Chapter 35: Different

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Adult children feel different

from other people.

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This symptom came from how I overcontrolled my emotional life. 

I didn’t trust or listen to feelings, I judged them. 

(Growing up in a family that judges your feelings leaves you no choice but to do the same.)

Since I judged my feelings, I never shared them with anyone else. 

Since I never shared them, others didn’t share their true feelings with me. 

So I never discovered that most people feel essentially the same way. 

(What a concept.)

So I treated the anxiety, guilt and confusion I carried like shameful secrets.

Trapped in this closed loop of feeling > judgment > more feeling > more judgment, I was forced to conclude that I was different from everyone else. 

And the wall I’d built to protect me from rejection kept me feeling terminally unique, alienated and lonely.