DO YOU FEEL INVISIBLE?
Overcoming this OUT OF BALANCE feeling
Feeling invisible especially hits home for me. Even though I have a fairly healthy level of self-esteem, I have battled with feeling invisible practically my whole life. I’ll start with sharing two stories to give you a sense of how this all started for me.
Story #1
Technically I’m not the middle child but I relate to the idea of being the middle child. I’m actually #4 out of 5. My brother technically is the middle. He’s #3, two before him and two after him. Early on, I’d say pre-teenish probably even before, I got this revelation that I didn’t have a moniker associated with my place in the family. As I said, my brother is actually the middle child but also the only boy. Then there’s the oldest, then there’s the youngest. And #2 is a bit more unique because she is deaf. Then there is me. Now before I get too far gone I want to mention that no one in my immediate family or even my extended family said or did anything to make me feel isolated or not special. This was merely an observation on my part.
But an observation that I internalized because I wanted a special call out of some kind. And you know I thought I found it, because I didn’t wear glasses but the rest of my siblings did. I thought I had my mother’s eyesight. To this day at 78 she has 20/20 or even better eyesight. Going into middle school, though, that all changed for me when I had an eye exam and it turned out that I needed glasses. I was devastated by this news and became quite defiant. At the ripe old age of 11, I told the eye doctor that I wasn’t wearing them. Told everyone in the office I wasn’t wearing them. I cried and cried.
My oldest sister actually was the one that drove all of us kids to the eye doctor that day and my parents met us there. When my parents arrived the receptionist told them, Your daughter is very upset. They thought something happened with my sister, Angie, but it turned out to be me. My father tried consoling and encouraging me. But I wasn’t having it. Because it was an identity thing for me. What was going to make me special? I thought I had something and it was being taken away. That’s why my reaction was so intense.
The only thing that got me through was the trend of wearing wire-rimmed glasses, made popular by the character, Dwayne Wayne, on the show A Different World. Even people that didn’t need glasses would wear them because they were considered cool. So I was able to compromise around that because I could front like I was being trendy.
Interestingly enough, I’ve come to like eye wear as an accessory. The other day I helped a friend pick out sunglasses. When I saw there was an official Quay store at my local mall, I found a reason to go to the mall because I otherwise don’t like shopping and avoid the mall like the plague. With my current pair of glasses, I thought I died and went to eyeglass heaven at a Pasadena optometrist’s office. I sat down and tried on nearly 20 pairs of frames. The staff got a kick out of me that day!!
Story #2
This time I was even younger, probably 6 or so. The five of us were in the living room. I must’ve fallen asleep on the couch. I woke up and saw the four of them on the floor playing and having a good time. I thought they would notice that I had woken up and would invite me to join them. I sat there for a while and then I remember turning my head into the couch cushion and I started to cry, because I felt left out and they didn’t notice that I was missing. I stayed there on the couch for a little while longer with my face towards the cushion. At some point I guess my spirit emerged because somehow I got the courage to get up and ask to join them. I did just that and they made room for me to join in on the fun.
Now the moral of that second story might be enough for some of you reading this. That might be the word that you need to move forward. But that wasn’t the end of feeling invisible for me. It’s something that I contend with all the time. I’ve managed most of my life just like I did that day in the living room, I would speak up for myself. But I would certainly love to know what it is like to be seen without having to make myself seen, ya know.
I’m sure many of you reading this can relate. But how are we supposed to overcome this feeling? Well let’s start with how exactly we experience this feeling.
Do you feel readily overlooked and forgotten?
Are you not duly recognized for your contributions?
Are you more quiet natured compared to more outgoing friends?
Do you feel like people don’t really know you?
Are you socially awkward?
Are you the “strong” friend that everybody thinks has it all together?
Do you feel like there's nothing unique about you?
Are you in unfamiliar surroundings, moved to a new place, started a new job, starting over in life entirely?
Of these eight questions, I resonate a little bit more with 3, 4, 6, 8. Let me know which of the eight resonate with you. I could probably come up with even more questions to probe on but these eight are some thought-starters. The next question to ask would be what do you want to experience?
Do you want to be the center of attention?
Do you want to be on the invite list for major social events?
Do you want to be acknowledged for your contributions?
Do want people to know your story?
Are you trying to make friends?
Do you want to feel loved?
Do you want to feel embraced and welcome?
Do you want compliments?
Do you want to feel celebrated?
Do you want to have a sense of belonging?
Do you need to have a sense of purpose?
On the purpose front, I actually wrote a two part series on finding your purpose that you can check out. Also if you feel like there is nothing unique about you, you should read that series as well.
The third question to ask is how to close the gap between what you are currently experiencing and what you want to experience? How you close the gap ultimately depends on the goal but here are some ideas that may be helpful.
From a professional standpoint, if you feel invisible and overlooked on your job, then YOU MUST take a more proactive approach to be seen and heard. That doesn’t necessarily mean turning into a loud or self-serving individual but it means that the responsibility to be seen and heard falls to you. While your manager should be supportive, most organizations make it known that your career management and advancement is on YOU, not them. While that may not be fair or ideal, it is what it is, and it probably won’t change any time soon.
If you have a hard time speaking up for yourself, then I suggest seeking out some coaching on how to do that. If you’ve been skipping out on mixers, you need to start attending some of them. If you stay couped up in your office, then you need to come out more. If you are mute during meetings, then you have to start engaging more. Interestingly enough people will want to hear what you have to say because you don’t open up that often. I actually learned how to leverage that to my advantage. I wasn’t one to say a lot. I’m not shy but the need to be the center of attention or comment on everything wasn’t important to me. I did decide, however, that I was going to have the reputation that when I finally did speak up people would listen intently because what I was going to say would be a gem. The value of my thoughts became premium.
In our personal lives, the responsibility to be seen and heard still primarily lies with us. So the same rules apply. But I think what’s different in our personal lives is we REALLY, REALLY need to know that the people in our lives care about us and value us. It’s not that we don’t need that on the job, but our jobs are primarily transactional relationships. The agreement is we perform and get compensated for it. Everything else is icing on the cake. But in our personal lives, transactional relationships are not sufficient. Having a real connection is what fills voids. Without that connection we feel empty and invisible. So while we still have to be proactive about being seen and heard, how the people in our lives respond carries much more weight in how we feel about ourselves.
There’s no such thing as a one-sided connection. But the issue is we can’t control the response side of the connection. We can’t make people actively care about us.
This brings to mind a song from the balladeer, Tank. (15-second clip from YouTube)
Being proactive, being vulnerable and being better communicators can influence their response. However the decision and commitment to show up for you and respond to you in a way that makes you feel seen and heard falls to the other person. And that’s based on how that person feels about you and how that person prioritizes you. And it’s hard because you need what you need but that person can only give what they can give. That person has to bought into the relationship at the same level that you are bought in in order for you to not feel invisible. And this is for all relationships, family, friendships and romantic.
But what are we supposed to do when others are not bought in? One of the first things we need to do after sobering up from the disappointment is to change our expectation of those that are not bought in. Once it’s clear, to continue to expect it only makes us feel worse. We also have to manage and cope with our emotions because those don’t just automatically disappear. Therapy probably is the best course of action to learn how to cope with our emotions.
The last thing I will say, and this is something we have to keep front and center of our hearts and minds. Something that I dramatized in the reel below. Captions are included, but if you choose not to watch the video, here is the text of the voiceover.
What happens many times is when others don’t show up for us, we in turn stop showing up for ourselves. Those who aren’t bought in as we would like shouldn’t have the final say. They didn’t see you but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see you.
Just because someone else doesn’t see how special you are, doesn’t mean that you should lose sight of how special you are. Just because someone else doesn’t see your value, doesn’t mean you should lose sight of your value.
If someone doesn’t want to dance with you, that doesn’t mean you should stop dancing. If someone doesn’t like your smile, that doesn’t mean you should stop smiling.
When you stop seeing you by caving to feelings of unworthiness, by shutting down, by isolating yourself, you’re actually taking away the opportunity for others to see you.
All that does is create a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can’t stop feeling invisible by becoming more invisible. You certainly can’t be seen if you disappear.
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Onward to being seen and Harmonious Balance my friends,
Johanna
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