4 ms·

I always felt pretty different. I was never really "abused," but I grew up always feeling more connected with people who have divorced parents or with an absent

I always felt pretty different. I was never really "abused," but I grew up always feeling more connected with people who have divorced parents or with an absent father. Mine was right there, he drove me to soccer, how could I listen to Everclear and Linkin Park and feel emotionally attached to it? I was the model of middle America. As I grew older I always felt closer to "outcasts" and misfits. My general feeling of disconnected-ness and being different followed me wherever I went. I always felt different. I always felt like there was something wrong with me. I never understood why. After reading online about what a great book Running on Empty: Overcoming your childhood emotional neglect was, while also feeling like I was running on empty, I decided to read the book. It felt like a biography. It made so much make sense and helped me understand why I've had the feelings I've had most of my life. Abuse almost always comes with emotional neglect. As time moves forward I imagine most physical wounds heal, but the emotional ones are the wounds that don't heal so easily. Here is the authors website with a relatively short read and I think anyone resonating with this HN article will probably feel "seen" by it: https://drjonicewebb.com/the-painful-secret-many-people-live-with-the-fatal-flaw/ https://drjonicewebb.com/the-painful-secret-many-people-live...

jdkoeck 3y ago
Hi, I don’t know you and I may be completely wrong, but consider that, rather than OR on top of being emotionally neglected, your may have a personality with high neuroticism that facilitates “fatal flaw” thinking. Know that neuroticism is, like personality traits in general, partly inherited. It’s up to you to evaluate how much of your problems can be chalked up to nature and/or nurture. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism
- techwiz137 3y ago
  I just read this, and I fit the bill perfectly. Nothing has explained what I am more than the article you just linked.
  - jdkoeck 3y ago
    I’m happy you found the concept of neuroticism insightful. I’ve had the same lightbulb moment reading about it :)
- bloqs 3y ago
  Anyone interested in the Big Five,(which unlike Myers-Briggs, has actual data behind it) can do a free one here from the creator. Note - it doesn't work accurately if you are depressed, and yes, it requires you to be honest. https://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/ https://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/
  - wholinator2 3y ago
    Thank you. Recently i decided to start saving screenshots of all my personality tests to see if I've changed in any large way and going back to school has done wonders for my discipline and general mood.
    - bloqs 3y ago
      Personality is largely plastic over the lifetime, being mostly set at about age 6. The easiest one to change is Conscientiousness and the hardest is Neuroticism/Openness. So far we have no way to increase IQ and those two traits are largely expressions of IQ.
rkagerer 3y ago
It resonated right up until using the terminology "Fatal Flaw". From that point on I just found the term too distracting and it felt insulting. If they called it anything else (eg. "unrealized vulnerability") it might have been more digestable.
- lbotos 3y ago
  I’m being sincere here, is this satire? It seems like you’ve found the fatal flaw in the fatal flaw definition.
  - throwaway83j34 3y ago
    Not the commenter, but “Fatal Flaw” is intentionally full of hyperbole, which arguably makes it unhelpful to use for psychological terminology. > I’m being sincere here, is this satire? Assuming the commenter wasn’t making satire then this is not a very polite way to put that, fyi.
- hayst4ck 3y ago
  FWIW, I agree that the terminology is unpleasant and reeks of internet language-isms like "the top 10 ways...". I feel like there is probably a book or MBA like class that teaches that this is the way to promote your articles online. I also agree that that language feels like it's for a lowest common denominator audience. The book is pretty mechanical and straightforward and generally doesn't include language like that. The voice the author uses in the book is professional voice and not internet voice. The one exception is this "fatal flaw" idea which is more or less the thesis of the authors book: Childhood emotional neglect results in feeling like if someone really knew you, they wouldn't like you. The author doesn't bring the term out in the first 10 chapters after which it is well founded. The term itself is used to mean: "a character trait possessed by a hero that ultimately leads to their downfall." And through 10 chapters she did a pretty good job of showing that neglect does indeed lead to feelings which lead to "downfall" like consequences.
low_tech_love 3y ago
So basically whatever it is that is wrong with you, it’s your family’s fault?
- em-bee 3y ago
  pretty much
- hayst4ck 3y ago
  Subtle art of not giving a fuck is a mass market book of questionable value, but it has one chapter with a core truth for the human experience. The chapter was on the dichotomy of blame and responsibility. You can choose a strategy of blame or a strategy of responsibility for the problems in your life, but only one of them is going to be productive. Blame can help soothe you, but blame is just emotional masturbation. Responsibility is painful, but taking responsibility is the only way to make progress. My dad deserves blame for a neglectful childhood. He deserves blame for a lot of the experience of depression I have had in my life. He deserves blame for his complete lack of empathy. No amount of blame is going to modify my condition. No amount of blame is going to fill the holes on my life. The only way I will feel better is taking responsibility and being accountable to myself for my own emotions. I can't change the past, but I can change how I act now. I think psychologists use the idea of locus of control. Does the world happen to you, or do you happen to the world? If life happens to you and you are purely a victim of circumstance, it's hard to imagine putting in work to improve the conditions of your life if you don't have a lot of control over it. Even though you often can't control what happens to you, you can control/influence how you react, and through that it's possible to imagine improving your situation. Just like you would probably struggle with math if you never learned math as a kid, you would probably struggle with emotional regulation if you never learned emotional regulation as a kid. If a kid doesn't know algebra by college, that's not the kids fault, that is a failure of their education or their parents, the kid doesn't know math is important to their future or that math is missing from their education.
steine65 3y ago
Sorry for the pain you went through. I suffered subtle trauma as a kid. Some examples were verbal anger from father, lack of a model of a secure relationship since parents hated each other in private, no empathy, and rare sympathy, between all family members. We basically didn't care about each other but put on a facade of a happy family with others. Recently I came across Attachment Theory which describes types of insecure relationships compared to secure ones. Combined with some professional therapy, it has been enlightening and relieving understanding my issues. A long journey ahead. Reading about Attachment Theory is my recommendation for anyone feeling similarly.
- hayst4ck 3y ago
  Your life sounds similar to mine, and with few words, I think you've described emotional neglect. I've found myself to be quite avoidant. I found attachment theory before I heard of neglect, and I found it to explain my relationships pretty well. I actually think I found running on empty while looking into attachment theory. I feel like it adequately explained how I came to be so avoidant. Based on your words, I am pretty confident that at least one of her stories of neglect will hit hard.

jdkoeck 3y ago

Hi, I don’t know you and I may be completely wrong, but consider that, rather than OR on top of being emotionally neglected, your may have a personality with high neuroticism that facilitates “fatal flaw” thinking. Know that neuroticism is, like personality traits in general, partly inherited. It’s up to you to evaluate how much of your problems can be chalked up to nature and/or nurture. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism

techwiz137 3y ago
I just read this, and I fit the bill perfectly. Nothing has explained what I am more than the article you just linked.
- jdkoeck 3y ago
  I’m happy you found the concept of neuroticism insightful. I’ve had the same lightbulb moment reading about it :)
bloqs 3y ago
Anyone interested in the Big Five,(which unlike Myers-Briggs, has actual data behind it) can do a free one here from the creator. Note - it doesn't work accurately if you are depressed, and yes, it requires you to be honest. https://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/ https://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/
- wholinator2 3y ago
  Thank you. Recently i decided to start saving screenshots of all my personality tests to see if I've changed in any large way and going back to school has done wonders for my discipline and general mood.
  - bloqs 3y ago
    Personality is largely plastic over the lifetime, being mostly set at about age 6. The easiest one to change is Conscientiousness and the hardest is Neuroticism/Openness. So far we have no way to increase IQ and those two traits are largely expressions of IQ.

rkagerer 3y ago

It resonated right up until using the terminology "Fatal Flaw". From that point on I just found the term too distracting and it felt insulting. If they called it anything else (eg. "unrealized vulnerability") it might have been more digestable.

lbotos 3y ago
I’m being sincere here, is this satire? It seems like you’ve found the fatal flaw in the fatal flaw definition.
- throwaway83j34 3y ago
  Not the commenter, but “Fatal Flaw” is intentionally full of hyperbole, which arguably makes it unhelpful to use for psychological terminology. > I’m being sincere here, is this satire? Assuming the commenter wasn’t making satire then this is not a very polite way to put that, fyi.
hayst4ck 3y ago
FWIW, I agree that the terminology is unpleasant and reeks of internet language-isms like "the top 10 ways...". I feel like there is probably a book or MBA like class that teaches that this is the way to promote your articles online. I also agree that that language feels like it's for a lowest common denominator audience. The book is pretty mechanical and straightforward and generally doesn't include language like that. The voice the author uses in the book is professional voice and not internet voice. The one exception is this "fatal flaw" idea which is more or less the thesis of the authors book: Childhood emotional neglect results in feeling like if someone really knew you, they wouldn't like you. The author doesn't bring the term out in the first 10 chapters after which it is well founded. The term itself is used to mean: "a character trait possessed by a hero that ultimately leads to their downfall." And through 10 chapters she did a pretty good job of showing that neglect does indeed lead to feelings which lead to "downfall" like consequences.

low_tech_love 3y ago

So basically whatever it is that is wrong with you, it’s your family’s fault?

em-bee 3y ago
pretty much
hayst4ck 3y ago
Subtle art of not giving a fuck is a mass market book of questionable value, but it has one chapter with a core truth for the human experience. The chapter was on the dichotomy of blame and responsibility. You can choose a strategy of blame or a strategy of responsibility for the problems in your life, but only one of them is going to be productive. Blame can help soothe you, but blame is just emotional masturbation. Responsibility is painful, but taking responsibility is the only way to make progress. My dad deserves blame for a neglectful childhood. He deserves blame for a lot of the experience of depression I have had in my life. He deserves blame for his complete lack of empathy. No amount of blame is going to modify my condition. No amount of blame is going to fill the holes on my life. The only way I will feel better is taking responsibility and being accountable to myself for my own emotions. I can't change the past, but I can change how I act now. I think psychologists use the idea of locus of control. Does the world happen to you, or do you happen to the world? If life happens to you and you are purely a victim of circumstance, it's hard to imagine putting in work to improve the conditions of your life if you don't have a lot of control over it. Even though you often can't control what happens to you, you can control/influence how you react, and through that it's possible to imagine improving your situation. Just like you would probably struggle with math if you never learned math as a kid, you would probably struggle with emotional regulation if you never learned emotional regulation as a kid. If a kid doesn't know algebra by college, that's not the kids fault, that is a failure of their education or their parents, the kid doesn't know math is important to their future or that math is missing from their education.

steine65 3y ago

Sorry for the pain you went through. I suffered subtle trauma as a kid. Some examples were verbal anger from father, lack of a model of a secure relationship since parents hated each other in private, no empathy, and rare sympathy, between all family members. We basically didn't care about each other but put on a facade of a happy family with others. Recently I came across Attachment Theory which describes types of insecure relationships compared to secure ones. Combined with some professional therapy, it has been enlightening and relieving understanding my issues. A long journey ahead. Reading about Attachment Theory is my recommendation for anyone feeling similarly.

hayst4ck 3y ago
Your life sounds similar to mine, and with few words, I think you've described emotional neglect. I've found myself to be quite avoidant. I found attachment theory before I heard of neglect, and I found it to explain my relationships pretty well. I actually think I found running on empty while looking into attachment theory. I feel like it adequately explained how I came to be so avoidant. Based on your words, I am pretty confident that at least one of her stories of neglect will hit hard.