“I often feel like I’m on the outside, looking in.”

“Whoever I’m with, I don’t feel I fit in.”

“When I’m with other people, I may look fine, but I don’t feel fine.”

The first item on my Emotional Neglect Questionnaire is:

– Do you sometimes feel like you don’t belong when you are with family or friends?

I put that question first in the questionnaire on purpose. Because it is one of the most centrally defining qualities of a person who grew up with childhood emotional neglect.

At first glance, it doesn’t make sense. Why would a person carry around a pervasive feeling of being out of place? Of not fitting in? Of being on the outside, looking in? Especially when among people who love you?

It is a difficult to identify, difficult to name feeling; yet it can hold tremendous power over a person.

It can make it hard to go to a social gathering, and difficult to stay very long. Perhaps you get irritable when you’re around other people and you’re not sure........

© Psychology Today