I literally realised this a few weeks back... that the way my family raised me (shutting out my feelings and not burdening them with my problems and becoming an emotional dumping site for them) groomed me to tolerate the same thing from friends...and so at a point of my life I realised that the reason I was miserable was because I was surrounded by toxic company. Healthy people have better friends because they don't tolerate this unequal dynamic and double standard.
Unhealthy people attract unhealthy people. I hope you are doing better after the year that has passed since you wrote your comment, and I hope my own journey with this principle can be improved as well.
It's hard to learn how to differentiate between healthy/unhealthy attention when you've been brought up by unhealthy. I struggle with this also. And it is SO hard to even point out to someone when they're being hurtful, cause it's all so subtle and socially acceptable, even encouraged
Here’s another reason one might accept the identification: when someone projects things they can’t handle onto you, that person experiences a sense of relief, and when you see their relief, it can cause you to believe that you have done something helpful for them, and then, out of a sincere desire to be helpful, you start accepting their projections more and more in the belief that you are somehow soothing the other person and facilitating their wellbeing, until one day you realize that actually this is not producing sincere wellbeing for either you or the other person. Eventually, most of us realize that no matter how much we try to feel someone else’s feelings for them, that person is still haunted by their own pain and nothing short of confronting their own pain will ever free them if it. When we realize that we are enabling their dysfunction rather than supporting their healing, that can free us from the cycle.
Oh my goodness, I was not allowed to be myself so badly, and even now my parents do not accept my personality. It crippled me severely, damaged me. I do not feel I have a right to have an opinion and to reject a man I do not want. I feel guilty if I reject a decent guy who I am not attracted to. I feel I have no right to reject someone just because I am not attracted or unhappy. My friend`s young daughter told me a couple days ago "you are under no obligation to date a guy you do not want to date, even if he is a good guy". It was like a revelation for me
As a child, I wanted to help others by being a psychologist or counselor. When the time came, I thought of taking that path, but I did not. I knew that I would not handle that job well. I had no words to explain "lack of boundaries" at that time, even to myself. I literally had no grasp of what boundaries even were or why they mattered. Thank you for explaining this process so clearly. It fits my experience and helps me understand myself and my own history better.
Wow...damn, you hit the nail with this one. I was trying to explain to my teenager son how the bullies project their own feelings onto more empathetic kids.This is very good explanation!
Please do what you can to actively remove your child from the grasp of abusive peers. There is absolutely no difference in them "getting to him" at school than if they broke down the door to your home and beat him up and harassed and abused him in his own home. Understanding bullies is not helpful to their victims. REMOVE your child from environments where they are being used to provide prey for vicious children. NO EXCUSES on why not to. The school is not interested in your son's well being. If they were they wouldn't create traumatizing environments and then try to help people "cope" with them. They are actively ruining your child's education. Stop it now and rescue him.
Both protective action and helping the child understand could be warranted. The goal of helping the child understand where that projected pain comes from would be to help him see that it is not his pain and there is nothing “bad” in him that merits such treatment. It could help him dis-identify from the projection, which might not occur if he is just “rescued by Mommy” without also being given a framework in which to understand what happened to him and why it was painful. The first step, unless immediate physical protection is necessary, is likely to empathize with the child who actually received the bullying - validate his reality before explaining anyone else’s pain, and then get a sense of what would be most empowering for him. Depending on his age and resources, extracting him from the situation might not be the most empowering thing for him. Attunement to his needs is important, and only a sensitive, present caregiver can perform that attunement. Those of us extrapolating from comments on the internet are just making guesses in the dark.
I definitely feel other people’s feelings…but I’ve learned how NOT to make them MY feelings. It took a long time to learn how to do this but I’m a sensitive and extremely empathic, so it was very difficult to do. You have to “undo” a learned cognition and it wasn’t until my later adult years that I figured out how to make their feelings theirs and keep my feelings my own. I learned boundaries a bit late in life…but better late than never!
This is so true! It’s not empathy, it’s like borrowing the other’s feelings so that they can heal. Nobody teaches you how to protect yourself from this phenomenon. Do you know, Daniel?
I think it's worse than this. it's borrowing another person's capacity to feel their own yucky feelings for them so that they can feel Superior to that yucky feelings receptacle. they are just getting high basically
The only way you can truly protect yourself from this mess is by knowing yourself. Knowing where you begin and where the other person ends. Whose emotions are whose. And this is so frustrating because when it's happening to you as a child, you don't know who you are, because you're still trying to develop your Self. Ugh. The only thing that helped me was time and space away from super-enmeshed people. Which, again, as a child growing up with parents like this... isn't really an option.
This is precisely what I identified had happened between myself and the man who was grooming me when I was a 12/13 year old kid (nothing specifically *illegal* ended up happening, but it was well on its way there - still enough for it to cause substantial harm), toward the end of the "relationship" when things "went south" (of course in retrospect I can recognize I'm fortunate to have gotten out of the situation sooner rather than later, as ugly and distressing as it was). I became the receptacle for the shame and guilt he absolutely refused to feel himself. And I really, really believed it, I truly internalized those things. That I was sick, that I was a bad person, that I'd done something terribly wrong, even that I was manipulative and predatory, in a way - I even had this tremendous guilt around the idea that I *made* him look like a pedophile, this poor innocent guy who's life I had been a scourge on. Even without those things getting stated explicitly, he was acting out that attribution of shame and guilt that he refused to have for himself in implicit, suggested ways, powerful enough for it to become a deeply felt internalized belief in me, that took a tremendous amount of work to undo. I have heard this many times in others' stories - even without being told directly how awful and to blame they ought to feel, kids who have been s******y a****d will often absorb the feelings of shame and guilt and blame and responsibility, as the type to s******y a***e kids are often so deeply invested in refusing the guilt and responsibility that ought to come along with it, in painting themselves as blameless and even as the victim. Beyond the s** a**** stuff, he was in general deeply invested in projecting an image of himself as a wonderfully kind, caring, empathetic guy, and was obsessed with having that confirmed to him. He seemed to want nothing more in the world than to be wanted and needed and important and to have that confirmed to him in over-the-top ways. If he was especially slighted by your failure to help maintain that self image, you suddenly became aware of how utterly conditional that "empathy" was. I can imagine it would be utterly brutal for him if people actually became aware of the sort of person he was and the kinds of things he was willing to do. I don't know of a sort of person who would be MORE invested in banishing any sort of blame or culpability from their person. It took me a very long time to recognize how utterly disproportionate that level of shaming and reprimand was, compared to what I had actually done "wrong", how unrealistic and unfair it was to expect a kid that young in that situation to behave any differently, to place so much guilt and shame on them. There was a moment when I could sort of see it from the outside and realized... "wow, that's really, really *extreme*." Irrationally extreme levels of guilt and shame for "what I'd done." And then a bit later on, upon better recognizing the truth of what had taken place, what he was really doing, it occurred to me... The feelings I had been feeling about myself were *precisely* appropriate for someone who had behaved in the way he'd behaved, done the things he'd done, had the intentions he had. Right down to feeling guilty and ashamed for being "manipulative" and "predatory" and "perverted" and having come in and totally fucked up the life of a clueless, innocent person. I was literally feeling HIS feelings for him, so he didn't have to. As painful as all of this is, I find it remarkable and fascinating that I was able to internalize all of that so deeply and so intensely, without being explicitly told those things, almost as if it were tangibly being extricated from his self and implanted into me. I imagine though it is just one possibility in the ever mysterious and complex system of human interpersonal dynamics, and that he had spent so much time growing up in a system that took part in this sort of projection, and learned the behavior so early on as a defense against shame, that he intuitively and automatically understands how to effectively shift all of those unwanted and denied attributes and emotions onto "willing" others.
Your comment and the video make me think that the metaphor of demonic possession seems quite useful here - and terrifyingly so. To be a child and become possessed by the spirits of adults or intergenerational patterns without any defences or help.
Wow my grandma did this often but she played the victim and got into everyone else’s business because she didn’t want to ever deal with her pain. I’m the same now but at the age of 37 I’m realizing what love is and what infatuation is and seeing where God leads me.
I do think there is a transpersonal element to this phenomenon, where the person in denial can be deeply enmeshed in reality and channelling what they deny upon it, unconsciously wishing others to be what they hate in themselves. Great work as always Daniel God bless you sir.
Yes, from an esoteric standpoint, this might be true. Just thougt about the same :). They share the same reality as me, but seem not to notice my sadness, anger or grief, because they have denied their own. But maybe it's my paranoia?
What a spot on video. Empathy or sympathy? Empathy is to acknowledge, comprehend someone's feelings. Sympathy, or, "feeling sorry"for them, through repeated conditioning as a means of punishment. You do Feel what they feel. You have to. In order to predict what they'll do and to "learn" them. I used to get in trouble for daydreaming and pretending to have a life without Their personal problems. And this is disassociation. Yes. I, too, wasted my life on my parents' personal problems. These people have nothing to give. They're just Takers. Unless you know what tbry are and are determined to get their "gift" of inheritance they won't share because its there only to get you to owe them till they die. And just you living under their roof, you owe them. A second of their time, you owe them. Because they're So special. Remember? They Try harder. Well, I would have been able to try harder if my parent had stopped constantly criticizing me constantly. And i would have had clarity of thought to be able to think for myself.. And I could never catch up to their expectations. So I gave up. What other choice do you have? The list of requirements just kept changing. Like a revolving door, depending on the audience. Their audience. We were just too much trouble to tolerate because we weren't a perfect reflection of them. And now, i wonder what my mother really saw when she looked at me. I think she saw a failure. And that Was what was projected onto me. I was a disappointment. No matter what i did. I remember practing the piano with her in the room. I could'nt play or think at all. I was too nervous. . And that's when all the fun began. Might as well have fun and show her that she was so Right about my "character". They expect it anyways. And I was more than glad to prove them Right. And that is karma I didnt understand. And it dies hurt us too. Some people just never get enough attention, do they? Until the day they die. These types of people should not be allowed to adopt children. I was disappointed Too. I highly recommend the 1986 movie "Seize the Day" with Robin Williams. If you need some answers to what you' experienced, please watch this movie. All these abused do is pass down their pain and see nlthing wrong with emotionally torturing their babies. Im right there with you Daniel. Took me a while to see it, but I do. And I'll be dammed if I pass it down to my children waste their lives too, working out the emotional problems of a complete stranger. From decades ago.
Thank you so much Daniel. This is exactly what I needed to hear today. And it's amazing how easy it is to fall back into carrying crap that isn't ours to carry, because they programmed us that way. No thanks; I'm DONE!
YES!! This is very, very, very relatable to me. Everything you describe in your parents I experienced with mine, which primed me for this very same pattern in my adult relationships with emotional abuse, overextending my empathy and not giving myself nearly enough. It's just this past year that I'm showing myself how to set boundaries, effectively cutting both parents out of my life and reclaiming my own personal freedom.
Hey Sarah, I went no contact with the family 10 years ago, hardest thing I ever did but I was pretty much forced to do it. Took some time before I went through a major awakening, I'm wondering if anything like this has happened to you? Visit my lil chan here if ya get time, may find something helpful. Stay strong.
@@sarahritt.creates Awesome and you're quite welcome! It's a roller coaster ride for sure, hold on tight, but it's worth the ride if you are ready to endure the lows that come with it. I'm not an expert like Daniel here, and I throw in a lot of other stuff like hobbies and stories to keep things light, but hopefully some of it may be helpful, that's the only reason I do it. Hope you're having a great weekend!
Daniel, it would be great if you speak in one of your videos on the theme of emotional manipulation. How people who were taught by parents to serve their emotional needs in adulthood can be easily manipulated by others. Thanks for all the content, it is gold!
I have experienced this my entire life- it makes sense coming from the family of origin that I do. "I wasn't raised to have feelings..." Chilling. Great topic Daniel.
Oh wow! It finally makes sense why my mom gets upset telling me about things in her past. She wants me to feel bad yet I don't. I learned not to care. Thanks for the insight!
This perfectly describes what I’ve been trying to explain to people. The word “empath” gets used but, I’m like “No, it’s more than that!” I say I feel “permeable”. I Am implementing boundaries but I just long to be understood without my past having to be in the foreground of how this ability came into play. Thanks Daniel. Just thanks. 🙂
I was the exact same child to a histrionic covert narc mother and reactive codependent father. I was her little garbage can, and she never wanted to me to grow up and leave her...bc then, who would identify with her awful projections? She would rage at my every milestone, bc it was another step away from me leaving her. She went out of her way to create an emotional dependence within me, to stifle and cripple any attempt I had a psychological and functional/real world individuation. I then became dependent on another person who was even more nefarious and dark. Recovering from codependency was the most incredible experience and I'm so grateful to have had the strength to create a defined self. And when you cut those psychic umbilical cords, you can let go of the fully formed ego and become a true Self. Anyway, what a wonderfully worded video!
Locked narcissists want us to sympathize with them .... But in a way that doesn't force them to face their history and behavior at all. They want the good, but reject the painful. Very interesting subject. Which also reminds us that there are at least 4 kinds of empathy (emotional, cognitive, compassionate, mirror,...) and that each of them can help us to understand certain things, but also constitute potential traps for the one who feels them.
Wow this sure sums up some of the people in my life that I no longer have relationships with. I always wondered why I felt sick after talking to some of these people, or just depressed. It sucks being an empath sometimes.
Gosh I love this. I can relate and have this year (at 50 years old) starting setting boundaries with friends and family that feel entitled. I now feel empowered instead of guilty (most of the time it’s a work in progress), in choosing to spend time with people that encourage and uplift me rather than re-traumatise me. You took the words out of my mouth in this video. I appreciate and value your gift of humanity here 🙏🙏💖💖🌸🌸
This is way beyond awesome ! Sounds like the totally 'sick' Family System I grew up in. I proudly regard you as a Mentor when it comes to Men and their Mental Health.
This video appears in my feed today… Profound timing… it’s packed full with insight. I met a sister that my mom gave up for adoption 2 years before I was born 4 years ago and it has been a painful and destructive experience for many reasons. Our mom transitioned before they could meet. I’ve tried to be there for her and I see now that I’ve made mistakes while trying to do that and it’s been brought to bear. Recently I attempted to articulate a boundary with her and she tore me apart and “aimed for my soul”, she has that capacity unlike any one I’ve ever met. I pulled back. Later she’s pleading with me to understand her and basically trying to manipulate me into behaving towards her the way she wants. I can’t, she’s not safe and yes, I know there are many reasons why she is the way she is and that’s something Daniel is pointing out in this video… she’s experienced my embracing her and feeling for her and with her and now she expects it no matter what. I stated the boundary and she attacked it and proceeded to literally cross it. It horrifies me. I know, ‘Relinquishment Trauma’. But I can’t change what happened and I feel like she expects me to be both her punching bag when she wants one and her loving, empathetic brother when she wants that. It’s so complicated that I don’t see a path forward unless she were to enter into therapy perhaps. I feel devastated around this, she IS a sister. I’ve been in therapy for over 35 years having been sexually abused, alcoholic father and yes, a beautiful but traumatized and depressed mother. I’m ready and available to engage in a healing process but I’m human and I have limits and I’ve learned to create some boundaries over the years. So, again, the timing of this video in my feed today is kind of “wow”. I’m going to listen to this again and take notes and try and find a way to better understand and support myself in this situation. Thank you, Daniel, I adore you. Your friend, Eldon.🙋🏼♂️❤️
This is video is sparking so many interesting ideas in my head. As I have studied about the microbiome and the things we are learning about the role that microbiota have in sort of co-creating our bodies, I learned that our microbiomes interact when we are in the physical presence of one another. Moreover, the microbiota impact and affect our propioception (our awareness of what is happening inside our bodies). I wonder if empathy is partly what results when we can pay attention to the changes inside us caused by microbiome interactions. The second thing this really clued me into is the sadism my father exhibits pretty openly. He used to enjoy making us cry and laughing at us when we were very little. I am not educated on sadism but from you description I wonder if it's just a really extreme way for someone to displace their own pain onto others.
„To take my power back“, yes, that is, what it is all about. My power is to keep calm inside like a big silent sea, that keeps being silent, no matter, what happens in the outside world. On this planet, the most important theater skript is about who has the power and who gives the power.
Projective Iddentification Is a lot more deep and sinister.. They do, say stuff, treat you in ways, to get you to become the way they want to see you. Its not necessarily that they actually believe you are these things. Its a defense mechanism to make you behave badly so they won't feel bad about themselves. And you as the target actually start to behave in these ways. In this way you feel you have a big part in creating this toxic dynamic but its wasn't really you. Thats why its so hard to know whos the problem in these dynamics and we question ourselves a lot because of the out of character, weird and unhealthy behaviors we engage in once the process of projective identification is complete .. Very deep and scary stuff. Very hard to see even when you know what it is. It still happens to me from time to time and i have to catch myself before i get too involved in this
Right. He doesn't talk about the actions that transfer the feeling. I suddenly hated someone (who until then, was merely annoying). Hated her guts! Engaged (once) in reactive abuse. I previously did not have a clue about what real hatred feels like at a personal level. But I still can't quite work out whether the projected emotion was hatred of self, or hatred of me.
Daniel thank you. This was exquisitely described and powerfully and painfully resonated. I’m so grateful for your sharing and clarity. I have some boundaries and distancing to do with family who do just this. Liberation calls. Thank you again.
100% my life, thanks for putting into words. I say goodbye to this role. And feel free than ever before. Developing boundries and healthy empathy is the key. No empathy for people who use you and dont accept your true self
From the moment I saw the title of the video I identified with it and knew it will be difficult to watch, for me. I can totally relate and even though I watched only half of the video, I need to take a break, digest what you said and come try to watch it again at a later time, when the first half sinks in. Thank you for talking about this.
I love this so much. I never realised I was doing this, accepting the feelings of others ... and that I felt obligated to, felt like I had no right to put up a wall ... It almost feels as though if I don't accept other people's projections, especially the narrative that it's me feeling these things and not them, then I don't deserve love. Wow isn't that just awful ... and twisted. And so liberating to identify and gain control over. Agency over. It's like you've been gaslit into allowing someone to control your feelings, take on feelings that aren't yours, believe you're the one going through them, and keeping the flood gates open to allow them in whenever they want ... It's like a nightmare! Some kind of horror you'd see in the movie Dune
Thanks for the great videos! I do realise I do things unconsciously very often, feeling like acting out a hidden script of helping others. When I reject my parents and other people's manipulation, I feel really bad.
It’s sad to see when their little child comes out. I to am an empath. Most people I meet are not. When I feel someone’s feelings it drains me though. I had a long weekend…dealt with some toxic people which left me depressed and suicidal so I took the day off from work to sleep and felt so refreshed the next day. Then today I watched your video on needy love and realized what I’ve been doing wrong all the 37 years. Lol! I looked at my boss and said, “wow God is giving me a lot of clarity about people and even myself and the guy I’m with.” He looks at me and says, “what are you gonna do about it?” I said, “I’m not sure.” His response, “just don’t sin.” I told him then “everyone’s toxic.” Lol! And I just walked away.
Thanks Daniel, this has been most helpful to me. I first heard of "projected identification" 40 years ago and learned to understand it somewhat when viewing others. Now I see how it applies to me and my upbringing. Suddenly, my psychological bounderies are clearer! Never too old to gain better understanding! I greatly appreciate your effort with this video.
Empathy is beautiful and the world needs more of it. We live in a world that is becoming less empathetic everyday. As long as you can distinguish the difference between yourself and others and keep it in perspective instead of letting it overwhelm you. It sounds like it could be quite a benefit to get a more complete sense of who people really are. Thank you for your videos.
This is such a fascinating and incredibly useful perspective to take to investigate your own feelings, thank you. It’s so weird you can feel someone else’s feelings and neither of you realise
To be interested opens up. If you are not interested, your are closed. But one has to be very conscious, to recognize this very tiny, fast moment when you are interested.
What you describe sounds to me like a continuation of the pattern your parents taught you, with just a bit of a twist, whereby you judge someone negatively and then experience yourself what you believe should rightly be their guilt or shame or despair, rather than telling them you've judged them so, because you're smart and presumably some part of you is aware that that'd actually just be you externalizing your feelings onto them, and you have nowhere else to dump that judgy feeling you created. Aren't feelings strange? Anyway no amount of feeling things on behalf of others is empathy if it doesn't take their side, if it isn't intrinsically a feeling of solidarity; everything else is your projection, what you think they should be feeling. I hope it doesn't seem like I come here just to harsh on you, Daniel. I'm just trying to figure myself out too, and I really respect and appreciate and learn from what you're doing. Thanks for putting this stuff out there
EXACTLY.. and how amazing to just have these dynamics stated as simple facts! To think of the years and years and years….that I knew all if this was true.. but it ‘wasn’t allowed to be true’ .. I was a bad person for even thinking to criticise my poor ‘doing their best’ parents in any way .. all children were bad who did this.
Wow, I was that for my family. Especially a sis that has NPD, she’d shift her feelings over to me as to carry for her. She always kept me near her then blamed me for everything in her life. I was at work and when I came home she stated she broke a glass and it was my fault. I though wow, she can’t even admit she broke a glass. Her need to be perfect she can’t even take responsibility. She has turned the entire family against me with her lies. I wonder how she is getting along since she would claim the hate she felt was coming from me. Will she pick a new scapegoat? As I healed and don’t take responsibility anymore I have been disowned even by my own children. If I’m not paying and doing things for others they have no need for me.
My parents did this to me. I was expected to just accept all their labelling. Sensitive, defensive, "angry".... the irony is that my mother doesn't recognise her passive aggression as anger. But any attempt to be heard (through communication) is "aggression" and is shut down instantly. They give me the silent treatment or the cold shoulder, but also deny it. They never contact me. Im no use unless I am that screen. I feel more like a spittoon than a screen.
Wow! That's my story, that you are telling. Am so relieved that I found your video today. I feel so validated und even empowered. Always thought, I was crazy. At least, that's what they wanted me to identify as. Am so glad that I'm not the only one to survive this kind of childhood. Thank you SO much.
My story exactly!! Once I realized that, I had to grieve so much and do the inner work of excavating my true self. Now I ask myself often "How do I feel? What do I want?" when I feel stuff coming from other people. Most are unconscious and projecting, and they don't even know it. I feel very empowered when I catch the projection and I am able to reflect it back without taking in on/trying to make them feel better/consoling them. Emotional intelligence needs to be taught as school - processing difficult feelings is something most people don't have a clue how to do/have never been taught.
This has been deeply relieving, insightful, and healing. Thank you for explaining this. I thought I must be crazy to have noticed these effects of an intimate partners denied projections.
Thank you .I can relate so much . This is so critical in understanding one's behaviour attached /entangled with past generational unresolved traumas. I feel so far from my inner self, I feel I live my life so loyally, adequately, to my owners fears, principles, rules and perspectives about life. Yes I feel owned, I feel I owe my life to those who gave it to me and need to conform to the role they subconsciously given me. My only satisfaction, as I see my life passing by, is to feel them released from the pain they can't own. In that way, I don't dare break free, in that sense they are kids who haven't been given the tools to understand or heal their traumas. I don't have kids. Kids are made to release their parents from their unresolved traumas indeed (in unhealthy family system). I don't want to reproduce nor perpetuate what have been done to me.
I am currently training to become a humanistic therapist. During sessions, I've noticed that I also have the problem you described. I brought it up with my Gestalt therapist and lecturer, and after a short break, during which a lot happened energetically, he said: 'Next time this happens, say inwardly to the person: You Feel .' I still absorb the emotions, but this mantra 'You Feel ' also sets a boundary so that the client keeps their emotions with them, and yet I still know what's going on emotionally. I wanted to share this with you, it might help someone else too!
due to the pandemic, i was able to be alone in my home for 18 months hanging out with the river, woodland creatures, internet, front porch and pets, etc i felt secure, unpressured and following natural rhythms when i returned to my first social engagement, i noticed how gentle my energy and thoughts were... i remember feeling like my primary feeling was kindness, it just was there when all the "modern requirements" had been held off and i "reset" all this to say that when i moved to my parents to support my mom as she passed away, i could feel their vitriol infiltrating my awareness like a tide coming in all the internal blueprints for surviving in that household returned and it was a really clear indicator of what formed some of my least desirable interpersonal and intrapersonal habits im grateful bc it giving me a chance to understand and heal these aspects but its like realizing you were raised by bad guys
we lived out the exact same family role, realizations, and almost identical healing process !!! (Mine took several years of searching for answers to everything, and a tremendously uphill determination towards finding any sense of clarity!) I have come so very far now, far enough to have gained so much from what I can actually now see much more clearly :)
I agree. I guess what should be distinguished would be being grabbed and taken over by someone´s burried or not so burried feelings and resonating with a person so that you still feel your own feelings but you can also tap into something like the experience of the other person in a controlled way that is not liable to overwhelm you or make you step over your boundaries. I am not sure if that makes sense, but I guess so.
I started learning 4 or 5 years that most of my relatives and especially my mother are very narcasistic or psychopathic towards me and always were. I wish I would have learned about them many years, decades earlier. Im 53 years old now. To late. They've stolen everything from me especially the the most important things like a home and family. I think I would do some of this same kind of thing you're talking about here too. It's disgusting to think about the crap
Oh so true, my mother's wounded martyred stance is RESPECT OUR RIGHT to label you. (Paranoid, sensitive, angry, insane, entitled). It did hurt so much. But yes after about 3 years I understand they rejected me yeh but they never knew me.
I had already identified with what you say about feeling our parents felt when they were traumatised children as a way of unconsciously trying to gain love from them. My sisters refuse to see what we experienced and I will not discuss it with them because I will not be coerced into continuing with the lie of what we should have had versus the truth of what I ( and they) really had.
I accidentally got cut off on my lost comment. I sickening to think about how much I've lost or just had stolen from me by my mother and other relatives. I'm really scared wondering what I'm going to do. I've been on a tiny VA disability income since 1999 and have nothing for my future. If I would have learned about what mom was by 2001 I could have still at least had some family and a really nice home but didn't know till just a few years ago. God bless anyone affected by these kind of people.
Excellent video. When I once talked yo someone on the theme of reincarnation (which I did kot necessarily have thought of before at that stage), I said, that I feel as if I am my mother! Now I know it was an enmeshed family situation. I never had the opportunity to be "a self".
One thing I've been thinking about lately - what happens when ... a parent ... feels weak and doesn't support themselves, and wants you as the child to be weak too, so that they can project that onto you ... but discourages you to be stronger, to hold your back up straight ... it's so confusing because love is often a kind of support, but what if you are "loving" your child by keeping them in a state where they need you ... what do you call that? How that can screw up your idea of love ... and of yourself. Am I weak? I get so lost when I feel vulnerable or want to connect with someone - am I ... making myself weak in order to connect? Is that how I got to connect when I was a child? When my therapist says it's a good thing having vulnerability I wanna say something feels off ... Like I can't trust my own vulnerability. I really think it can be bad ... like I should be holding myself up here ... I still can't figure out what the difference is ....
Thanks for another timely share, Daniel! Have you considered doing some sort of podcast? I'd love to hear you in discussion with someone like Gabor Mate` or anyone you may find inspiring.
Hey Daniel, I was curious if you'd be interested in exploring a disturbing topic that has to do with childhood trauma. There's seemingly a small industry of mental health professionals that help "estranged parents" to connect with their children and deal with the issue (Tina Gilbertson for example), and also "estranged parents" peer support forums where these parents give their own perspective on the issue...often very disturbingly so. I think it might be worth looking into and critiquing. I'd be curious to hear your perspective.
Wow! This video really hit home. I had a narcissistic and controlling dad and mom was weak and to caring and giving. Dad died after my older brothers and sister left but I was still at home. I left home but kept in speaking to her. My brothers and sister didn't. When mom died she left us a bunch of money. Like a LOT! They collected it even though they didn't visit or go to her funeral. Maybe I sould have been like them and said f*ck u mom, instead of waiting hours for her to die. Thanks so much for the video. I fell much better.
I am grateful for all the videos, but this video was a revelation! How could I not see that this was what I was experiencing all my life with my parents, relatives, my husband and many "friends"? What would have happened if I had seen it when I was a child? I wouldn't have survived. So I chose to survive, but I lost myself. No question why I was (and still am) feeling like a child, throughout my adult life... And now I have to find me again and end this viscous cycle before it passes on to the next generation... Hope there is still hope...
I felt that when you mentioned anorexia. Whenever I see someone who is likely anorexic, I feel pain and sickness and hurt in my body, to where I honestly hate seeing people with anorexia. To me, it feels like I'm feeling all the pain that they should be feeling, but aren't and it's like them being anorexic puts it all on me to have to feel.
Oh yeh... my mother is so repressed. She is always trying to shame me in to feeling x y or z. I used to fall for it. Now I call her out on it and she has raised herself up to her full martyred height, trashed me to the relatives and is giving me silent treatment. Ok. Very painful and frustrating but detaching from this bit by bit.
I'm trying to figure out what to do with this feeling of hyper-empathy and my sense that I don't have a true self identity. I have definitely grown up as the mirror, particularly for my mom. I was basically her therapist. I was "the Good Child." I felt the pressure to be perfect when my sister explored natural childhood rebellion. ("I can't overwhelm my parents with TWO difficult children...") In the last two years I've made significant progress in stopping that and it's helped, but she's still a very important person in my life and she has a lot of pains, so I can't just cut myself off. Obviously there is a way to have healthy empathy. I just don't know how. And then I run into these weird conundrums where my twin sister (love her dearly, we are quite different though) will be having intense emotions and I will want to comfort her but at the same time, all I can feel is "get away, I don't want to feel this." I guess I'm overwhelmed by the unwanted emotions. So I have this cycling fear that I'm not actually a very good person, I just play pretend well. I'm just a good mirror because ultimately I do know my general survival tactic for... socializing is to mainly be neutral. I am only reacting to other people. My only sense of self is who or what I am to or for other people. But then I just learned about this phrase "projective identification" and I'm like, oh no, am I not actually empathetic? Am I just projecting my own emotions onto the other person? I honestly don't feel like I've had a whole ton of experience navigating complex socializing because I've been so avoidant, anxious and introverted my whole life. I've graduated college and every year with my roommates I would describe it as, "We existed in the same room." Making friends is very hard. Keeping them is hard. I don't know where I'm going with this. Everyone always seems to fall back on "childhood trauma" and I really don't think (or want to think) my parents were abusive in any way. The only thing I relate to most is emotional neglect, but even that feels wrong because I know my mom loves me so much. Having children has been essentially her true purpose in life and she would agree with me. She's great. But she also used me as a therapist, and she was very sick for many years, so maybe those were the emotional neglect years. IDK. Her partner is a whole other can of worms.
Both of them definitely have serious trauma from their childhood so there's that. Her partner is seriously emotionally stunted and cold. She's caused the most distress in my childhood for sure. Maybe there's something in there about how super emotional Mom was and then how emotionally unavailable her partner was. I'm getting hit by two extremely different but intense emotional experiences at once. I don't know. I'm very lonely and have been for as long as I can remember. I had noticeable anxiety (social and gen) in _kindergarten_ for crying out loud. So yeah. Here I am having another identity crisis in the middle of the night thinking "oh no what if I'm really a bad person and something's broken and it's going to be even harder to bond than I thought."
You had to side with them against you. Feel their feelings not your own. Yes. This is it. My feelings aren't even second because to acknowledge that I have feelings is q massive act of aggression I perpetrate against them. I am the aggressor, they are the victims of me.
What about labels? My parents have always told me I'm paranoid. When I get annoyed and say no I'm not, in fact, I'm too trusting. Then they call me sensitive. I point out that I can't win. They act hurt. (Their sensitivity is valid though). I try to talk to them. They shut down. They label me angry and mad. I'm left reeling. I feel sane and yet my parents accuse me of everything under the sun and I feel wronged, unseen, unheard, manipulated and silenced. Is that how they feel? Is that what they want me to feel for them?
Man, when i see you i am allready better!!My whole life sucks, from chronical sicknesess, to having both parents die, mother used to drink, she felt lonely not having any friends as widow, she cried alot....war was going on but ended (Croatia-then Yugoslavia), she dies,...then financial crisis came, i literally after graduating colledge felt like i am living dead, walking asking my self is this real or am i dead. People seem to be like without light, streets were empty, my brother got married and left i got aloooooneeee, completly&and now 2 I am alone. He wants to split, and now he is deciding with his wife what he wants to take cause he is the one that has money whill i am almost broke!!! You can help! Thnx Just make all thoes videos, there are many people with agorophobia, self hatred, lack of self esteem....left or mistreated by parents...and whats more obvious, today being just another lost person!
I literally realised this a few weeks back... that the way my family raised me (shutting out my feelings and not burdening them with my problems and becoming an emotional dumping site for them) groomed me to tolerate the same thing from friends...and so at a point of my life I realised that the reason I was miserable was because I was surrounded by toxic company. Healthy people have better friends because they don't tolerate this unequal dynamic and double standard.
Unhealthy people attract unhealthy people. I hope you are doing better after the year that has passed since you wrote your comment, and I hope my own journey with this principle can be improved as well.
It's hard to learn how to differentiate between healthy/unhealthy attention when you've been brought up by unhealthy.
I struggle with this also. And it is SO hard to even point out to someone when they're being hurtful, cause it's all so subtle and socially acceptable, even encouraged
❤
@@allthe1YES!!!!! it's so hard to point out those unhealthy behaviors when everyone thinks it's normal.
Here’s another reason one might accept the identification: when someone projects things they can’t handle onto you, that person experiences a sense of relief, and when you see their relief, it can cause you to believe that you have done something helpful for them, and then, out of a sincere desire to be helpful, you start accepting their projections more and more in the belief that you are somehow soothing the other person and facilitating their wellbeing, until one day you realize that actually this is not producing sincere wellbeing for either you or the other person. Eventually, most of us realize that no matter how much we try to feel someone else’s feelings for them, that person is still haunted by their own pain and nothing short of confronting their own pain will ever free them if it. When we realize that we are enabling their dysfunction rather than supporting their healing, that can free us from the cycle.
Very well explained 👍
💯 Agree & resonate
The scapegoat. The violation of the self. Brilliant.
Oh my goodness, I was not allowed to be myself so badly, and even now my parents do not accept my personality. It crippled me severely, damaged me. I do not feel I have a right to have an opinion and to reject a man I do not want. I feel guilty if I reject a decent guy who I am not attracted to. I feel I have no right to reject someone just because I am not attracted or unhappy. My friend`s young daughter told me a couple days ago "you are under no obligation to date a guy you do not want to date, even if he is a good guy". It was like a revelation for me
I’m the same.. why are we like this ?
@@clairebanksx I was not able to say no, because I did not want the other person to feel rejected.
This reminds me of Pia Melody work on shame, and how growing up with shameless parents makes you feel their shame for them and be shameful..
As a child, I wanted to help others by being a psychologist or counselor. When the time came, I thought of taking that path, but I did not. I knew that I would not handle that job well. I had no words to explain "lack of boundaries" at that time, even to myself. I literally had no grasp of what boundaries even were or why they mattered. Thank you for explaining this process so clearly. It fits my experience and helps me understand myself and my own history better.
Not allowed to have a self. You were raised to be a mirror and absorber of their energy. You were transforming their feelings.
Exactly.
Wow...damn, you hit the nail with this one. I was trying to explain to my teenager son how the bullies project their own feelings onto more empathetic kids.This is very good explanation!
Please do what you can to actively remove your child from the grasp of abusive peers. There is absolutely no difference in them "getting to him" at school than if they broke down the door to your home and beat him up and harassed and abused him in his own home. Understanding bullies is not helpful to their victims. REMOVE your child from environments where they are being used to provide prey for vicious children. NO EXCUSES on why not to. The school is not interested in your son's well being. If they were they wouldn't create traumatizing environments and then try to help people "cope" with them. They are actively ruining your child's education. Stop it now and rescue him.
@@tahiyamarome Thank you for saying this.
@@tahiyamarome thank you for speaking sense
Both protective action and helping the child understand could be warranted. The goal of helping the child understand where that projected pain comes from would be to help him see that it is not his pain and there is nothing “bad” in him that merits such treatment. It could help him dis-identify from the projection, which might not occur if he is just “rescued by Mommy” without also being given a framework in which to understand what happened to him and why it was painful. The first step, unless immediate physical protection is necessary, is likely to empathize with the child who actually received the bullying - validate his reality before explaining anyone else’s pain, and then get a sense of what would be most empowering for him. Depending on his age and resources, extracting him from the situation might not be the most empowering thing for him. Attunement to his needs is important, and only a sensitive, present caregiver can perform that attunement. Those of us extrapolating from comments on the internet are just making guesses in the dark.
I definitely feel other people’s feelings…but I’ve learned how NOT to make them MY feelings. It took a long time to learn how to do this but I’m a sensitive and extremely empathic, so it was very difficult to do. You have to “undo” a learned cognition and it wasn’t until my later adult years that I figured out how to make their feelings theirs and keep my feelings my own. I learned boundaries a bit late in life…but better late than never!
Same here!
what are some of your tips for this Maisie? I think I'm getting better but I could always use some advice
Same, Maizie H.
×2
This is so true! It’s not empathy, it’s like borrowing the other’s feelings so that they can heal. Nobody teaches you how to protect yourself from this phenomenon. Do you know, Daniel?
I think it's worse than this. it's borrowing another person's capacity to feel their own yucky feelings for them so that they can feel Superior to that yucky feelings receptacle. they are just getting high basically
The only way you can truly protect yourself from this mess is by knowing yourself. Knowing where you begin and where the other person ends. Whose emotions are whose. And this is so frustrating because when it's happening to you as a child, you don't know who you are, because you're still trying to develop your Self. Ugh. The only thing that helped me was time and space away from super-enmeshed people. Which, again, as a child growing up with parents like this... isn't really an option.
This is precisely what I identified had happened between myself and the man who was grooming me when I was a 12/13 year old kid (nothing specifically *illegal* ended up happening, but it was well on its way there - still enough for it to cause substantial harm), toward the end of the "relationship" when things "went south" (of course in retrospect I can recognize I'm fortunate to have gotten out of the situation sooner rather than later, as ugly and distressing as it was). I became the receptacle for the shame and guilt he absolutely refused to feel himself. And I really, really believed it, I truly internalized those things. That I was sick, that I was a bad person, that I'd done something terribly wrong, even that I was manipulative and predatory, in a way - I even had this tremendous guilt around the idea that I *made* him look like a pedophile, this poor innocent guy who's life I had been a scourge on. Even without those things getting stated explicitly, he was acting out that attribution of shame and guilt that he refused to have for himself in implicit, suggested ways, powerful enough for it to become a deeply felt internalized belief in me, that took a tremendous amount of work to undo. I have heard this many times in others' stories - even without being told directly how awful and to blame they ought to feel, kids who have been s******y a****d will often absorb the feelings of shame and guilt and blame and responsibility, as the type to s******y a***e kids are often so deeply invested in refusing the guilt and responsibility that ought to come along with it, in painting themselves as blameless and even as the victim.
Beyond the s** a**** stuff, he was in general deeply invested in projecting an image of himself as a wonderfully kind, caring, empathetic guy, and was obsessed with having that confirmed to him. He seemed to want nothing more in the world than to be wanted and needed and important and to have that confirmed to him in over-the-top ways. If he was especially slighted by your failure to help maintain that self image, you suddenly became aware of how utterly conditional that "empathy" was. I can imagine it would be utterly brutal for him if people actually became aware of the sort of person he was and the kinds of things he was willing to do. I don't know of a sort of person who would be MORE invested in banishing any sort of blame or culpability from their person.
It took me a very long time to recognize how utterly disproportionate that level of shaming and reprimand was, compared to what I had actually done "wrong", how unrealistic and unfair it was to expect a kid that young in that situation to behave any differently, to place so much guilt and shame on them. There was a moment when I could sort of see it from the outside and realized... "wow, that's really, really *extreme*." Irrationally extreme levels of guilt and shame for "what I'd done."
And then a bit later on, upon better recognizing the truth of what had taken place, what he was really doing, it occurred to me... The feelings I had been feeling about myself were *precisely* appropriate for someone who had behaved in the way he'd behaved, done the things he'd done, had the intentions he had. Right down to feeling guilty and ashamed for being "manipulative" and "predatory" and "perverted" and having come in and totally fucked up the life of a clueless, innocent person. I was literally feeling HIS feelings for him, so he didn't have to.
As painful as all of this is, I find it remarkable and fascinating that I was able to internalize all of that so deeply and so intensely, without being explicitly told those things, almost as if it were tangibly being extricated from his self and implanted into me. I imagine though it is just one possibility in the ever mysterious and complex system of human interpersonal dynamics, and that he had spent so much time growing up in a system that took part in this sort of projection, and learned the behavior so early on as a defense against shame, that he intuitively and automatically understands how to effectively shift all of those unwanted and denied attributes and emotions onto "willing" others.
Your comment and the video make me think that the metaphor of demonic possession seems quite useful here - and terrifyingly so. To be a child and become possessed by the spirits of adults or intergenerational patterns without any defences or help.
A lot of parents using Thier kids as therapists. Horrible
Therapists, caregivers, slaves, scapegoat, crap, ...
Wow my grandma did this often but she played the victim and got into everyone else’s business because she didn’t want to ever deal with her pain. I’m the same now but at the age of 37 I’m realizing what love is and what infatuation is and seeing where God leads me.
I do think there is a transpersonal element to this phenomenon, where the person in denial can be deeply enmeshed in reality and channelling what they deny upon it, unconsciously wishing others to be what they hate in themselves. Great work as always Daniel God bless you sir.
Yes, from an esoteric standpoint, this might be true. Just thougt about the same :). They share the same reality as me, but seem not to notice my sadness, anger or grief, because they have denied their own. But maybe it's my paranoia?
@@budda777pl No, I’m a case in point here. He’s spot on.
Its exactly what projective indentification is about
I have attempted to articulate this very thing in my journal many times. You have articulated this very well. Thank you so much.
What a spot on video. Empathy or sympathy? Empathy is to acknowledge, comprehend someone's feelings. Sympathy, or, "feeling sorry"for them, through repeated conditioning as a means of punishment. You do Feel what they feel. You have to. In order to predict what they'll do and to "learn" them. I used to get in trouble for daydreaming and pretending to have a life without Their personal problems. And this is disassociation. Yes. I, too, wasted my life on my parents' personal problems. These people have nothing to give. They're just Takers. Unless you know what tbry are and are determined to get their "gift" of inheritance they won't share because its there only to get you to owe them till they die. And just you living under their roof, you owe them. A second of their time, you owe them. Because they're So special. Remember? They Try harder. Well, I would have been able to try harder if my parent had stopped constantly criticizing me constantly. And i would have had clarity of thought to be able to think for myself.. And I could never catch up to their expectations. So I gave up. What other choice do you have? The list of requirements just kept changing. Like a revolving door, depending on the audience. Their audience. We were just too much trouble to tolerate because we weren't a perfect reflection of them. And now, i wonder what my mother really saw when she looked at me. I think she saw a failure. And that Was what was projected onto me. I was a disappointment. No matter what i did. I remember practing the piano with her in the room. I could'nt play or think at all. I was too nervous. . And that's when all the fun began. Might as well have fun and show her that she was so Right about my "character". They expect it anyways. And I was more than glad to prove them Right. And that is karma I didnt understand. And it dies hurt us too. Some people just never get enough attention, do they? Until the day they die. These types of people should not be allowed to adopt children. I was disappointed Too. I highly recommend the 1986 movie "Seize the Day" with Robin Williams. If you need some answers to what you' experienced, please watch this movie. All these abused do is pass down their pain and see nlthing wrong with emotionally torturing their babies. Im right there with you Daniel. Took me a while to see it, but I do. And I'll be dammed if I pass it down to my children waste their lives too, working out the emotional problems of a complete stranger. From decades ago.
Thank you so much Daniel. This is exactly what I needed to hear today. And it's amazing how easy it is to fall back into carrying crap that isn't ours to carry, because they programmed us that way. No thanks; I'm DONE!
YES!! This is very, very, very relatable to me. Everything you describe in your parents I experienced with mine, which primed me for this very same pattern in my adult relationships with emotional abuse, overextending my empathy and not giving myself nearly enough. It's just this past year that I'm showing myself how to set boundaries, effectively cutting both parents out of my life and reclaiming my own personal freedom.
I'm also strengthening my boundaries to prevent people from projecting not only emotions but responsability for their actions and life choices
@@Sketch_Sesh Yes to this, too! ..just Yes.
Hey Sarah, I went no contact with the family 10 years ago, hardest thing I ever did but I was pretty much forced to do it. Took some time before I went through a major awakening, I'm wondering if anything like this has happened to you? Visit my lil chan here if ya get time, may find something helpful. Stay strong.
@@TheBlackSheepDiaries I'm definitely going through some major awakenings as well--I'd love to check out your channel. Thank you!
@@sarahritt.creates Awesome and you're quite welcome! It's a roller coaster ride for sure, hold on tight, but it's worth the ride if you are ready to endure the lows that come with it. I'm not an expert like Daniel here, and I throw in a lot of other stuff like hobbies and stories to keep things light, but hopefully some of it may be helpful, that's the only reason I do it. Hope you're having a great weekend!
Daniel, it would be great if you speak in one of your videos on the theme of emotional manipulation. How people who were taught by parents to serve their emotional needs in adulthood can be easily manipulated by others. Thanks for all the content, it is gold!
I have experienced this my entire life- it makes sense coming from the family of origin that I do.
"I wasn't raised to have feelings..." Chilling.
Great topic Daniel.
Oh wow! It finally makes sense why my mom gets upset telling me about things in her past. She wants me to feel bad yet I don't. I learned not to care. Thanks for the insight!
Excellent work, congrats.
You don't have to feel bad about things in her past but you could try to help her understand that its not her fault and help her get beyond them.
This perfectly describes what I’ve been trying to explain to people. The word “empath” gets used but, I’m like “No, it’s more than that!” I say I feel “permeable”. I
Am implementing boundaries but I just long to be understood without my past having to be in the foreground of how this ability came into play. Thanks Daniel. Just thanks. 🙂
I was the exact same child to a histrionic covert narc mother and reactive codependent father. I was her little garbage can, and she never wanted to me to grow up and leave her...bc then, who would identify with her awful projections? She would rage at my every milestone, bc it was another step away from me leaving her. She went out of her way to create an emotional dependence within me, to stifle and cripple any attempt I had a psychological and functional/real world individuation. I then became dependent on another person who was even more nefarious and dark. Recovering from codependency was the most incredible experience and I'm so grateful to have had the strength to create a defined self. And when you cut those psychic umbilical cords, you can let go of the fully formed ego and become a true Self. Anyway, what a wonderfully worded video!
Locked narcissists want us to sympathize with them .... But in a way that doesn't force them to face their history and behavior at all. They want the good, but reject the painful.
Very interesting subject.
Which also reminds us that there are at least 4 kinds of empathy (emotional, cognitive, compassionate, mirror,...) and that each of them can help us to understand certain things, but also constitute potential traps for the one who feels them.
Wow this sure sums up some of the people in my life that I no longer have relationships with. I always wondered why I felt sick after talking to some of these people, or just depressed. It sucks being an empath sometimes.
very fucked up people seek me out like a heat seeking missile it's insane
I’m both an empath and I dumb my emotions on people I needed this video
Ironically,even if the perpetrators took a lot from their victims,they never feel been fulfilled or healed
Gosh I love this. I can relate and have this year (at 50 years old) starting setting boundaries with friends and family that feel entitled. I now feel empowered instead of guilty (most of the time it’s a work in progress), in choosing to spend time with people that encourage and uplift me rather than re-traumatise me. You took the words out of my mouth in this video. I appreciate and value your gift of humanity here 🙏🙏💖💖🌸🌸
This is way beyond awesome !
Sounds like the totally 'sick' Family System I grew up in.
I proudly regard you as a Mentor when it comes to Men and their Mental Health.
This video appears in my feed today… Profound timing… it’s packed full with insight. I met a sister that my mom gave up for adoption 2 years before I was born 4 years ago and it has been a painful and destructive experience for many reasons. Our mom transitioned before they could meet. I’ve tried to be there for her and I see now that I’ve made mistakes while trying to do that and it’s been brought to bear. Recently I attempted to articulate a boundary with her and she tore me apart and “aimed for my soul”, she has that capacity unlike any one I’ve ever met. I pulled back. Later she’s pleading with me to understand her and basically trying to manipulate me into behaving towards her the way she wants. I can’t, she’s not safe and yes, I know there are many reasons why she is the way she is and that’s something Daniel is pointing out in this video… she’s experienced my embracing her and feeling for her and with her and now she expects it no matter what. I stated the boundary and she attacked it and proceeded to literally cross it. It horrifies me. I know, ‘Relinquishment Trauma’. But I can’t change what happened and I feel like she expects me to be both her punching bag when she wants one and her loving, empathetic brother when she wants that. It’s so complicated that I don’t see a path forward unless she were to enter into therapy perhaps. I feel devastated around this, she IS a sister. I’ve been in therapy for over 35 years having been sexually abused, alcoholic father and yes, a beautiful but traumatized and depressed mother. I’m ready and available to engage in a healing process but I’m human and I have limits and I’ve learned to create some boundaries over the years. So, again, the timing of this video in my feed today is kind of “wow”. I’m going to listen to this again and take notes and try and find a way to better understand and support myself in this situation. Thank you, Daniel, I adore you. Your friend, Eldon.🙋🏼♂️❤️
Every video I watch of Daniel I feel enthused to say a BIG THANK YOU. They ALL reach the spot.
This is video is sparking so many interesting ideas in my head. As I have studied about the microbiome and the things we are learning about the role that microbiota have in sort of co-creating our bodies, I learned that our microbiomes interact when we are in the physical presence of one another. Moreover, the microbiota impact and affect our propioception (our awareness of what is happening inside our bodies). I wonder if empathy is partly what results when we can pay attention to the changes inside us caused by microbiome interactions. The second thing this really clued me into is the sadism my father exhibits pretty openly. He used to enjoy making us cry and laughing at us when we were very little. I am not educated on sadism but from you description I wonder if it's just a really extreme way for someone to displace their own pain onto others.
„To take my power back“, yes, that is, what it is all about. My power is to keep calm inside like a big silent sea, that keeps being silent, no matter, what happens in the outside world. On this planet, the most important theater skript is about who has the power and who gives the power.
"He is Conan, a Cimmerian. He does not cry. So I cry for him."
Just want to add that i go back and watch your videos multiple times because i always find i missed important things the first time
Projective Iddentification Is a lot more deep and sinister..
They do, say stuff, treat you in ways, to get you to become the way they want to see you. Its not necessarily that they actually believe you are these things. Its a defense mechanism to make you behave badly so they won't feel bad about themselves. And you as the target actually start to behave in these ways. In this way you feel you have a big part in creating this toxic dynamic but its wasn't really you. Thats why its so hard to know whos the problem in these dynamics and we question ourselves a lot because of the out of character, weird and unhealthy behaviors we engage in once the process of projective identification is complete ..
Very deep and scary stuff. Very hard to see even when you know what it is. It still happens to me from time to time and i have to catch myself before i get too involved in this
Right. He doesn't talk about the actions that transfer the feeling. I suddenly hated someone (who until then, was merely annoying). Hated her guts! Engaged (once) in reactive abuse. I previously did not have a clue about what real hatred feels like at a personal level. But I still can't quite work out whether the projected emotion was hatred of self, or hatred of me.
Yup scary stuff for sure
Daniel thank you. This was exquisitely described and powerfully and painfully resonated. I’m so grateful for your sharing and clarity. I have some boundaries and distancing to do with family who do just this. Liberation calls. Thank you again.
100% my life, thanks for putting into words. I say goodbye to this role. And feel free than ever before. Developing boundries and healthy empathy is the key. No empathy for people who use you and dont accept your true self
From the moment I saw the title of the video I identified with it and knew it will be difficult to watch, for me. I can totally relate and even though I watched only half of the video, I need to take a break, digest what you said and come try to watch it again at a later time, when the first half sinks in. Thank you for talking about this.
I love this so much. I never realised I was doing this, accepting the feelings of others ... and that I felt obligated to, felt like I had no right to put up a wall ... It almost feels as though if I don't accept other people's projections, especially the narrative that it's me feeling these things and not them, then I don't deserve love. Wow isn't that just awful ... and twisted. And so liberating to identify and gain control over. Agency over. It's like you've been gaslit into allowing someone to control your feelings, take on feelings that aren't yours, believe you're the one going through them, and keeping the flood gates open to allow them in whenever they want ... It's like a nightmare! Some kind of horror you'd see in the movie Dune
Thanks for the great videos! I do realise I do things unconsciously very often, feeling like acting out a hidden script of helping others. When I reject my parents and other people's manipulation, I feel really bad.
It’s sad to see when their little child comes out. I to am an empath. Most people I meet are not. When I feel someone’s feelings it drains me though. I had a long weekend…dealt with some toxic people which left me depressed and suicidal so I took the day off from work to sleep and felt so refreshed the next day. Then today I watched your video on needy love and realized what I’ve been doing wrong all the 37 years. Lol! I looked at my boss and said, “wow God is giving me a lot of clarity about people and even myself and the guy I’m with.” He looks at me and says, “what are you gonna do about it?” I said, “I’m not sure.” His response, “just don’t sin.” I told him then “everyone’s toxic.” Lol! And I just walked away.
Wow, that is so insightful, and SO accurate. I had never taken it apart so subtly.
Thanks Daniel, this has been most helpful to me. I first heard of "projected identification" 40 years ago and learned to understand it somewhat when viewing others. Now I see how it applies to me and my upbringing. Suddenly, my psychological bounderies are clearer! Never too old to gain better understanding! I greatly appreciate your effort with this video.
Empathy is beautiful and the world needs more of it. We live in a world that is becoming less empathetic everyday.
As long as you can distinguish the difference between yourself and others and keep it in perspective instead of letting it overwhelm you. It sounds like it could be quite a benefit to get a more complete sense of who people really are.
Thank you for your videos.
This is such a fascinating and incredibly useful perspective to take to investigate your own feelings, thank you. It’s so weird you can feel someone else’s feelings and neither of you realise
To be interested opens up. If you are not interested, your are closed. But one has to be very conscious, to recognize this very tiny, fast moment when you are interested.
What you describe sounds to me like a continuation of the pattern your parents taught you, with just a bit of a twist, whereby you judge someone negatively and then experience yourself what you believe should rightly be their guilt or shame or despair, rather than telling them you've judged them so, because you're smart and presumably some part of you is aware that that'd actually just be you externalizing your feelings onto them, and you have nowhere else to dump that judgy feeling you created. Aren't feelings strange? Anyway no amount of feeling things on behalf of others is empathy if it doesn't take their side, if it isn't intrinsically a feeling of solidarity; everything else is your projection, what you think they should be feeling.
I hope it doesn't seem like I come here just to harsh on you, Daniel. I'm just trying to figure myself out too, and I really respect and appreciate and learn from what you're doing. Thanks for putting this stuff out there
EXACTLY..
and how amazing to just have these dynamics stated as simple facts!
To think of the years and years and years….that I knew all if this was true.. but it ‘wasn’t allowed to be true’ ..
I was a bad person for even thinking to criticise my poor ‘doing their best’ parents in any way .. all children were bad who did this.
Wow, I was that for my family. Especially a sis that has NPD, she’d shift her feelings over to me as to carry for her. She always kept me near her then blamed me for everything in her life. I was at work and when I came home she stated she broke a glass and it was my fault. I though wow, she can’t even admit she broke a glass. Her need to be perfect she can’t even take responsibility. She has turned the entire family against me with her lies. I wonder how she is getting along since she would claim the hate she felt was coming from me. Will she pick a new scapegoat? As I healed and don’t take responsibility anymore I have been disowned even by my own children. If I’m not paying and doing things for others they have no need for me.
What a mind fuck. Always felt like this but had difficulty expressing it in words. Loving these observations.
Yes and for me it never worked. So I tried harder. It made me such a vulnerable adult.
My parents did this to me. I was expected to just accept all their labelling. Sensitive, defensive, "angry".... the irony is that my mother doesn't recognise her passive aggression as anger. But any attempt to be heard (through communication) is "aggression" and is shut down instantly. They give me the silent treatment or the cold shoulder, but also deny it. They never contact me. Im no use unless I am that screen. I feel more like a spittoon than a screen.
Wow! That's my story, that you are telling. Am so relieved that I found your video today. I feel so validated und even empowered. Always thought, I was crazy. At least, that's what they wanted me to identify as. Am so glad that I'm not the only one to survive this kind of childhood. Thank you SO much.
My story exactly!! Once I realized that, I had to grieve so much and do the inner work of excavating my true self. Now I ask myself often "How do I feel? What do I want?" when I feel stuff coming from other people. Most are unconscious and projecting, and they don't even know it. I feel very empowered when I catch the projection and I am able to reflect it back without taking in on/trying to make them feel better/consoling them. Emotional intelligence needs to be taught as school - processing difficult feelings is something most people don't have a clue how to do/have never been taught.
This has been deeply relieving, insightful, and healing.
Thank you for explaining this.
I thought I must be crazy to have noticed these effects of an intimate partners denied projections.
Thank you .I can relate so much . This is so critical in understanding one's behaviour attached /entangled with past generational unresolved traumas. I feel so far from my inner self, I feel I live my life so loyally, adequately, to my owners fears, principles, rules and perspectives about life. Yes I feel owned, I feel I owe my life to those who gave it to me and need to conform to the role they subconsciously given me. My only satisfaction, as I see my life passing by, is to feel them released from the pain they can't own. In that way, I don't dare break free, in that sense they are kids who haven't been given the tools to understand or heal their traumas. I don't have kids. Kids are made to release their parents from their unresolved traumas indeed (in unhealthy family system). I don't want to reproduce nor perpetuate what have been done to me.
What is more delusional, to bear one's pain so they can have the courage to live on, or deny one's inner self in order to make others feel released ..
I am currently training to become a humanistic therapist. During sessions, I've noticed that I also have the problem you described. I brought it up with my Gestalt therapist and lecturer, and after a short break, during which a lot happened energetically, he said: 'Next time this happens, say inwardly to the person: You Feel .' I still absorb the emotions, but this mantra 'You Feel ' also sets a boundary so that the client keeps their emotions with them, and yet I still know what's going on emotionally. I wanted to share this with you, it might help someone else too!
due to the pandemic, i was able to be alone in my home for 18 months hanging out with the river, woodland creatures, internet, front porch and pets, etc i felt secure, unpressured and following natural rhythms when i returned to my first social engagement, i noticed how gentle my energy and thoughts were... i remember feeling like my primary feeling was kindness, it just was there when all the "modern requirements" had been held off and i "reset" all this to say that when i moved to my parents to support my mom as she passed away, i could feel their vitriol infiltrating my awareness like a tide coming in all the internal blueprints for surviving in that household returned and it was a really clear indicator of what formed some of my least desirable interpersonal and intrapersonal habits im grateful bc it giving me a chance to understand and heal these aspects but its like realizing you were raised by bad guys
5:30 wow, this "that's why they had me" got me. Great observation.
we lived out the exact same family role, realizations, and almost identical healing process !!! (Mine took several years of searching for answers to everything, and a tremendously uphill determination towards finding any sense of clarity!) I have come so very far now, far enough to have gained so much from what I can actually now see much more clearly :)
Still living this. Thank you. So insightful.
Thank you, Daniel.
this is the most beautiful video of all.
Beautiful video Daniel :-)
Wow. So well said.
You are a good guy Daniel.
Phenomenal. Thank you.
I agree. I guess what should be distinguished would be being grabbed and taken over by someone´s burried or not so burried feelings and resonating with a person so that you still feel your own feelings but you can also tap into something like the experience of the other person in a controlled way that is not liable to overwhelm you or make you step over your boundaries. I am not sure if that makes sense, but I guess so.
Amazing explanation😮
The most insightful thing I have ever listened to on feelings
Your video was very helpful to watch. Thank you and subscribed!
I started learning 4 or 5 years that most of my relatives and especially my mother are very narcasistic or psychopathic towards me and always were.
I wish I would have learned about them many years, decades earlier. Im 53 years old now. To late.
They've stolen everything from me especially the the most important things like a home and family.
I think I would do some of this same kind of thing you're talking about here too.
It's disgusting to think about the crap
Oh so true, my mother's wounded martyred stance is RESPECT OUR RIGHT to label you. (Paranoid, sensitive, angry, insane, entitled).
It did hurt so much. But yes after about 3 years I understand they rejected me yeh but they never knew me.
I had already identified with what you say about feeling our parents felt when they were traumatised children as a way of unconsciously trying to gain love from them. My sisters refuse to see what we experienced and I will not discuss it with them because I will not be coerced into continuing with the lie of what we should have had versus the truth of what I ( and they) really had.
Thank you Daniel, for sharing your feelings in such an insightful and compassionate way. I really appreciate it.
I accidentally got cut off on my lost comment.
I sickening to think about how much I've lost or just had stolen from me by my mother and other relatives.
I'm really scared wondering what I'm going to do. I've been on a tiny VA disability income since 1999 and have nothing for my future.
If I would have learned about what mom was by 2001 I could have still at least had some family and a really nice home but didn't know till just a few years ago.
God bless anyone affected by these kind of people.
Thank you for sharing this. I am just like you.
Excellent video. When I once talked yo someone on the theme of reincarnation (which I did kot necessarily have thought of before at that stage), I said, that I feel as if I am my mother! Now I know it was an enmeshed family situation. I never had the opportunity to be "a self".
It would help to give examples. But I think I have a family history like yours.
I APPRECIATE THIS. THANK YOU, THIS IS USEFUL, TRUE. BRAVO. GET RID OF EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE. LIVE YOUR LIFE. RESPECT BOUNDARIES.
Daniel, nail on head. WOW!
Oh wow perfectly said
Yet, when you needed them they really weren’t available. This gives you a sense of rejection.
Thanks for educating the clinical community _ most have no idea about this_ go figure. Your a hero 😊
It's very draining how awful people are and what we put up with. But everyone has good qualities but i couldnt deal with abuse
One thing I've been thinking about lately - what happens when ... a parent ... feels weak and doesn't support themselves, and wants you as the child to be weak too, so that they can project that onto you ... but discourages you to be stronger, to hold your back up straight ... it's so confusing because love is often a kind of support, but what if you are "loving" your child by keeping them in a state where they need you ... what do you call that? How that can screw up your idea of love ... and of yourself. Am I weak? I get so lost when I feel vulnerable or want to connect with someone - am I ... making myself weak in order to connect? Is that how I got to connect when I was a child? When my therapist says it's a good thing having vulnerability I wanna say something feels off ... Like I can't trust my own vulnerability. I really think it can be bad ... like I should be holding myself up here ... I still can't figure out what the difference is ....
Thanks for another timely share, Daniel! Have you considered doing some sort of podcast? I'd love to hear you in discussion with someone like Gabor Mate` or anyone you may find inspiring.
Hey Daniel, I was curious if you'd be interested in exploring a disturbing topic that has to do with childhood trauma. There's seemingly a small industry of mental health professionals that help "estranged parents" to connect with their children and deal with the issue (Tina Gilbertson for example), and also "estranged parents" peer support forums where these parents give their own perspective on the issue...often very disturbingly so. I think it might be worth looking into and critiquing. I'd be curious to hear your perspective.
When you are used as a trash bin.🚮
Wow! This video really hit home. I had a narcissistic and controlling dad and mom was weak and to caring and giving. Dad died after my older brothers and sister left but I was still at home. I left home but kept in speaking to her. My brothers and sister didn't. When mom died she left us a bunch of money. Like a LOT! They collected it even though they didn't visit or go to her funeral. Maybe I sould have been like them and said f*ck u mom, instead of waiting hours for her to die. Thanks so much for the video. I fell much better.
I am grateful for all the videos, but this video was a revelation! How could I not see that this was what I was experiencing all my life with my parents, relatives, my husband and many "friends"? What would have happened if I had seen it when I was a child? I wouldn't have survived. So I chose to survive, but I lost myself. No question why I was (and still am) feeling like a child, throughout my adult life... And now I have to find me again and end this viscous cycle before it passes on to the next generation... Hope there is still hope...
I felt that when you mentioned anorexia. Whenever I see someone who is likely anorexic, I feel pain and sickness and hurt in my body, to where I honestly hate seeing people with anorexia. To me, it feels like I'm feeling all the pain that they should be feeling, but aren't and it's like them being anorexic puts it all on me to have to feel.
Oh yeh... my mother is so repressed. She is always trying to shame me in to feeling x y or z. I used to fall for it. Now I call her out on it and she has raised herself up to her full martyred height, trashed me to the relatives and is giving me silent treatment. Ok. Very painful and frustrating but detaching from this bit by bit.
I'm trying to figure out what to do with this feeling of hyper-empathy and my sense that I don't have a true self identity. I have definitely grown up as the mirror, particularly for my mom. I was basically her therapist. I was "the Good Child." I felt the pressure to be perfect when my sister explored natural childhood rebellion. ("I can't overwhelm my parents with TWO difficult children...") In the last two years I've made significant progress in stopping that and it's helped, but she's still a very important person in my life and she has a lot of pains, so I can't just cut myself off. Obviously there is a way to have healthy empathy. I just don't know how.
And then I run into these weird conundrums where my twin sister (love her dearly, we are quite different though) will be having intense emotions and I will want to comfort her but at the same time, all I can feel is "get away, I don't want to feel this." I guess I'm overwhelmed by the unwanted emotions.
So I have this cycling fear that I'm not actually a very good person, I just play pretend well. I'm just a good mirror because ultimately I do know my general survival tactic for... socializing is to mainly be neutral. I am only reacting to other people. My only sense of self is who or what I am to or for other people.
But then I just learned about this phrase "projective identification" and I'm like, oh no, am I not actually empathetic? Am I just projecting my own emotions onto the other person?
I honestly don't feel like I've had a whole ton of experience navigating complex socializing because I've been so avoidant, anxious and introverted my whole life. I've graduated college and every year with my roommates I would describe it as, "We existed in the same room." Making friends is very hard. Keeping them is hard.
I don't know where I'm going with this. Everyone always seems to fall back on "childhood trauma" and I really don't think (or want to think) my parents were abusive in any way. The only thing I relate to most is emotional neglect, but even that feels wrong because I know my mom loves me so much. Having children has been essentially her true purpose in life and she would agree with me. She's great. But she also used me as a therapist, and she was very sick for many years, so maybe those were the emotional neglect years. IDK. Her partner is a whole other can of worms.
Both of them definitely have serious trauma from their childhood so there's that. Her partner is seriously emotionally stunted and cold. She's caused the most distress in my childhood for sure. Maybe there's something in there about how super emotional Mom was and then how emotionally unavailable her partner was. I'm getting hit by two extremely different but intense emotional experiences at once.
I don't know. I'm very lonely and have been for as long as I can remember. I had noticeable anxiety (social and gen) in _kindergarten_ for crying out loud. So yeah. Here I am having another identity crisis in the middle of the night thinking "oh no what if I'm really a bad person and something's broken and it's going to be even harder to bond than I thought."
You had to side with them against you. Feel their feelings not your own. Yes. This is it.
My feelings aren't even second because to acknowledge that I have feelings is q massive act of aggression I perpetrate against them. I am the aggressor, they are the victims of me.
Ty
0:59 - I hate those people.
What about labels? My parents have always told me I'm paranoid. When I get annoyed and say no I'm not, in fact, I'm too trusting. Then they call me sensitive. I point out that I can't win. They act hurt. (Their sensitivity is valid though). I try to talk to them. They shut down. They label me angry and mad.
I'm left reeling. I feel sane and yet my parents accuse me of everything under the sun and I feel wronged, unseen, unheard, manipulated and silenced. Is that how they feel? Is that what they want me to feel for them?
Many times they are conscious of it but they like to toy/play with you.
Man, when i see you i am allready better!!My whole life sucks, from chronical sicknesess, to having both parents die, mother used to drink, she felt lonely not having any friends as widow, she cried alot....war was going on but ended (Croatia-then Yugoslavia), she dies,...then financial crisis came, i literally after graduating colledge felt like i am living dead, walking asking my self is this real or am i dead. People seem to be like without light, streets were empty, my brother got married and left i got aloooooneeee, completly&and now 2 I am alone. He wants to split, and now he is deciding with his wife what he wants to take cause he is the one that has money whill i am almost broke!!! You can help! Thnx Just make all thoes videos, there are many people with agorophobia, self hatred, lack of self esteem....left or mistreated by parents...and whats more obvious, today being just another lost person!
Migrate to another country if you can.