How small have you made yourself?

Sometimes we make ourselves incredibly small without even realising it.

Maybe we do it to fit in the spaces we think others want us to inhabit. Maybe so we feel we’re out of the way.

Very often we do it until we can barely see ourselves, because, after all, the point was to render ourselves unobtrusive.

I’m paraphrasing, but the gist is here: “There are two primary emotions, fear and love, everything spills from those two core feelings. What are you afraid of?” she asks.

“Easy, I’m unlovable,” Brooke answers.

“Unlovable in what way?” she asks.

Brooke says, “I’m not enough.”

She says, “Enough easy answers. What’s the hard one?”

“That I’m too much,” Brooke, now a proper weeping mess, finally splutters, “That I was too much for my mother.”

She says, “Too perceptive, too inquisitive, too capable. These are the exact qualities a mother should celebrate in a child.” (The dialogue continues but then we get to…) “You think that by lowering yourself you become lovable,” she says.

The person Brooke is talking to is also Brooke. Brooke, a therapist, has double-Brooked herself, because sometimes you’re only willing to let you deal with you. This dialogue is taken from an episode of HBO’s In Treatment.

Based, in part, on the Israeli series BeTipul, the first three seasons ran from 2008- 2010. It did well. Gabriel Byrne was in it.

Then it was over. I was sad. I got over it. Then lo, ten full years later, it wheeled and came again. New doctor (Uzo Aduba), new everything. Again, it did well.

I’ll come clean: Season 4 sailed straight past me until I saw a clip with the scene transcribed in the intro. The idea of lowering ourselves, or making ourselves small, in order to be lovable, landed neatly in my lap with a horrible sound. That thing that sounds like a truth you don’t want to hear.

We do it all the time. We lower ourselves. Or don’t draw attention to ourselves. We make ourselves small. Make ourselves invisible. Hide. Withdraw.

We know these may be survival tools for not getting hurt, but how did they become ways to be loved?

Because the world makes no sense.

That’s all I got. I wish I understood this better, but I do not. Whether we’re looking at romantic relationships or those within groups of colleagues, this can be a dynamic that really doesn’t have any winners.

The person for whom you’re smalling up, they seem to be the winner, but I don’t really believe they can be. They will never know you. They will never know who or what you can really be. And perhaps, in the long run, the world will not know.

How small can you make yourself? That’s the way I keep hearing it in my head. I think in a very tired corner of my soul, on the very darkest days (or the other way around) that’s something that’s played inside me. And maybe it has, in its way, kept me safe.

I’ve seen couples do more damage to each other by a kind of quiet, incessant gnawing than those who scream and break coffee cups. Some of them push ever so gently, but push constantly, so in the end the other is out of room, out of air. Out.

Here’s the incredible thing. It’s possible for both parties to do this at the same time. It’s possible that neither will notice. What a terrible thing to imagine.

Some people – maybe it’s still in the context of a romantic relationship, maybe it’s with friends or siblings or parents – some people try to be very small so that others can feel bigger and better about themselves.

That’s definitely one idea of why this behaviour plays out. Let the men, the adults, the bosses – some unspecified “them” – let them stretch and wave their arms about. Some of us will be small and quiet and allow them to feel grand. Because that is how we survive.

But then some people become small or, to use the phrase from the show, “lower themselves” because they have big personalities. Or they are very good at something. And somehow they know the world, or someone in particular, will not be kind about this.

How dreadful to think that the good in you is so threatening to someone that you must suppress it so they will not feel – here it is: so they will not feel small.

Remember to talk to your doctor or therapist if you want to know more about what you read here. In many cases, there’s no single solution or diagnosis to a mental health concern. Many people suffer from more than one condition.