Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (22 page)

Debra feels excluded because of surface qualities. Something about the way she presents herself does not feel good enough. However, Debra does not have the Defectiveness lifetrap. Once she breaks through, meets people, and begins to get close, she is fine. She is comfortable in intimate relationships, and although she has no boyfriend she has many close friends. Debra’s friendships offer her some relief from her feelings of inferiority and loneliness. Social Exclusion is about
outward,
or external, qualities; Defectiveness is about
inner,
or internal, qualities.

It may be that you have both Social Exclusion and Defectiveness, with Defectiveness the more core lifetrap. If this is so, things are more difficult for you. You may have no connections at all. Right down the line, you are alone. As difficult as Social Exclusion is, Social Exclusion plus Defectiveness is much worse.

In a circular way, a prime characteristic that makes Debra feel inferior is her anxiety itself.

DEBRA: I know when I walk in that Ym going to be anxious. It’s embarrassing to be so anxious. Ym uncomfortable, and I make other people feel uncomfortable. As soon as I get in, I know I’m going to screw up somehow. I’ll say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. I just want to crawl into a hole.

Debra constantly compares herself to other people. This one is better looking, that one is smarter and more interesting. One large focus of her anxiety is her inability to carry on a conversation. She wants to respond appropriately—to speak freely, smile, laugh, and ask questions. But she is too inhibited to do so.

DEBRA: It’s so frustrating, because as soon as I know the person, I can carry on normal conversations. But when I meet a stranger, I can’t do it. I freeze up.

THERAPIST: It’s almost like stage fright.

This kind of performance anxiety is a fundamental part of your experience. You fear being scrutinized, evaluated, judged negatively. You are obsessed with what other people think of you. Depending upon where your sensitivity lies—your looks, career, status, intelligence, or conversational ability—you fear being exposed as inadequate.

Debra’s anxiety makes her socially awkward. Although she has good social skills when she is comfortable, in most social situations she is too nervous to use them. She loses her poise. She becomes shy and withdrawn. It is not that she feels particularly different from other people. It is that she feels socially inept.

In contrast, Adam’s problems are not related to social skills. In fact, he can have very good social skills. Adam feels fundamentally different from other people. His primary feeling is one of detachment. He comes across as aloof rather than anxious. He has an aura of being „untouchable.“

ADAM: It’s like I’m alone even when I’m in a crowd. In fact, I feel most alone when I’m in a crowd.

THERAPIST: Your loneliness becomes more glaring.

Adam experiences his life as though he were walking through a crowd of strangers. There is no place where he belongs.

For most people this feeling of being different is painful. Although some see themselves as better, or feel good about being different, most see it as a source of unhappiness. Most of us want to fit in, and we feel pain, hurt, and loneliness when we do not.

Unlike Debra, who feels
rejected
in social situations, Adam feels a kind of nothingness, a disconnection. For him, social situations trigger a feeling of
isolation.

THERAPIST: So if you didn’t really talk to people at the party, what did you do?

ADAM: I just went off into my own little world.

Adam is not angry at the world for rejecting him. Rather, he just feels like an outsider. He is different. He does not fit in.

Social exclusion has many faces. You may be the person everyone teases or bullies. Or you may be the one who is an outsider—the loner or social outcast. You stay on the sidelines, not quite a member of any club or group. Or you may be someone whose lifetrap is largely invisible. It is hard to spot. You go through the motions of social interchange, but inside you feel alone.

Whatever your type, you are probably prone to a whole range of psychosomatic symptoms. Loneliness is often linked to heart and stomach problems, sleep problems, headaches, and depression.

These are some of the reasons you may have felt undesirable or different as a child:

THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL EXCLUSION

1. You felt inferior to other children, because of some observable quality (e.g., looks, height, stuttering). You were teased, rejected, or humiliated by other children.
   
2. Your family was different from neighbors and people around you.
   
3. You felt different from other children, even within your own family.
   
4. You were passive as a child; you did what was expected, but you never developed strong interests or preferences of your own. Now you feel you have nothing to offer in a conversation.
   

One origin is growing up in a family that is different from other people. Your family may have been different in many ways—race, ethnic background, religion, social status, educational level, material possessions. Perhaps your family’s daily habits were different, their manners and customs. Or perhaps there was a language barrier. Or there may have been mental illness in your family, such as alcoholism or schizophrenia. Your family may have moved from place to place, never staying long enough to form roots, such as with military „brats.“

Another origin may have been something about
you
that may have set you apart, so that you felt different even from the children in your own family. Gifted children sometimes experience this. Their interests are different from other children their age. They enjoy reading or listening to music more than playing with other children. You also may have had interests that were atypical for your gender, such as a boy who likes to play with dolls, or a girl who likes rougher, boy games. Your sexual identity may have isolated you—gay men and women often have the Social Exclusion lifetrap. Your personality may have been different—shy, emotional, introspective, intellectual, or inhibited. Or you may have developed faster or slower than other children, physically, sexually, or in your level of independence, intelligence, or social skills.

Something about you may have caused you to feel inferior to other children. You may have been teased or humiliated. Patients have told us many reasons they became the targets of such attacks:

SOURCES OF CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENT UNDESIRABILITY

Physical

Fat, thin, short, tall, weak, ugly, acne, physical handicap, small breasts, big breasts, late puberty, poor at sports, uncoordinated, not sexy.

Mental

Slow at school, learning disabilities, bookworm, stuttering, emotional problems.

Social

Awkward, socially inappropriate, immature, unable to carry on conversations, weird, dull, uncool.

As a result of appearing different or undesirable, other children excluded you from their groups. They would not play with you. They teased and humiliated you. You withdrew into the background to avoid being teased. Whenever you went into a social situation, you felt self-conscious. You stopped trying to make friends in order to avoid rejection. You may have associated with other children who were different, but longed to be part of the in-group. You became increasingly lonely and isolated. You developed solitary interests, such as reading or computer games. You may have developed expertise in non-social arenas to compensate for your feelings of inferiority.

Any and all of these things may have happened to you. Most of them happened to Debra.

DEBRA: I was fat as a child. I was disgusting. In the playground other kids made fun of me. They would chase me and try to get me to fall down. When I got older, none of the boys wanted to go out with me. It wasn’t till I lost weight before college that I had my first date.

Debra’s social exclusion involved a lot of shame. Her shame about her weight kept her from wanting to be near other children. She felt that as soon as they saw that shameful part of her, they would exclude her.

To compensate for her lack of social success, Debra excelled at school. In fact, she developed Unrelenting Standards in regard to her school performance. It is fairly common for children who feel socially undesirable to develop Unrelenting Standards as a compensation. Part of Debra’s problem is that she has such high standards for how she must come across in a social situation—how poised, how intelligent, how attractive—that she feels that anything less is going to be unacceptable to other people. She anticipates criticism. This is one reason she feels so anxious.

As we noted above, you may have developed Social Exclusion as part of a more core Defectiveness lifetrap. You had such a global sense of being unlovable in your own family that it naturally transferred to your social life. You were uncomfortable in intimate situations and social situations. Now, whenever you interact with another person, you expect your personal unacceptability to become an issue, and you either feel anxious or avoid the situation. You do not expect to be loved or valued. Your lifetrap is part of a more fundamental sense of being defective.

Adam grew up in an alcoholic household. Both parents drank. He was the oldest son, and took over management of the house. By the age of twelve he was effectively functioning as both father and mother to his four younger brothers and sisters.

ADAM: My home life made my life at school seem unreal. Other kids would be worrying about what to wear to a party, or making some team, or who to ask to the prom, and I’d be worrying about paying the monthly bills and keeping us off the street.

Although Adam acted normal at school, he felt far from normal inside—“I felt like another species of life entirely.“ He never felt he could bring friends to his house, and became very anxious whenever a friend had contact with either of his parents. He tried to keep his school and home lives separate. His family was like a secret he kept from the other children.

Throughout Adam’s childhood, the financial status of the family progressively declined. This made matters worse for Adam. Not only did they move a lot, but they also lived in neighborhoods where they felt they did not fit in.

ADAM: My parents always considered us above everyone around us. They acted as though we were really different—as though we still belonged in a fancy house in a fancy neighborhood. In fact they would make it seem like our neighbors were kind of bad to be around, a bad influence, so I was encouraged to be kind of different and to stay away from the other kids.

Adam’s parents made him reluctant to get involved with the people around them.

Sometimes overly critical parents can foster social exclusion. We had one patient whose parents constantly criticized him for social imperfections—the way he looked, the way he talked, the way he carried himself. They led him to feel he was socially inadequate. He became inhibited in social situations. He was afraid of being criticized, and therefore avoided connecting with other people.

Another origin of Social Exclusion is related to the Dependence and Subjugation lifetraps. An important aspect of learning to socialize is developing a sense of ourselves as active and self-directed: we are encouraged by our parents to develop our own unique identity, interests, and preferences. We have a unique
personality.
This personality provides us with the energy and ideas to carry on conversations with other people.

Some children are either passive by nature or their parents discourage the development of their children’s individuality. When your uniqueness is squashed, you do what is expected by other people. You take their lead and become a conventional follower. But you fail to develop ideas, interests, or preferences of your own. When you are in a conversation, you then feel that you have nothing to say. Your passivity makes you feel as if you have nothing of your own to offer other people. Carrying on conversations becomes a burden. You are very comfortable listening, but you cannot initiate a topic. You cannot contribute your own opinions. You do not have suggestions about what to do or where to go. After a while, you may decide to avoid socializing altogether rather than be with others and have nothing to contribute. This pattern, like the other origins we have already discussed, leads you to feel socially anxious and isolated.

Almost everyone has a certain degree of the Social Exclusion lifetrap. We have a certain part of ourselves that is insecure, unsure of being accepted. Who has not experienced
some
social rejection? It is a question of how pervasive it was, and how traumatic. Similarly, the earlier the social exclusion started, the more powerful the lifetrap.

Many people develop the lifetrap during the adolescent years. Adolescence is the time when peer pressure is at its height. It is easy
not
to fit into a peer group. Many teenagers feel different, isolated, alienated. In fact, it is so common, it is almost normal. However, most of us come out of this alienation when we reach college and thereafter. We find a relationship, or a group of friends who are more like us, or we just become less concerned about being part of the most popular group.

But, for some people, the sense of Social Exclusion continues through the rest of their lives. These are usually the people whose lifetrap originated earlier, in childhood. As far back as the person remembers, there was always a sense of being excluded by peers.

These are the ways you maintain your Social Exclusion lifetrap.

SOCIAL EXCLUSION LIFETRAPS

1. You feel different or inferior to the people around you. You exaggerate differences and minimize similarities. You feel lonely, even when you are with people.
   
2. At work you are on the periphery. You keep to yourself. You do not get promoted or included in projects because you do not fit in.
   
3. You are nervous and self-conscious around groups of people. You cannot just relax and be yourself. You worry about doing or saying the wrong thing. You try to plan what to say next. You are very uncomfortable talking to strangers. You feel you have nothing unique to offer other people.
   
4. Socially, you avoid joining groups or being part of the community. You only spend time with your immediate family or with one or two close friends.
   
5. You feel embarrassed if people meet your family or know a lot about them. You keep secrets about your family from other people.
   
6. You pretend to be like other people just to fit in. You do not let most people see the unconventional parts of yourself. You have a secret life or feelings that you believe would lead other people to humiliate you or reject you.
   
7. You put a lot of emphasis on overcoming your own family’s deficiencies: to gain status, have material possessions, sound highly educated, obscure ethnic differences, etc.
   
8. You have never accepted certain parts of your nature because you believe other people would think less of you for them (e.g., you are shy, intellectual, emotional, too feminine, weak, dependent).
   
9. You are very self-conscious about your physical appearance. You feel less attractive than other people say you are. You may work inordinately hard to be physically attractive, and are especially sensitive to your physical flaws (e.g., weight, physique, figure, height, complexion, features).
   
10. You avoid situations where you might seem dumb, slow, or awkward (e.g., going to college, public speaking).
    
11. You compare yourself a lot to other people who have the hallmarks of popularity that you lack (e.g., looks, money, athletic ability, success, clothing).
    
12. You put too much emphasis on
    compensating
    for what you feel are your social inadequacies: trying to prove your popularity or social skills, win people over, be part of the right social group, have success in your career, or raise children who are popular.