Escaping the Mire of Faux Feelings

Invalidated, unappreciated, disrespected, abandoned, unsupported, attacked, judged, invisible… any of these “feelings” tend to crop up for you? Do they come crashing in and wreck your mood, or your day, or your relationships? Invisible is a fan favorite of my inner kiddo, and, ooh boy, that one will fuck up my emotional tranquility real fast. 

If any of these are a familiar refrain for you, too, dear friend, I’ve got some bad news for the both of us. None of those are actually feelings. 

Rather, what I’ve offered up is an abbreviated list of faux feelings – ideas masquerading as feelings in ways that tend to leave us feeling pretty shitty. Faux feelings are our interpretation of events, the story we pick up when something happens that we don’t particularly like. Somebody does a thing, we have an emotional reaction, and then! We layer these labels onto our experience when we feel sad, angry, disappointed, confused, or any number of other actual feelings. 

All of which matters because faux feelings are generally what keep us stuck. When we can get in touch with our actual feelings, we have the opportunity to move through them. When we stay wrapped up in faux feelings – stay stuck in the ways that we’ve been manipulated, excluded, invalidated, taken for granted, unsupported, or wronged – we’re handing a hell of a lot of power over to other people instead of taking ownership of our own needs.

[NOTE: before I dive in further, I feel like I should make clear that faux feelings are totally normal and absolutely part of the way most of us have been socialized to think about/respond to things. None of us are bad or wrong if we experience faux feelings! It’s just super helpful to be able to recognize when they’re happening so that we can move past them.]

What Are Faux Feelings?

Regular, actual feelings are something we experience directly (I feel excited, anxious, depressed). Faux feelings, on the other hand, are stories we make up about what other people are doing to us. We experience faux feelings as an external force, something that generally happens as a result of other people’s behavior. Faux feelings are narratives about those behaviors, often tapping into blame and triggering defensiveness when we try to tell said people how they “made us feel.” 

One way to check in around whether what’s happening is an actual feeling or a faux feeling is to think about whether it’s something that can happen without anyone else’s involvement. I can feel sad all on my own, but I’m much less likely to “feel” used, manipulated, or invalidated without somebody else around. To “feel” judged, I need a judger. To “feel” abandoned, somebody had to leave. 

And, by golly, when I’m “feeling” those things it is absolutely that person’s fault! I am the victim of their bad behavior. Obviously! Except that doesn’t really get me anywhere in terms of resolution or a return to my own emotional stability.

Now, faux feelings are sneaky fuckers. And I want to be clear that they aren’t necessarily untrue. People do things that are condescending. People can be manipulative. People can fail to appreciate the things we do for them.

However, getting stuck in the story that we “feel” belittled or unappreciated keeps us stuck in blame and hands over a lot of our agency to the other person. It grants them power over our emotional landscape and/or self-worth. It also tends to fuel the fires of drama instead of helping us move toward solution. 

To return to a place of emotional stability, we first need to sort out the root of what’s happening for us feelings-wise. Only then can we really determine whether what we need is something we can provide ourselves or something to address with the person or people involved.

Getting in Touch with Our Feelings

Without going into a massive tangent about it, feelings are our reaction to the physiological experience of an emotion. We feel some sort of heat or tension or what-have-you in our body (emotional signal), and then we process that through the lens of our feelings. And, at a basic level, our feelings can be boiled down to five categories: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, or enjoyment. 

There are a lot of nuances, of course. Am I furious or am I irritated (anger)? Am I anxious or panicked (fear)? But the point here is that if we’re trying to figure out how we feel about something, it all comes back to those basics – as they say in improv: mad, sad, glad, afra-d! (Improv doesn’t usually include disgust, possibly because there isn’t a nifty, short rhyme for it, but also because this category of feeling doesn’t always make the list).

Anywhoodle… point is, boiling our reactions down to their core and sorting out how we’re actually feeling is the key to moving forward. When we get caught up in the stories about our feelings (that so-and-so did such-and-such which “felt” patronizing, etc.), then we aren’t really accessing the roots of what’s underneath. We’re tugging at the leaves and (typically) getting ourselves riled up in righteous indignation or self pity. 

Checking in to uncover our actual feelings, however, helps us gain access to the underlying needs that aren’t being met. For me, “feeling” invisible comes up when my needs for belonging, connection, and being seen/heard aren’t met. When that happens, what I actually feel is really sad and confused. 

Once I recognize those core feelings, I’ve got a much better chance of finding my way out of the swamp. I can tend to sadness and confusion on my own, while “invisible” requires someone else to see me – which often isn’t something I can get on demand. And if what I need is connection and support from someone, I’m a lot more likely to effectively get that need met that when I approach from a place of “I feel sad” instead of “that thing you did made me feel invisible.”

Playing the Blame Game

Faux feelings operate from the premise that the other person is wrong or that other people are at fault for “making” us feel some kind of way. They’re a sneaky path that our brain likes to take in order to distance ourselves from our own experience and throw us into the blame game. 

Faux feelings can be an “effective” mental defense mechanism – blaming others can be a great way to protect ourselves. It’s a lot easier to be pissed off at someone than to check in with the assumptions or unspoken expectations that we’ve been harboring, or to really look at our own behavior and how we may have contributed to a situation.

If someone “made me feel” unappreciated, perhaps I’m not really checking in with the expectations I had or have around our interactions. Have I actually told them what I want and need in order to feel appreciated?

If I’m telling myself I’ve been disrespected, is there a chance I haven’t set clear boundaries with the person who (unwittingly?) violated them? Or, is it that it’s easier to stay pissed off than to connect with the sadness and disappointment of the other person not showing up the way I wanted them to?

Now, I’m not saying we should flip things and start blaming ourselves for other people’s shitty behavior. People do things that suck. They can be inconsiderate, they can be selfish, they can be rude and hurtful and any number of things that wound us.

However, if we want to move forward from the negative reaction we’re having, if we want to come to a resolution with the other person or even just find more inner stability around whatever happened, then we have to set aside the blame game and check in with what we actually need – and whether that’s something we can give ourselves or need to ask for from the person involved. 

We Have to Ask for What We Need

How to go about asking for what we need is a subject for a whole separate post, but I’ll give a super brief rundown so that I don’t leave you hanging. The short answer is nonviolent communication. We get calm, we get in touch with our actual feelings, and then we approach the conversation with clarity and grace.

The basic formula that has served me exceptionally well for years now is: “when ___ happens, I feel ____, and I’d like to request that ____.” 

The key to all of that is to really boil it down to actual feelings and what we really need. When we tell someone we “felt” unappreciated, or disrespected, or invalidated, it will put them on the defensive. It communicates they did something wrong, and we’re much more likely to get a combative response. In contrast, if we tell someone we felt sad or angry or hurt – that’s harder to argue with. Not saying they won’t, but it opens up space for a more earnest dialogue. 

Once you’ve touched on the actual feeling behind the faux feeling, then you can ask yourself what you really need from the other person. Is it an apology? Is it for them to show up differently? Is it just that you need to tell them how you feel in order to move forward? 

All of those are valid options! And, depending on the person and their emotional maturity, you may actually get what you need. If you don’t, then it’s an opportunity to assess whether it’s a relationship you want to continue to participate in. 

But the point here is that the more we can own our own experience, the more we can focus on our actual feelings instead of the stories surrounding them, the more likely we are to find a way forward. It may look like tending to our own needs. It may look like asking for specific actions or behavior changes from others. In either case, bringing it back to those core emotions – mad, sad, glad, afra-d – can help to ground us in our own reality, set aside blame, and get to a place where we can approach a reparative conversation with clarity and grace.