Why Do I feel Invisible

Welcome, everybody, to this presentation on what causes people to feel invisible. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In this presentation, we're going to talk about what invisibility actually is and what causes it. In part two, I'm going to discuss tips to stop feeling invisible. So when somebody says, I feel invisible, what does that mean? It means different things to different people. And in order to address it, you're going to have to kind of understand what it means for you. Does it mean that your thoughts and feelings don't matter? Are you in relationships? And when you tell people what your thoughts or feelings are, they don't care. They just do what they want to anyway. Does it mean that nobody would notice if you disappeared? Maybe you've been out sick for a week and nobody's called and checked on you and you feel like that must mean that nobody really even realizes that I'm here or that I'm gone? Or does it mean that people ignore parts of you? Maybe there are certain parts of you that people accept and certain parts of you that are important to you that people reject or just don't acknowledge. We all have many, many different parts to us. I'm a mother. I'm a continuing education provider. I am a YouTuber. I am a farmer. I am. You know, I can list a bunch of different roles or hats that I. That I wear. And it's important to recognize that. That if you have a role that's important to you that people don't acknowledge, that may leave you feeling less than fully accepted. There are a lot of different causes of invisibility. We're just going to talk about the top three, four, five, seven right here. If you grew up or if you are currently in a situation in which it's not safe. Safe to talk or feel, maybe you grew up in a household where there was someone with an active addiction. And one of the mantras of an addicted household is don't talk, don't trust, don't feel. Or maybe you're in an environment in which there is somebody who has borderline personality disorder or some other mental health issue that makes it unsafe for you to assert your thoughts, your opinions, or your needs. That can cause you to start to feel invisible because it feels like you're not getting your needs met. You're not being acknowledged. Your input is not being acknowledged. So this is not being acknowledged in this situation is because it's unsafe. Another situation that can cause invisibility is growing up or actively being in a situation in which caregivers or Significant others are emotionally unavailable. It may not be that they don't want to pay attention to your feelings, your thoughts, your wants, your needs, that kind of stuff. They may be so overwhelmed with their own stuff that they can't. Or they may have narcissistic traits and they are choosing not to. But it may not be about you. It may be more about their dysfunction or their mental health issues or even their physical health issues. Sometimes people can be in the same room and completely emotionally distant. And it's important to recognize that if you're in one of those situations, especially as a child, children think dichotomously. So a lot of times, if their caregivers aren't paying attention to them or if they are communicating, you know, hey, I need you. And the caregiver's just like, I just can't, you know, go play, go be quiet, whatever. Then the child may learn or develop a schema that says, my thoughts and wants and needs are not important. So that's not abusive, that's not actively abusing the child, but that's very neglectful. So it's failing to meet the needs of the child or the person. Another cause of invisibility is just a lack of assertiveness. Assertiveness is not a skill we are born with. It's something that we have to learn. We learn assertiveness through our secure attachments, through our early relationships, through modeling. And if you don't have a model for assertiveness, you may never learn it. Assertiveness means my thoughts, wants, and needs are equally as valid as your thoughts, wants, and needs. Not more so, not less so. A lot of people who feel invisible feel like their thoughts, wants and needs are less important than. Than other people's, so they won't communicate them. Or if they do communicate them, they communicate them tentatively, like, well, kind of maybe, if you don't mind. I think this might be. There's lots of hedging, and it's very sheepish in its presentation. And then this could be just. They don't have the skills to be assertive. They're not sure how to do it in a way that wouldn't be offensive. Some people may have assertiveness skills that aren't finely tuned, or they may not use their assertiveness skills because they're afraid of rejection. Think about situations where you have asserted your thoughts, your wants, your needs, your opinions, and people have disagreed, okay? Some people don't disagree appropriately, if you will, and it may feel very aggressive. It may feel scary. In the workplace, for example, you may assert your opinions, you may assert your thoughts about something and it gets shot down by your supervisors or your supervisor's supervisors. If your opinions and your thoughts, wants and needs are regularly shot down, guess what? You're probably going to quit asserting them. It's like, well, what's the point? So you develop something called learned helplessness. And that's when you just feel like nothing you do matters. You're invisible. Expecting and being expected to mind read is another cause of invisibility. And this is one that I harp on a lot because unfortunately, it is so incredibly prevalent in our culture, but it's so incredibly dysfunctional. You can't read other people's minds, they can't read yours. If you have a need, if you have an opinion, you can't expect people to guess what it is. And especially if you expect them to guess right 100% of the time. Our society is very caught up. We are very caught up as a society in ourselves. We're caught in our own thoughts. We're caught in our own heads. Think about how, how often you've been walking down the hall and you've been thinking about something and haven't even noticed the people you passed, or you've been driving somewhere and been caught up in your thoughts and haven't even noticed really, you know, the people that you were driving by, or even the houses on the side of the road or whatever. This is very common in our society. And when we expect that people are going to anticipate our every need, that means we're expecting them not to be caught up in their own mind, but to be putting us in the center of their world and their universe and thinking, trying to guess and trying to accurately guess about what we need. Some people may do that, but it is really hard even if you try to guess. You know, think about when you're caring for an infant that can't articulate its needs. It's really hard to guess right 100% of the time. And as adults or even adolescents, we start expecting our peers, other adolescents, other adults to be able to articulate their thoughts, wants and needs so we don't have to guess. Expecting people to read your mind is going to leave you feeling invisible because they're so caught up in their own thoughts and stuff. Stuff they're probably not going to. It's not about you, it's about them. It's about what they're thinking about. And being expected to mind read is also another problem because you're probably, even if you are focused on Somebody, you're probably going to have difficulty reading other people's minds. Discrimination. This was the only word I could really find. But it goes to that thing that I was talking about earlier. If people don't accept a certain part of you, they overlook it or they look past it. That's not accepting me for me. That is expect, expect, sorry, accepting part of me, not all of me. And that can cause a person to feel partially invisible. And I want you to think about some of those science fiction movies that have referred to invisibility. And sometimes part of the person is visible and other parts are invisible, but they don't feel whole. And unless we are accepted for all of us, we're not going to feel whole. A lack of self awareness can lead to invisibility. And what do I mean by this? If you don't know what your thoughts, wants and needs are, if you're not self aware, if you're not mindful of of what needs you need to have met, then how do you expect anybody else to be aware of those? If you're not aware of your thoughts, wants and needs, you can't communicate your thoughts, wants and needs. If you can't communicate them, you can't expect people to meet them. Therefore, you may feel unloved or invisible, but not be able to really explain why what you want to have happen differently and not be able to articulate it to other people. So you end up feeling invisible because people don't know how to help you feel visible. And finally, physical or mental illness causing withdrawal. If you have had a physical or mental illness that has caused you to turn down invitations to go out, invitations to exercise, invitations to dinner, invitations to movies, whatever, then at a certain point people are going to quit asking. If they've asked you and asked you and asked you and you've never said yes, they're going to quit asking. If they always have to call you and you never reach out to them, they may not think to call you. You know, they may need a little bit of prodding. So some places will call this coming out of hiding. But what I want you to recognize is you have basically, if you've turned down their invitations, even with a great reason, if you've repeatedly done it, basically you've punished them, they're reaching out. Every time they've done it, you've said no. So they're like, well, you know, what's the point in calling? What's the point in asking? So it'll be important for you to start initiating again to get back into the forefront of their mind and let them know that, hey, I'm ready and able to do things. Feeling invisible can be caused by a variety of things. However, humans are wired for connection. We have oxytocin, it's a bonding chemical. There's a reason for that. To begin to feel less invisible, you need to be able to feel safe, to think, feel and express your thoughts, wants and needs. You need to be able to connect with others who are willing and able to listen. So they're willing to listen, but they're also not so caught up in their own stuff and overwhelmed with their own pain that, that they are able to listen. You need to develop assertiveness skills so you can put out, put that out there what you want, what your thoughts are, what your needs are so people can respond to them. You wouldn't go into a restaurant and sit down and expect the waitress to or waiter to bring you exactly what you would wanted to eat for lunch without telling them. Well, same sort of thing. People aren't able to read your mind. So assertiveness skills are very helpful at assisting you in communicating to others your thoughts, wants and needs, as well as being able to tolerate it if they have differences of opinion. It's also important to enhance self esteem and self awareness because sometimes people are going to disagree or sometimes they're not going to want to meet your needs or whatever. And a good strong self esteem helps you endure that, helps you recognize that, okay, that's all right. Not everybody's going to like me. Not everybody's going to want to do all the same things I do and that's okay. Being able to provide self validation and, and not rely on everybody else to tell you you're okay is important. And as I said earlier, you must generally start initiating connection if you've been invisible. If you haven't been assertive, then you may need to start, you know, dipping your toe into that pool and seeing what it feels like to be assertive and initiate connection. See what it feels like to actually express an opinion. How does that go in part two, I'm going to talk about 12 tips to stop feeling invisible. So this kind of hit the highlights of why people might feel invisible. In part two, we're going to talk about more things that you can do to stop feeling invisible.