I’m excited to write about shows and movies to watch to help you learn about yourself. The more you know yourself and aware of your word bombs, the more you can target where to start in your healing journey. I define word bombs as any words that create discomfort in your body.
AppleTV+ has a show called “The Lessons of Chemistry”. It’s a show about a young woman who has a masters in chemistry and struggles to establish a career because she is discriminated for being a woman. The show illustrates a strong and intelligent woman not able to reach her full potential to succeed in the 50’s.
Spoiler alert: The young woman gives birth and names her child “Mad”. Here is a woman who is in touch with her feelings and was asked to name her child based on how she was feeling. My admiration for this character is that she does not hide who she is or apologizes for how she is feeling. In an era when mothers are expected to feel joy when delivering a baby, she claimed her right to express her authentic feelings and was asked by the nurse to name her child however she was feeling. So, she called her Mad.
The show jumps ahead to a time when her daughter is about seven years old. This little girl is independent because her mother is busy working outside of the home. There is a great scene where she is having dinner with her mother in a diner. While Mad is trying to tell her mother about her day, she is interrupted constantly by their waitress. Her mother doesn’t set clear boundaries with the waitress and Mad feels neglected. When the mother finally eturns her attention to her daughter and invites her to tell her about her day, the daughter gives up and tells her that she has nothing to say. The mother doesn’t encourage her to share and the scene ends with a photo of a billboard showing her famous mother’s face. This mother is working to provide her child with material needs, but has forgotten that emotional needs are just as important.
This is a classic scene to illustrate what happens to some children who grow up to become adults and stop telling others what they need. The origin of holding in their feelings and needs come from childhood. As children, they may have been ignored or emotionally neglected from feeling seen, heard and understood. The little girl was excited at first to share her day with her mom and then, she felt defeated when she couldn’t. It is so much easier for her to pretend that she is fine and has no needs as a way for her to not be a burden to her mother who she knows doesn’t have time for her.
When this little girl grows up to become an adult and comes to therapy, she may come in to talk about why she has a hard time standing up to her boss who continues to make her work overtime or may come into therapy for anxiety due to feeling burned out at work. My approach would be to heal her pain from childhood by working on her self-love. I would remind her that she is worthy of love and attention even though as a young girl, she told herself this lie that she is not worthy to receive them.
For some of these adults, they may have a hard time putting their needs first and asking others for what they want. For example, they may be quick to temper when they are disappointed by their love ones for not giving them what they want. But, the problem is that they never communicated what they wanted. They expect their love ones to know what is the right gift so that they can avoid asking and avoid looking needy. The lesson for these people is that putting themselves first can appear in the form of asking for what you need to be happy. It’s easier said than done. The problem is that they have lifelong practice of pretending they don’t have needs in order to not burden their parents and win their parent’s love. This is why coming to therapy would be supportive for them to build the muscles needed to communicate their needs and to change their mindset that having needs is not wrong.
I would love to hear from you if you think I could be the right fit to help you from your childhood of being emotionally neglected. Please go to my contact page for a free 15 minute consultation session.