfortable in our own skin because we've gotten some of the trauma dealt with about our families, kind of off of our minds and out of our kind of psyches.
You know, if we can become more comfortable in our own skin, so much falls into place. It takes time, but it's very possible. So I hope that that was helpful. Please leave a comment, ask a question about this stuff. And lastly, may you be filled with loving and kindness. May you be well, may you be peaceful and at ease, and may you be joyous and I will
