Content Warning: discussion of grief and childhood trauma

As Generation Z, we would all love to think of ourselves as emotionally aware. We spend a lot of our time looking towards ‘healing’ so that we are no longer attracting ‘toxicity’ into our lives. We watch out for gaslighters, narcissists the other categories of people we have discovered are not good for our development. Old, normalised behaviours that our parents were probably raised on and swear by have now been studied, analysed, and shredded apart by both psychologists and self-aware teenagers on TikTok. On the surface, this desire to become our best selves through acknowledging our faults and taking accountability for our decisions seems like a perfect way to change our generation for the better. However, just like with every movement, there are prevalent issues. I mean, does one ever actually finish healing by the standards set by this society?

We spend a lot of our time looking towards ‘healing’ so that we are no longer attracting ‘toxicity’ into our lives

Prior to this emotional intelligence movement, I had no idea what I was feeling most of the time nor did I particularly care. It felt good to watch my favourite shows, act on stage, and see my friends and that was about as far as my mind could reach into the emotional realm. I first came across the idea of emotional awareness through Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram and socionics. This idea that my personality type avoided pain and vulnerability by providing logical explanations for my overactivity sounded correct. As someone who spent the last three years of university always working and party-hopping, I knew these theories made sense. My friends and family think I work too hard and that our capitalist society’s demand for my over-performance means I have fallen into the hands of the bourgeoise whereas a person like Katherine Fauvre would understand that my escape-artist tendencies are just a way to avoid being trapped and deprived. Both sides make valid points.

Many others online have spent years tearing these theories apart to see where they fit in it. The complexities of these theories and the length of the glossary you need to have on hand just to join in the discussion can be off-putting. It gets to the point where your every action, every thought and feeling, is filtered through theory.

It gets to the point where your every action, every thought and feeling, is filtered through theory

For reference, witness how these lovely people categorise our favourite angry chef. How can I be an 8 if I learn to admit when I am struggling? How can I be an introverted feeling user if I am unaware of my own emotions? How can I be an SLE if I like fashion? I know none of this jargon makes sense to anyone unfamiliar with the theories and that is the whole point. We use these concepts to replace phenomena that modern psychology already has explanations for as we are desperate to understand ourselves. Unfortunately, personality theory is a spiral that those who feel like they lack understanding of themselves can become trapped in.

I believe that, just as with personality theories, people are always desperate to explain their emotional and psychological make-up. Before I started university in 2018, I experienced a bereavement where I had panic attacks and anxiety for the first time. I am okay talking about this experience now, however, at the time, most of my energy was spent on hiding this. I remember sitting in halls with a copy of ‘The Grief Recovery Handbook’ by John W. James and Russell Friedman and being frustrated that my ACE score had something to do with how I was handling these new feelings. So, my adverse childhood had really messed me up this badly? I dropped the book and instead picked up ‘Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving’ by Pete Walker because I believed I needed to ‘fix’ my childhood trauma to come to terms with a recent death in the family. I would now recommend ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Bessel van der Kolk but I did not read that until lockdown.

Even though I was seeing professional help, I would still take extensive efforts to research trauma because I wanted to recover as quickly as possible since it was affecting my education and relationships. I thought that none of the people around me should be subject to my self-proclaimed dismissive-avoidant attachment style and emotional flashbacks. I may have moved on to university, but I was still a broken product of my former environment. Or at least that is what I believed for a while. I guess that was me intellectualising my pain again.

I guess that was me intellectualising my pain again

It was around this time that I discovered the rise of the ‘healing’ community. On Twitter or Tiktok, all you need to do is search the words ‘healing’, ‘narcissist’ or ‘trauma’ and you will see spirituals and psychologists alike promising ways to resolve your issues. According to a lot of them, we attract harmful people into our lives because of traumatising childhoods. They suggest we will be able to protect ourselves from harm and accept the good in life if we ‘heal’ this trauma. The self-proclaimed psychologists on TikTok will give you advice on ‘red flags’ in relationships and ‘green flags’ for those who have experienced complex trauma. They will often list ’10 Things You May Do If You Have xxx Disorder’ that those who have or believe they have certain disorders can watch for validation of their experiences. On the surface, the healing community is a place where like-minded people can have discussions about their personal experiences in an environment that does not feel as judgemental as the real world. However, anything can become like an addiction and many people will spend hours upon hours looking for patterns in their behaviour that they believe stemmed from that horrible thing that happened when they were a child.

I wanted healthy relationships but thought some ‘force’ was distancing me from that. Socionics, my trauma research and over-achieving may all contribute to the way I navigate people, but it was not until I sat down with someone and explained it all out loud that I thought about what direction I was going in. Having real conversations with people face-to-face can be very difficult but it is especially difficult if the only way you know how to communicate your own emotionality is by referencing studies and theories. I could write dissertations (or Redbrick articles…) about my discoveries over the years but does it really help me? When I was recently in the position where I knew I needed to have a serious conversation with a friend, I babbled like a toddler. I felt so embarrassed by my own feelings of vulnerability that it overpowered my usual clear way of speaking. You take away my Victor Gulenko books and what is left? As much as I wanted to delete that memory from my mind the next morning, my embarrassment showed me something. Our over-analysis has made us less socially aware than we believe we are.

. I felt so embarrassed by my own feelings of vulnerability that it overpowered my usual clear way of speaking. You take away my Victor Gulenko books and what is left?

My tendency to intellectualise my pain is not one that is rare. To some degree, it is shared by psychologists, online spirituals, and typology geeks alike. As I sat down with a counsellor who explained that I am harsh on myself due to my own desire to ‘fix’ myself, that this desire is ultimately the only thing that is wrong with me. I may have experienced trauma, but my biggest critic has always been myself. Nobody else has the time or energy to pick another person apart to this degree unless they are getting paid. I am not ‘too much’ of anything and that was all I needed to understand. I am sure that our focus on emotional healing makes us more compassionate friends as we are less judgmental and more inclined to understand the personal issues of others around us, however, it also means that we experience our own emotions through a detached lens that may be detrimental to our own development as young people.

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