Being an overachiever. I thought I was just a go-getter, but deep inside I used to believe I would only be loved as long as I’m successful. I also realised that my perfectionism is toxic and the enemy of healthy productivity. Now I practice a lot of self-compassion, have lots of naps without guilt and have a lot of fun, which has led me to achieve almost just as much as before – because things are so enjoyable and easy as a result! I realised it’s not that serious 💛
Thinking “being low maintenance” meant never asking for help, never having needs, and thriving on emotional starvation. LOL, personality quirks, right? 😅
Disassociation. Im 34 and didnt know this was even a thing till like a year ago. I dont remember a lot of shit from my youth and the things I can remember I couldn’t tell you what year or age I was. Its weird
I thought I needed to talk about problems right away otherwise I’d get anxious. Turns out that was a panic response to being forced to talk before I was ready to when I was younger. I’m still learning to sit with my feelings & process them, but that was a huge breakthrough for me
Shutting down emotionally and mentally when I’m in a fight.
Or the same situation, I blow up and defend myself because I’ve had hypertension my entire life so my fight or flight mechanism is always on.
And I can detach from situations and forgive and forget in a matter of minutes because I lack emotional connection to most things that seem unimportant or redundant to me.
I used to flinch when people would raise their hands when talking.
I was abused as a kid, and so I think people are going to hit me because I was talking to much or did something wrong. It took years and years to get over this and I do it anymore.
People-pleasing and still not feeling „enough” after being gaslighted in a toxic relationship. Also not asking for help, thinking I’m a burden, or that there is no one that would help me and it’s all my fault in the end.
The ability to remain super calm and focused in a crisis or stressful situation. Whenever shit goes down, I’m always the one reacting quickly and calmly while people like my wife tend to freeze up. Not sure if that’s trauma related or I just have undiagnosed ADHD
Never being able to eat comfortably in front of people. Our diets were strictly monitored at home in terms of what we ate and how fast we ate it. We never ate enough and never ate at a normal speed. In the high stress anxiety of my house, I found it really hard to keep the food down and would always end up throwing up. People always commended me on my slim figure and strong table manners, but I learned later that it was because I was too anxious to keep food down, and when I was a kid, bad table manners got a huge punishment. Like even if your fork made too much noise on the plate. I thought it was normal to feel nervous eating in front of people but turns out, to the level we were dealing with it, it isn’t.
Social anxiety. I never understood what was wrong with me for always stressing and being almost fearfull around people i didn’t know at parties or gatherings etc (even around those i knew) was a shocker when i stumbled upon a subreddit about social anxiety, it all made sense and i finally recognised what i had.
Constantly saying sorry even when I have no need to, to the point people ask me why tf I am apologizing. Also isolating myself. I thought I was just an independent lone wolf, turns out I have alot of wounds from my childhood. My childhood wasn’t as healthy as I previously thought. I have some serious issues as a result. There is just alot I have been undigging lately ever since getting off my meds. When I was on SSRIs it was easy for me to just push shit aside but now I have to face all these painful thoughts.
Life is very overwhelming right now but I hope I will be okay someday
being a naturally gifted mediator. turns out I’m just incredibly good at fawning and catering to a mother with bpd’s unstable emotions made me an expert at deescalating situations quickly.
Extreme FOMO. Hyper-aware of anyone hanging out without me. Realized it was from years of emotional neglect (not being seen) which makes children think THEY are the problem, which now makes me a hypervigilant adult.
I’m a people pleaser, I absolutely hate hurting peoples feelings to the point that I will have a mental breakdown, which leads to a lot of people trauma dumping on me because I’m ~so easy to talk to~..I prided myself on being super empathetic (not an impath) ..Turns out guilt based discipline was a huge tool for my mom and most of my caregivers.
Not smiling in photographs. Turns out my mother had chipped part of my tooth when she punched me because I refused to pray with her. I was eight-ish. I blocked that memory for decades and simply thought I wasn’t into smiling (and got annoyed at people urging me to do it), until I had that fixed and then it all came back to me. Now I do smile a lot, it’s the best way to get back at that horrible moment.
Being able to compartmentalize anything. I worked the day of my mom’s wake.,5)the minute I walked into work it was work mode. After 3 years of therapy I don’t know if I could still do it to that extreme but I still do it.
Having to prove why I’m right and everything needs to be corrected and explained so the other person knows what is “correct”. Tiny example: my husband mixes up actors ALL the time, “hey that’s the guy from Pirates of the Caribbean” it clearly is not Johnny Depp but I have to force myself not to google it and prove him wrong or “shame” him. I had to learn that it’s okay to let those little things go, not everyone has to be right all the time and neither do I.
Got this from my mom. If I make a mistake it turns into a lecture and research session on why I was wrong and what is correct. I’m 28… but I’m trying to do better.
I’m a portion-freak. Everyone has to have an equal serving of a meal if I prepare it before Ill let anyone even close to the food for seconds. I thought it was just a kind of quirky side effect of having some mild OCD until my coworker and I were talking about Food Insecurity (we work at a non profit geared towards community outreach) and I realized I ticked a LOT of boxes. I’m a portion freak bc I was food insecure as a kid and it didn’t end until I was almost done with puberty. And I don’t have mild OCD. I’m just phenomenal at compartmentalizing so I can deal with my freak outs later.
Being a people pleaser. I’d never rock the boat, never say no, and would get walked on all over by everyone. I thought that if I gave myself up for others and cared for them, that they would love me. I thought so much of myself as this people pleaser that I got into psychology to become a counselor, but now that I’ve been becoming more confident in myself and setting boundaries, I’m unsure if I want to be a counselor. I still want to help people, but probably in a different way.
Babe. Im literally a walking fawn response… everyone loves me!!!! Hilarious!!! Nothing wrong here… just vibing and oversharing and terrified of your feelings and my feelings and OH MY GAWD A BOUNDARY!!! hissssss🚩🆘🚨
I thought I was just super empathetic and observant. Turns out I was just scared of people due to my childhood and learned all there is to know about human emotions to protect myself from others.
I thought I didn’t like physical touch ( cuddling, being held, falling asleep touching) but it turns out that because of who I was with and how they treated me. I crave those things now.
I have no human lie detector… I always believe the best about everyone and assume they are telling the truth until proven otherwise. It’s like a weird Pollyanna syndrome. Like I don’t believe that anyone would ever take advantage of me or lie to me or steal from me or hurt me. So I get myself in a lot of situations where I get taken advantage of.
I’m hyper independent and not emotionally open at all. I just thought I was good at regulating my emotions on my own but it’s a trauma response to religious emotional abuse
Being a night owl and having panic attacks on Sunday nights. I thought it was because I didn’t want to go to work/school on Mondays. I was in a massive earthquake when I was 14, it was on a Sunday night, I was stuck in my room as we couldn’t open my bedroom door. I only recently asked my mum the day of the earthquake and she said it was a Sunday.
Never believing that anyone actually liked me and they were either just being polite, or pretending because they wanted something.
I’m unlearning this, but it’s a challenge.
Never asking for help or asking anything from my parents or anyone else. I always felt that I would be looked down for doing so. Was raised in a toxic household, where I was looked at as a saviour and not as a kid.
Sorry everybody, but I just can’t help apologizing for literally everything I do. I could rescue a family from a house fire and still beat myself up for bruising grandma’s foot as I carried her out of there
Being introverted. I’m technically not that introverted, I just have massive distrust issues and social anxiety around people now from being hurt, excluded, and neglected.
I thought that I was naturally snarky and sarcastic, but it turns out when I’m not surrounded by a family that belittles me all the time, I’m actually very complimentary and generally kind.
i got bullied early into my childhood and that turned me into a funny guy. I think i turned funny because being funny/irrational is often seen as non threatening, so people just take you for no threat and but absolutely disrespect you so lator in life I realize now that i been bullied and it was just a survival response, i thought it was part of my personality, I hope this helps everybody, as i have to rework on myself, and for sure can tell I’m happy not have to please anyone.
Making myself physically smaller. I’m a tall girl at 5’11” and just this year I realized that when I’m feeling vulnerable, I hunch more. I haven’t had great self esteem so my posture has always been bad but I realized how bad it gets when I’m afraid of confrontation. I’m now working hard on being aware of when my posture is suffering and when my mental health is struggling.
The one that hit me the hardest was when my therapist talked to me about my sense of humor. Apparently, dark self depricating jokes are a defense mechanism. I thought I was just funny.
I used my biting wit like a poisoned dart. I was gone before you knew you were dead. I’m still funny and enjoy humor generally but I only use my powers for good now. I learned about functional boundaries and got a few. No need to defend myself in that way anymore.
Panicking when I made even a minor mistake, and trying to hide/fix it on my own; turns out, it’s okay to make mistakes, but I was so terrified of being heavily criticized, mocked, or yelled at. Still am, sometimes, it’s a work in progress.
Y’know that sharp, tightening feeling you get in your sternum when you’re having severe anxiety? Apparently it isn’t normal to feel that once or twice a day, several times a week.
It’s also not normal to treat this feeling as “regular day-to-day stress.”
I’ve been having dozens of these anxiety episodes every year for as long as I could remember. I genuinely assumed that’s how people are ‘supposed to feel’.
Comments
Anger
Detachment
Pushing away people who cared about me
Hyper independence and the ability to detach fairly easily from highly charged / emotional situations or people.
Being an overachiever. I thought I was just a go-getter, but deep inside I used to believe I would only be loved as long as I’m successful. I also realised that my perfectionism is toxic and the enemy of healthy productivity. Now I practice a lot of self-compassion, have lots of naps without guilt and have a lot of fun, which has led me to achieve almost just as much as before – because things are so enjoyable and easy as a result! I realised it’s not that serious 💛
Shutting people out that care about me.
never asking for help & feeling bad about receiving any kind of help, but being overly willing to help / accommodating of others
avoiding making any noise ever isn’t just being considerate ig ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Not being able to relax around anyone
Thinking “being low maintenance” meant never asking for help, never having needs, and thriving on emotional starvation. LOL, personality quirks, right? 😅
Waayyyy too much of it
Disassociation. Im 34 and didnt know this was even a thing till like a year ago. I dont remember a lot of shit from my youth and the things I can remember I couldn’t tell you what year or age I was. Its weird
Nightmares, very vivid Nightmares every week about the apocalypse
I thought I needed to talk about problems right away otherwise I’d get anxious. Turns out that was a panic response to being forced to talk before I was ready to when I was younger. I’m still learning to sit with my feelings & process them, but that was a huge breakthrough for me
Shutting down emotionally and mentally when I’m in a fight.
Or the same situation, I blow up and defend myself because I’ve had hypertension my entire life so my fight or flight mechanism is always on.
And I can detach from situations and forgive and forget in a matter of minutes because I lack emotional connection to most things that seem unimportant or redundant to me.
I used to flinch when people would raise their hands when talking.
I was abused as a kid, and so I think people are going to hit me because I was talking to much or did something wrong. It took years and years to get over this and I do it anymore.
My calmness. I almost never get angry
Now I realise I’ve seen so many fights and arguments since childhood, that my response was not to become like that
Going incommunicado when stressed or depressed
Personality is a trauma response.
I don’t just have my DisAssociate’s degree anymore, it is a full blown PhD at this point 😂
( and humour to cope, but shhh let’s not talk about that )
never ever ever relaxing
Perfectionism. I’d correct my own mistakes before anyone else had a chance to. I realised it was because I was terrified of being screamed at.
All of these. All of the above.
I’ve come to realize that approximately 85% of my personality is a trauma response and that’s just how I roll. 🤷♀️
Acting like a clown and pleasing people, afraid people will leave like my parent did and the ignoring after that
hyper-independence
Always expecting things to go wrong.
Going radio silent when having an argument with a loved one, just want to spiral quietly alone after. Then I feel better and panic they hate me now 🥲
People-pleasing and still not feeling „enough” after being gaslighted in a toxic relationship. Also not asking for help, thinking I’m a burden, or that there is no one that would help me and it’s all my fault in the end.
The ability to remain super calm and focused in a crisis or stressful situation. Whenever shit goes down, I’m always the one reacting quickly and calmly while people like my wife tend to freeze up. Not sure if that’s trauma related or I just have undiagnosed ADHD
Never being able to eat comfortably in front of people. Our diets were strictly monitored at home in terms of what we ate and how fast we ate it. We never ate enough and never ate at a normal speed. In the high stress anxiety of my house, I found it really hard to keep the food down and would always end up throwing up. People always commended me on my slim figure and strong table manners, but I learned later that it was because I was too anxious to keep food down, and when I was a kid, bad table manners got a huge punishment. Like even if your fork made too much noise on the plate. I thought it was normal to feel nervous eating in front of people but turns out, to the level we were dealing with it, it isn’t.
Social anxiety. I never understood what was wrong with me for always stressing and being almost fearfull around people i didn’t know at parties or gatherings etc (even around those i knew) was a shocker when i stumbled upon a subreddit about social anxiety, it all made sense and i finally recognised what i had.
Isolating myself when I get too stressed or sad
Constantly saying sorry even when I have no need to, to the point people ask me why tf I am apologizing. Also isolating myself. I thought I was just an independent lone wolf, turns out I have alot of wounds from my childhood. My childhood wasn’t as healthy as I previously thought. I have some serious issues as a result. There is just alot I have been undigging lately ever since getting off my meds. When I was on SSRIs it was easy for me to just push shit aside but now I have to face all these painful thoughts.
Life is very overwhelming right now but I hope I will be okay someday
being a naturally gifted mediator. turns out I’m just incredibly good at fawning and catering to a mother with bpd’s unstable emotions made me an expert at deescalating situations quickly.
“loving hard” 🤮🤮
I thought I was flexible. Truth is, I hated myself so much I let anyone shape me with their judgment.
People-pleasing. Specifically, pleasing men.
Saying sorry for everything even if I didn’t do anything.
Being judgmental. Being aggressive under the guise of assertiveness. The need to control things. All of these, gifts from my mother. 🙄
I’m not saying she was all bad, but there are definitely bad habits and personality traits that I picked up from her that I now work to correct.
Extreme FOMO. Hyper-aware of anyone hanging out without me. Realized it was from years of emotional neglect (not being seen) which makes children think THEY are the problem, which now makes me a hypervigilant adult.
Sneaking for no reason, like hiding my food wrappers under the top trash.
Immediately hiding, and feeling shame, if I’m angry or need to cry.
Fawning
I’m a people pleaser, I absolutely hate hurting peoples feelings to the point that I will have a mental breakdown, which leads to a lot of people trauma dumping on me because I’m ~so easy to talk to~..I prided myself on being super empathetic (not an impath) ..Turns out guilt based discipline was a huge tool for my mom and most of my caregivers.
Not smiling in photographs. Turns out my mother had chipped part of my tooth when she punched me because I refused to pray with her. I was eight-ish. I blocked that memory for decades and simply thought I wasn’t into smiling (and got annoyed at people urging me to do it), until I had that fixed and then it all came back to me. Now I do smile a lot, it’s the best way to get back at that horrible moment.
Stopped years ago but needing to be right. Wasted yrs and growth oppty in my 20’s trying to be ‘right’ vs growing.
From my childhood where trauma is all I’ve known and been exposed too so I don’t know any other forms of communication….
Two things
I’m brilliant in a crisis, calm, focused, logical, unemotional, nothing phases me.
Project managing and planning – I can think through every scenario and every possible risk to ensure all angles are covered.
Being able to compartmentalize anything. I worked the day of my mom’s wake.,5)the minute I walked into work it was work mode. After 3 years of therapy I don’t know if I could still do it to that extreme but I still do it.
Sleeping
Conflict avoidance at all costs.
People pleasing
Overly cautious
Under-reactions and hyper-independence
Having to prove why I’m right and everything needs to be corrected and explained so the other person knows what is “correct”. Tiny example: my husband mixes up actors ALL the time, “hey that’s the guy from Pirates of the Caribbean” it clearly is not Johnny Depp but I have to force myself not to google it and prove him wrong or “shame” him. I had to learn that it’s okay to let those little things go, not everyone has to be right all the time and neither do I.
Got this from my mom. If I make a mistake it turns into a lecture and research session on why I was wrong and what is correct. I’m 28… but I’m trying to do better.
I’m a portion-freak. Everyone has to have an equal serving of a meal if I prepare it before Ill let anyone even close to the food for seconds. I thought it was just a kind of quirky side effect of having some mild OCD until my coworker and I were talking about Food Insecurity (we work at a non profit geared towards community outreach) and I realized I ticked a LOT of boxes. I’m a portion freak bc I was food insecure as a kid and it didn’t end until I was almost done with puberty. And I don’t have mild OCD. I’m just phenomenal at compartmentalizing so I can deal with my freak outs later.
People pleasing. Suppressing my own needs/wants/desires. People would tell me I was “too nice.”
I was in my early 30s when I realized that I don’t need everyone to like me and my life got a whole lot easier.
Being a people pleaser. I’d never rock the boat, never say no, and would get walked on all over by everyone. I thought that if I gave myself up for others and cared for them, that they would love me. I thought so much of myself as this people pleaser that I got into psychology to become a counselor, but now that I’ve been becoming more confident in myself and setting boundaries, I’m unsure if I want to be a counselor. I still want to help people, but probably in a different way.
Apologizing for everything. Turns out it wasn’t just me being ‘polite’ ; it was from walking on eggshells my whole childhood
I’m funny as fuck. I believe it came from trying to diffuse the anger and tension around me as a small child.
Babe. Im literally a walking fawn response… everyone loves me!!!! Hilarious!!! Nothing wrong here… just vibing and oversharing and terrified of your feelings and my feelings and OH MY GAWD A BOUNDARY!!! hissssss🚩🆘🚨
Hyper independence, detachment, swapping back and forth between people pleasing and being aggressive or argumentative
I thought I was just super empathetic and observant. Turns out I was just scared of people due to my childhood and learned all there is to know about human emotions to protect myself from others.
Being quiet/introverted I’m actually extroverted,I was too scared of saying the wrong thing
I thought I was an alchoholic when the issue was unresolved PTSD.
I thought I didn’t like physical touch ( cuddling, being held, falling asleep touching) but it turns out that because of who I was with and how they treated me. I crave those things now.
Zero reaction when people hurt me. I thought I was unbothered but nope, I’m just really good at dissociating
Never feeling like I was good enough at anything unless I was perfect.
I have no human lie detector… I always believe the best about everyone and assume they are telling the truth until proven otherwise. It’s like a weird Pollyanna syndrome. Like I don’t believe that anyone would ever take advantage of me or lie to me or steal from me or hurt me. So I get myself in a lot of situations where I get taken advantage of.
Saying “I’m sorry” for everything
I’m hyper independent and not emotionally open at all. I just thought I was good at regulating my emotions on my own but it’s a trauma response to religious emotional abuse
Sleeping with the door locked and some times with an object blocking the knob. The call was def coming from inside the house growing up.
Not letting things bother me. Things do and did bother me. I just swallowed it because I didn’t think I deserved to have my needs met.
Not letting myself get attached to anyone or anything. I had friends ditch me repeatedly, and classmates always stole my stuff.
Being shy came from being bullied
Fear of people
Being a night owl and having panic attacks on Sunday nights. I thought it was because I didn’t want to go to work/school on Mondays. I was in a massive earthquake when I was 14, it was on a Sunday night, I was stuck in my room as we couldn’t open my bedroom door. I only recently asked my mum the day of the earthquake and she said it was a Sunday.
Never believing that anyone actually liked me and they were either just being polite, or pretending because they wanted something.
I’m unlearning this, but it’s a challenge.
Never asking for help or asking anything from my parents or anyone else. I always felt that I would be looked down for doing so. Was raised in a toxic household, where I was looked at as a saviour and not as a kid.
Sorry everybody, but I just can’t help apologizing for literally everything I do. I could rescue a family from a house fire and still beat myself up for bruising grandma’s foot as I carried her out of there
Hyper independence manifested as a refusal to ask for things out of a fear of being rejected as a person for making the request.
Being introverted. I’m technically not that introverted, I just have massive distrust issues and social anxiety around people now from being hurt, excluded, and neglected.
Gritty realism (others call it pessimism while patting their unicorns)
Dissociation, laughing or smiling too much
I thought that I was naturally snarky and sarcastic, but it turns out when I’m not surrounded by a family that belittles me all the time, I’m actually very complimentary and generally kind.
Social anxiety, self isolation
having a golden retriever-like eagerness to please my friends
i have daddy issues
Being terrified to the point of crying when someone left the house to go to work or something. Oh hey past me it’s called abandonment issues
Just staring blankly when someone started shouting at me.
Being the emotional barometer and trying to smooth everything over for everyone.
i got bullied early into my childhood and that turned me into a funny guy. I think i turned funny because being funny/irrational is often seen as non threatening, so people just take you for no threat and but absolutely disrespect you so lator in life I realize now that i been bullied and it was just a survival response, i thought it was part of my personality, I hope this helps everybody, as i have to rework on myself, and for sure can tell I’m happy not have to please anyone.
Attachment and being very shy.
Fawn .
The compulsive need to please people .
For Safety , connection , and support .
There’s a name for having a very creative mind: maladaptive daydreaming.
I go very quiet when people are angry so they don’t turn on me. I hate being screamed at. For a while I just thought I was a really good listener.
Being very quiet and unproblematic
Great post and comments..all. Describes me
Making myself physically smaller. I’m a tall girl at 5’11” and just this year I realized that when I’m feeling vulnerable, I hunch more. I haven’t had great self esteem so my posture has always been bad but I realized how bad it gets when I’m afraid of confrontation. I’m now working hard on being aware of when my posture is suffering and when my mental health is struggling.
The one that hit me the hardest was when my therapist talked to me about my sense of humor. Apparently, dark self depricating jokes are a defense mechanism. I thought I was just funny.
I used my biting wit like a poisoned dart. I was gone before you knew you were dead. I’m still funny and enjoy humor generally but I only use my powers for good now. I learned about functional boundaries and got a few. No need to defend myself in that way anymore.
The need to feel useful to be worthy of affection.
Literally everything about me lol
Panicking when I made even a minor mistake, and trying to hide/fix it on my own; turns out, it’s okay to make mistakes, but I was so terrified of being heavily criticized, mocked, or yelled at. Still am, sometimes, it’s a work in progress.
Being a passive listener, which is a terrible trait to have because the only people it attracts are pretty unpleasant characters.
Y’know that sharp, tightening feeling you get in your sternum when you’re having severe anxiety? Apparently it isn’t normal to feel that once or twice a day, several times a week.
It’s also not normal to treat this feeling as “regular day-to-day stress.”
I’ve been having dozens of these anxiety episodes every year for as long as I could remember. I genuinely assumed that’s how people are ‘supposed to feel’.
My hatred carrying over to other people