Feeling Like a Burden
As I sit across from my many clients, I often hear things like “I just don’t want to be a burden,” “I know they have their own problems-I don’t want to burden them!” “My baggage is too much to unload on my friends and family,” “I'd rather just deal with it alone!” It saddens me to see my clients silently struggle, and I often think about how the world might be different if we all learned to hold space for others and ourselves.
During difficult times, the impact of our problems on others can feel magnified. Mental, emotional, financial, social, and/or physical health challenges can make us feel like a burden. Feeling like a burden affects how we act, perceive ourselves and our relationships, and allow ourselves to be treated by others. Subsequently, we might feel isolated, disconnected, and abnormal when we tell ourselves that we are burdensome.
Often, when we experience mental health challenges like anxiety or depression, we may believe that our symptoms are burdensome or that people may leave us because of them. Though these beliefs are not rooted in reality, they can feel very real to those who experience them. Depression can affect mood and self-perceptions which can lead people to believe negative sentiments about themselves. You do not need to experience mental health challenges though; dealing with any issue that makes you rely on others can lead to the same feeling.
One important element related to feeling like a burden is having our experiences invalidated in our early life experiences. When a person has been consistently invalidated as a child, it creates the belief that their subjective emotional experiences are unacceptable, unreasonable, or insignificant. Being told you are “too sensitive” can be extremely detrimental in that you might feel you are burdening others with your emotions, causing you to learn to withhold and suppress your emotional reactions in front of others. When you have been met with stonewalling, invalidation, and/or negativity, you learn that opening up to others about what you are dealing with is unsafe.
There are ways to unlearn our protective behaviors that no longer serve us. It is not an easy process to correct the thoughts that you might hold about yourself but reaching out to people you trust and/or a mental health professional can be great supports as you navigate new ways of being. Here are some suggestions to release the belief that you are a burden to others.
Get Comfortable with Being Vulnerable
As an individualistic society, we have been conditioned to believe that we must learn to deal with our problems independently and that others do not have the capacity to hold our feelings with us. When our challenges are not shared, humility is lost, and our shame intensifies. The art of vulnerability allows us to feel authentic and remove the masks that protect our image. When we practice vulnerability with courage, we can relearn that when we share our struggles with others, we are met with kindness, support, connection, and humility.
2. Increase Self-Compassion
In a prior Health in Tandem blog post, self-compassion and its benefits on our self-perceptions, confidence, motivation, etc was discussed. In the post, I discussed how self-compassion helps us to increase our understanding and awareness of how everyone experiences challenges, inadequacies, and shortcomings. The more we remind ourselves that everyone faces difficulties, the more we might feel comfortable opening up about our own experiences. Self-compassion allows us to be human again.
3. Seeing Yourself as a Dynamic and Multifaceted Human Being
When we experience challenges, specifically, mental health challenges, we tend to hyperfocus on the negative parts of self. We become overly self-critical and forget that we are a dynamic and multidimensional human. We reduce ourselves to one negative quality and it can reinforce our belief that others do not want to be around us. During particularly challenging times, take time to note your positive attributes. Remind yourself you are worthy of love and support and that you are greater than your troubles and shortcomings.
4. Practice Mindfulness
One of my favorite tools to recommend to clients as a therapist is mindfulness. Mindfulness is truly a powerful catalyst for change. When we believe ourselves to be a burden, we ruminate on how others are potentially perceiving us. Mindfulness helps us to stay in the moment and not exaggerate the negative beliefs about ourselves, our assumptions of other’s perceptions of us, and the challenge we are faced with. When we become stuck in the thought “I am a burden”, our experiences feel a lot heavier because we feel alone in them.
Above all, remember these tools are to be practiced in order to foster change. As you implement these strategies and ideas, be gentle, and patient with yourself. Remind yourself that those around you care for you and want to be there for you. You are not a burden-you are a human being having a human experience. You are worthy of love and kindness, from others and yourself.