Independent or Over-Functioning? Is there a difference?
You’ve seen yourself as independent and having to take care things alone. You’re the one in control and make the decisions. You may of learned to swallow your thoughts and feelings in order to protect yourself. You got explicit messages of what ‘strong’ means. You’re right about to contribute your thoughts/ideas in a work meeting and felt shut down by a colleagues comment. You’re trying to explain your experience to your mom and you got the ‘suck it up buttercup message’. Your mom did not say anything, but for some reason you got the strong feeling that your sharing is not going anywhere, so you become quiet and change the subject.
You’ve learned to be quiet and observe the people around you instead of speaking your mind. From a young age, many of my clients have experienced and received nonverbal cues from friends, family members, school environments, and other community members, that they need to perform to be accepted. You’re not alone! Sometimes as a way to cope with feeling not good enough, we tend to over-function to soothe this feeling of not being good enough.
Many of my clients find themselves receiving great accolades at work and feedback that they are doing well, but there’s something missing. We don’t allow the ‘good job’ or ‘success’ to sink and accept the wonderful work that they did. We tend to brush off the compliment or side track the accomplishment and move right back into doing mode. And so, the pattern continues, my client still does not feels good enough, is tired, has other values that she wants to bring into her life, but she feels stuck because this is not good enough part that needs to be soothed.
We tend to make elaborate stories up to match why we do what we do and why we do it. It’s human, we all do it. Research in neuroscience indicates that humans can recognize emotion and emotional tone in others within milliseconds (Lima et al., 2019). So what is all this brain neuroscience connection stuff and not good enough have to do with reaching out?
Somewhere in your basement and subconscious, you have a list of reasons why seeking out help is not for you. Seeking out help means failure, disappointment, not being able to handle the stress, not being strong enough, or it doesn’t fit the image you’ve created for yourself. Many of my clients come in feeling nervous, really suspicious of what therapy can offer. You may not feel you could rely on someone else to get a job done or trust that someone will hold your experience. And I’m here today to affirm that you get to have that for yourself. You get to have someone in your corner who understands your world, helping you navigate your life and choices. I want to extend a virtual warm hand to you and let you know that you’re not alone and don’t have to shoulder this yourself.
I love independence and the freedom it brings, however over-functioning can leave you exhausted, lonely, isolated, and burtout. You can be independent and have support. Many of us did not have that experience.
Reaching out and looking for a therapist can be an anxious task. There could be many fears circling like this person going to get me, work; this is bullshit, what is it going to do for me, and taking time out from what I need to do. I wonder if any of these sound familiar to you? And these thoughts and experiences are shared among the clients I sit with because they’re used to doing things independently.
Soul Glue Reflection:
I invite you to think about a time when you allowed someone to help you and it was a positive experience. What that was like for you?
References
Lima, C. F., Anikin, A., Monteiro, A. C., Scott, S. K., & Castro, S. L. (2019). Automaticity in the recognition of nonverbal emotional vocalizations. Emotion, 19(2), 219–233. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000429.supp (Supplemental)
