In February, Orange Blossom Publishing published a guest blog I wrote called “Writing for Your Mental Health.” I discuss the mental health benefits of incorporating a daily writing practice, as well as tips on how to start a writing practice. If you’ve been thinking about writing, whether it’s for fun or professionally, make sure to check out the blog.

This week my daughter, my husband, and I made the difficult decision to pull my daughter out of dance. This was not a decision we took lightly because she’s been dancing since she was five (she’s 15 now). Multiple factors affected our decision, but ultimately her emotional safety is what finally made us pull the plug. I’ve learned many things about myself on my path to healing anxiety and my latest decision to take my daughter out of dance has shown me that I will no longer hide.

In my book, Bold Trust, I wrote about how we moved our daughter from an emotionally abusive dance studio to another studio that had a more positive and encouraging environment. Except, it turns out, I was wrong. Fortunately, I’ve educated myself enough to be able to recognize gaslighting, to see through illusions, and to ultimately walk away from abuse.

While I’ve dealt with many toxic people and environments, this time I was able observe that my initial gut reaction to this situation was to hide. Being able to observe this instinct in me, a survival response, stunned me because this is the first time I “caught” myself wanting to hide. This was important because this time I wasn’t unconsciously acting on this feeling. This observation made me aware that up until that moment, I’ve been unconsciously hiding.

Your Nervous System

I’ve been doing a lot of research on the nervous system because I feel there’s a lot of information that can help myself and others who have anxiety. From what I’ve learned so far, the desire to hide is a dorsal vagal response, meaning your instinct is to hunker down and survive. This type of response is even more of a survival reaction than a sympathetic fight or flight response. Imagine a turtle retreating into its shell hoping to survive. It’s essentially shutting down until the danger passes.

Dealing with toxic people and environments can make you want to retreat into a shell so that you can survive harmful situations. Since there is no way to win or survive a fight with toxic people, your only safe response is flight or to shut down. If you’re not astute to the tactics of narcissistic people and in tune with your intuition, being surrounded by dysfunctional people can destabilize your nervous system, affecting how your body and mind function. You shut down or hide when you don’t feel like you can escape.

When I talk about hiding, I’m referring to the desire to hide yourself from toxic people, environments, and at times the world. There’s a physical and emotional aspect to hiding. Physically, you limit or cut off your interactions with people and situations by hunkering down in a safe place to avoid further conflicts. When the world feels unsafe, you sequester yourself and it may feel like you’ve become a recluse.

Emotional hiding is when you do everything in your power (even handing over your power) to avoid a conflict. You don’t stand up for yourself and emotionally twist and bend yourself to make yourself small. You neglect your needs in order to avoid conflict, figuratively tiptoeing around, trying to make yourself invisible. Hiding can be healing because sometimes it’s necessary to have a moment of reprieve to feel safe so that you can determine the next best course of action. But you can’t live your entire life this way.

Tiptoeing

When you’re in a relationship with difficult people, whether it’s a personal, business, or professional relationship, it can feel like you’re tiptoeing around them. In my latest podcast, I talk about the very small parameters you’re allowed to exist within in narcissistic relationships. The narcissist demands that you put yourself in a box they’ve created for you and, here’s the tricky part, they’re always moving the box.

Feeling like you need to tiptoe or walk on eggshells with certain people is a survival response. You’re constantly changing and adapting to that toxic person. You’re hiding your true self so that you feel safe. Except you’re not really safe until you remove these people from your life.

I used to put myself in these figurative boxes that others wanted me in. I did it to prevent being targeted and to avoid conflict. As I mentioned above, it was a survival response. I was trying to appease these people by making myself small so that they felt better about themselves. However, making myself small and hiding was wreaking havoc on my mental health.

In my book and on my website, I share my own definition of anxiety: the unconscious and continual gaslighting of yourself in order to make yourself small to accommodate others. You make yourself small by not living to your full potential or being authentic to yourself. And you’re hiding by not allowing yourself to be seen and by silencing your voice.

Healing anxiety demands that you step out of these boxes for good and live up to your full potential even if it threatens others. Once you remove toxic people and environments from your life, your body and mind will move out of survival mode and into a relaxed parasympathetic state. You can safely shine when you begin to surround yourself with supportive people and choose supportive environments.

Internalizing Toxic Behavior

At my daughter’s dance studio, the director wanted my daughter to put herself in a box. As the oldest and most experienced dancer, the director needed her to do well enough to represent the studio well but not so good as to outshine the director. To make sure my daughter stayed in the constantly moving box, the director regularly invalidated her. My blog, An End to Invalidation, explains how invalidation can be a form of gaslighting and how it can impact your mental health. Invalidation by itself can make you want to hide.

The dangerous thing about invalidation, especially when used as gaslighting, is that you eventually internalize it. When you’re not appreciated or recognized for your hard work, you begin to believe that you’re undeserving of recognition and that you’re not enough. Invalidation and gaslighting are insidious and they often fly just under the radar so that you may not see what’s really going on because of all the illusions at play (read my blog Anxiety Thrives in Illusions).

My daughter started to internalize the invalidation she was receiving from the dance director. She felt as though she should be enjoying dance even though she no longer was having fun. I also did some of the adult classes at the studio and experienced firsthand the director’s invalidations, but I didn’t realize she was doing it my daughter too. In talking with my daughter, I helped her understand that she wasn’t the issue, the dance director was. My daughter began to see that she loves dance, but wasn’t enjoying learning from an emotionally abusive person. At that point, we decided that she would finish this year off at dance and then not return next year.

Shame and Confusion

Invalidation, gaslighting, and illusions create confusion. If you’re unable to see the truth and, as a result, internalize the abuse, you may also experience shame, shame from feeling like you’re not enough or shame for intentionally or accidentally stepping out of your box. There may also be some shame for not being able to please the toxic person.

Shame is an intensely painful emotion. Your brain catalogs the pain from shame the same as physical pain. My blog, Shame and the Mental Health Stigma, talks about the detrimental effects shame has on your mind and body. Consistently feeling shame and confusion can also put you in survival mode, making you want to hide.

Standing Up for Yourself

“If standing up for yourself burns a bridge, I have matches. We leave at dawn.” - Unknown

The final straw that led us to pull our daughter from the dance studio now instead of the end of the year, were some abusive comments the director made to her during a pointe class when my daughter was the only student in class and when there weren’t other faculty around. She told my beautiful daughter that she looked “dead inside” and that my daughter looked like she wanted to “murder” the director. This is a wildly inappropriate thing to say to a student.

I logically knew we were doing nothing wrong by pulling our daughter from this dance studio, yet there was a moment when I felt shame and wanted to hide. I wanted to pretend like everything was OK, like maybe I was imagining the severity of the situation and the comments. There was a moment I thought if I was exceptionally nice to the director, maybe she would get off my daughter’s back. Even though I’ve gone to great lengths to steer clear of drama, I knew that by standing up for my daughter and doing what was best for her would create drama. I felt shame for the drama that would ensue when we left.  

Fortunately, my initial feelings were fleeting. I realized that the director’s actions had nothing to do with my daughter or me. Even though the director’s behavior was so blatantly wrong, it was ultimately my mama bear instincts that kept me out of hiding. My love for my daughter and my desire to protect her is what made me take a stand.

Before my daughter took her last bow, she said she wanted an opportunity to stand up for herself. She confronted the dance director and told her that she didn’t want to be spoken to like that again. My husband then followed up with the director and told her that the way she spoke with our daughter was unacceptable and that she wasn’t coming back. My daughter walked out of the dance studio with poise and grace.

This dance debacle has taught me that hiding and enduring abuse is not an option. If standing up for yourself upsets others, that’s not your responsibility. Your needs and your mental health are the priority. Let me know in the comments your experiences with hiding and/or standing up for yourself.

My book Bold Trust – 6 Steps to Unravel the Long-Term Effects of Gaslighting, Unapologetically Trust Yourself, and Heal Anxiety is now available for purchase here.