How to Know If You're Being Disregarded

Messages are sent and received during your interactions with others. The interactions you have with others, good or bad, send messages to your psyche that either validates, affirms, accepts and values your existence, or invalidates, questions, rejects and devalues who you are. It is your job as guardian of your own soul to ensure that you are being treated well by those around you so that you can grow to your full potential and live a peaceful, healthy life inside and out.

Only The Disregarded Care About Disregard

There are many who say that it is only those who feel less-than that are concerned with how they are regarded by others, and if that's the case, okay. I'll admit it. As an adult Child Abuse Survivor, I've had my moments of feeling lower than the rest of the world. My goal here is not to inspire you to be a weirdo checking to make sure everyone around you regards you rightly, but more, to help you discover ways you may be allowing yourself to be put in a subservient position without knowing it. Awareness is always better than being in the dark.

Relationships Fill or Deplete

We are all intricately connected through relationship. We need relationships with others to meet our emotional needs. The relationships that we have in our lives are either healthy and life-giving, or toxic and life-taking. People in our lives either support us by lifting us up and affirming our reality or not. Toxic relationships tear us down, exploit our energy, seek to control us, and may cause us to question our identity and worth. The quality of the connections we have with others greatly affects our overall well being.

Even small encounters with people you barely know end up sending messages to you about who you are and where you stand in the world. If you want to know the signals you're giving out, look at the way people are treating you. You train others how to treat you. 

Whether you feel valuable as a person or not reflects in your relationships because your relationships are a reflection of your own value towards yourself. If you want to know how you value yourself, take a look at how others treat you. They are following your lead, for the most part. Of course, there is the occasional creep, but I'm talking about the people who sustain you.

Messages About Self Worth

The messages we received growing up are the messages that form our self perception. If we were devalued as children, we will continue that pattern as adults by devaluing ourselves and letting others devalue us too. We simply don't know any other way. If we were devalued as children, we were "conditioned" to be devalued and expect to be treated badly, even if allowing such treatment is hurtful. Poor treatment becomes normal to those who are abused as children.

If you are not taught to protect yourself as a child against the adults who raise you, then you are inadequately prepared for the harsh realities of the world. If you were not valued as a child and treated with respect, then you are ill-prepared to face the world and its obstacles. When you come from an abusive upbringing, whether it was the fault of your parents or not, it can be very difficult for you to know who you are.

You can only perceive yourself rightly when you are raised in a respectful and loving environment. If you don't know your worth and value, your life can be very difficult and painful. You may blame yourself for situations that are not your fault, and you will likely be filled with shame for being yourself.

Pain is a Messenger

When you feel badly, hurt, sad or depressed, it all comes from the root of your own opinion of yourself deep, deep, deep down in your subconscious. Further, if you question your value as a person, chances are you have allowed other people into your inner-world who do not affirm your preciousness.
 
Pain serves as a signal to your mind that you have been wronged in some way, that something is amiss. It does not mean that you are bad or inherently flawed. It simply means that some aspect of your thinking or relating is damaging your soul. It's important to listen to the message that your pain is sending you. Pain is the catalyst to growth. It is only when you listen to your pain that you can solve the dilemma and grow as a person, mature emotionally and feel better.

We must become keenly attuned to our pain, the pinpricks of our heart in order to accurately gauge the worthiness not of ourselves, but of our interactions. If we've lived our lives avoiding pain, stuffing hurts down so as to make others happy (learned from improper childhood conditioning), we may not have immediate and direct access to the emotional triggers that signal improper treatment. It is only by becoming aware of our internal world, and understand our rights as human beings on this planet that we can begin to recognize when damage is taking place and take immediate steps to protect ourselves.

An example of this is a child who is taught to be nice to her abusers. A child is not going to argue with an adult, of course, as the adult is terrifying to her. Her very life hangs in the balance. She feels her survival depends on compliance. A child psychologically idealizes her caretakers, putting them on a pedestal. An abusive person who seeks power and control may exploit their power over the mind of the child. What happens is the child learns to mold herself around the needs and wishes of the abuser. As she gets older, she never loses that life schema, but continues to treat abusive people like they're better than her.

If we experienced maltreatment growing up, we may have a hard time recognizing it today. Some disregard of our person by others may pass by unnoticed unless it is blatant. While we may not be consciously aware of all the devaluation that takes place, subconsciously our mind records every misstep. We are constantly gauging our worth and value to others and to ourselves during our social interactions, and in our own minds in the form of self talk.

Now that you're an adult, you have responsibility for yourself. You are no longer a child, no longer at the mercy of your parents. You are now capable of making positive changes in your life, and setting boundaries against improper treatment. Understanding this truth is empowering. Depending on the level of devaluation that you received as a child, it may be hard to value yourself and recognize poor treatment. That means you may have to learn to value yourself manually since it will not come naturally to you. This is a very difficult process, but it is possible to learn how to love and value yourself and recognize improper treatment--IF you're willing to do the work of healing and unraveling the lies that keep you abandoning yourself and engaging in toxic relationships.