When People Started Noticing

When I was growing up, I would often get frustrated when the people around me didn't notice that I was upset. How could they not tell, I wondered, when my feelings were clearly written all over my face?

It turns out that my feelings were not, in fact, obvious. From a young age I began hiding my emotions and true feelings about things for fear of being accused of being dramatic or just wanting attention. Mix this with the fact that I had a very small vocabulary that I could use to communicate how I felt, and we've got a problem.

Even now, after years of therapy and work to get to a place where I could even identify my feelings, I'm surprised when people notice my moods. I still think that, for better or worse, I'm “good” at acting like everything is fine.

Until someone walks up to me and asks me if I'm okay. It seems like such a small gesture, but as a person who grew up constantly dialed in to how other people felt, it's nice to know that other people take notice of how I'm doing, too. My immediate impulse is still to assure them that I’m fine, to the point that I almost have to literally bite my tongue to stop myself from saying it. Being honest is hard when you’ve trained yourself not to.

I guess I did want attention all those years ago. However, I think I equated attention with judgement back then. On top of being a shy kid who got even more nervous in social situations, people noticing me usually ended the same way. It seemed easier, and maybe even safer, to make the moments people looked at me as uneventful as possible. I was a kid who tried not to have “big feelings” because that’s what the adults around me seemed to want.

It’s been a long journey to get to the point where I can honestly tell someone how I’m doing. I still feel like some kind of burden to even bring up problems in my life. Thanks to therapy, now I know how unhealthy of a coping mechanism that is. If you’re in the same boat, I’m rooting for you. Keep going, even though it gets hard.

—Abbie