How Emotional Neglect Makes You Feel Excessively Responsible

It’s important to be responsible, of course. It means that you’re dependable, committed, and caring. But, for some, it’s too easy to over-swing the pendulum and become excessively responsible, and it’s even easier to become overly responsible if you experienced childhood emotional neglect.

Feelings like numbness, shame, and guilt are common emotions that emotionally neglected folks report. But the feeling of responsibility, because it’s generally thought of as a positive, gets overlooked. Yet, it can spoil your fun and burden you. Like when you’re hosting a party and feel it’s your job to make sure everyone is having a good time. Or when you find yourself picking up your coworker’s slack at work. Or even when someone else is struggling and you want to make it better. You feel responsible for all of it.

Feeling responsible is common among emotionally neglected adults. Perhaps you’ve labeled yourself the one other people can count on, the one people can go to if there’s an issue, or just the person that is always willing to give. With so much giving, you are likely to overlook yourself: your feelings, your needs, your wishes. And it`s burdensome.

Why does this happen? It’ll be helpful to first understand childhood emotional neglect.

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Kathleen Notes: A cause of burnout for sure. In addition it makes the person vulnerable to exploitation and resentment.