Surviving The Lost Child Family Role

Feels like an outsider. Doesn’t want to take up space. Unassuming. Keeps to themselves. Develops rich inner fantasy world. Doesn’t develop who they are outside family. Lacks parental guidance to dev themselves. Needless. Blames themselves for family dysfunction. Inferiority complex bc of social anxiety. Anxious attachment. Idealized view of others Puts self down and withdraws. Lonely/separated, but doesn’t announce. Seeks guidance outside self. Ambivalence with life direction. Resources not poured into lost child. Doesn’t assert self or takes risks. Looks for a caregiver as their partner. Responds well to therapy but less likely to pursue bc of low-grade problems. Lack of ambition gives way to depression. Looks up to authority. Asserting self comes with fear response. Presents self as helpless and attracts caretaking personalities. Tendency to outsource authority.

I only existed when I was by myself. Edit: I also had to add that this is the most comprehensive explanation of the lost child on YouTube.

When the lost child begins to realize the blessing of being ignored, they begin plotting their escape.

Its about taking very little space... no success, no shine, no accomplishments... I think we just go about life as spectators... we would love to be part of life but are programmed to stay out...

That’s me, the youngest of 5 siblings, by the time I started understanding the world, my oldest siblings were in their early twenties and all the family drama started. I grew up feeling like I could never depend on anyone but myself. I’m an avoidant. I have a big imagination and create stories in my head. I struggle big time with guilt. I walked around feeling worthless most of my life. But I’ve finally started to understand and work on myself.

I very rarely comment on social media. But I am watching this, just crying. It feels like you were looking straight into my soul, like you know my life. I felt every word. I am 34, and in a very lost place right now. I'm not gonna go into detail about my life story here, but I'm sure you know how profound and significant it is for a lost child to feel seen. You explain it all so beautifully and respectfully. So thank you. This actually really helped.

41yo only child and I believe I took on both the scapegoat and invisible roles. I learned to basically hide away to avoid getting screamed at "as much". I'm not afraid to defend myself from mom but it takes me days or sometimes weeks to get motivated afterwards. It's like she has some kind of radar where as soon as I decide to do anything she starts calling or showing up at my place playing nice digging for info on a way to attack next.

This is so spot on for me. Almost everything you laid out applies to me. I'm 48 now and nobody in my family takes me seriously. Nobody listens when I'm assertive or even simply explaining myself. I make "poor life choices", or so the family says. Everything I do or don't do is now magnified and critiqued. I am unable to live in the shadows anymore. I have a few significant mental health disorders, including severe social anxiety disorder. Because of these issues, I've majorly fallen in life a few times. Rather than my family being able to acknowledge my diagnosed and documented hurdles causing my failures, they shake their collective heads in shame and blame my poor life choices. I'd much rather live in the shadows than carry the family shame. I'm obviously not an angry person by nature. I avoided conflict scarily well most of my life. Now, all I feel is anger. My family has no clue who I am nor what I stand for. My sisters and my mother refuse to hear my story from my perspective. When I interact with them now, or even imagine interacting with them, I rage. My emotions boil over uncontrollably. Even at 48 with loads of therapy under my belt, I'm still figuring out who I am, what I feel and how to express these feelings appropriately. I've basically been disowned by everyone in the family but my father. What aggravates me the most is their blatant refusal to even listen to me. I've become a scapegoat as an adult, but I'm also very lost.

Thanks for helping us feel (safely) seen Heidi. Just because lost children grow into adults who have learned how to be alone doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to have connection and build intimacy. But that can be challenging when we hold a core belief that it’s safer in solitude than it is to be seen

I was a lost child even though I was the only child...I was a badly enmeshed daughter of a Covert NPD mom...She kept me seperate from everyone as a suitcase belonging to her...I was so much dependent on outside world ..needed validations no self confidence...I had that freeze response for my normal feelings...I used to feel weird what was it why I freeze...Finally healing at 41 so much freeing ..But so much lost on the way of life. that makes me sad..I am much better off now with my kids breaking my cycle.....Love and strength to all those lost child and the adult lost child too who are healing...We can heal and succeed

Treated like they weren't supposed to exist (told they were a 'mistake'). Elder siblings hate you because they had to help care for you OR do more housework. Plain old not 'remembered', no energy left. Following their entire lives...until they burn out from being ragdolls...then the sh*t hits the fan. Getting better now though. I DO EXIST. Interesting how a now 61 year old sister and 55 y.o. brother STILL team up and leave me out 🤷‍♀️ Family does NOT like me achieving!!! Breaking the role...

Thought I was the scapegoat, but now I see I was just scapegoating myself. 🤯 Definitely a recovering lost child. Boy, does that feel good to know.

Cried buckets on this video Heidi! Thank you for letting us lost children feel seen

That was me. I was the 3rd out of 5. I spent my childhood upstairs far away from the family. At 18, I went away to college. When I graduated I moved out of state and never returned except to visit now and then. At a young age I figured out that the best way to survive the drama of my covert narcissist mother was to stay out of her sight. She would still use the first born and last born golden children as weapons against the three kids in the middle but I found that avoiding her made me less of a target. Of the 3 middle children the scapegoat (child #2) and I no longer speak to her. I refuse to speak to any of them. Child #3 passed away a few years ago but I would say that he was also a Lost Child. He was the only one with whom I kept in touch.

I’m the Lost Child/Invisible Child but I found my inner strength and became the truth teller

So I am gonna call myself something like a "masked hero" cause whenever the hero thing didn't work, I hid just like this and whenever hiding wasn't an option I had to be the one to "fix" things and make them seem socially acceptable, I had to perform a role that was more commanding. I had to be unreasonably rational (not an oxymoron). My wild emotional swings and personal struggles were an intrusion on the family, and swept to the side. I did not get my true self mirrored back to me. And I learned that if I wanted love and respect I had to be someone other than my true self. I have ADHD and am extremely sensitive so I couldn't be the hero all the time. So when I couldn't be wearing the the mask, I was hidden away in my santum, living completely different lives through books, movies, games, media, just to escape my situation and try and find some kind of connection. I think having both strategies unconsciously developed made it so I didn't trust others or myself but also made it easier to step away from the patterns earlier in my life. I'm in my late 20s and I'm in the middle of establishing myself and who I really am. For the first time--at least since I was too young to fully understand what that meant.

Definitely relate. INFJ 4w5 (probably 469) but more fearful avoidant than anxious preoccupied. It's a hard thing to admit that I'm missing some of these key skills that would help me carve out my own life, but I'm trying not to be angry with myself for finding it so hard to step out and make my own decisions, as I just wasn't equipped to do so as I was growing up. One of the hardest things is convincing myself I matter enough to make the effort to put the work in, get the help etc.

Girl I’m avoidant-dismissive and the lost child, you’ve explained my whole life already. This video in particular helped clarify my peculiar desire to be interesting, outgoing, be seen, and get lots of praise, even though I’m an introvert and, for obvious reasons, feel that I don’t need outside validation or help. It makes a lot of sense through the lens of once being constantly unseen and silent.

I was this child. I started doing therapy rather early, in my early 20’s. Nobody cared and I had to learn early to separate myself from my family….I am the youngest & there is 6 yrs between each of my sibs so I had used self deprecation as a way to “survive”. However, in my years of therapy re: my dysfunctional family, I had to learn to be MY OWN ADVOCATE. I had to learn to find my own voice. Moving away from my family was absolutely ESSENTIAL.

I find this incredibly fascinating. I'm actually the eldest child, but due to the dynamics of my family, it was often times better to let the others lead on. Now I feel like I also played a lot of Hero Role in terms of trying to remedy the dysfunction, but... For sure, just listening to the Lost child Role? I feel that ambivalence, or general difficulty with having an Anxious Attachment Style. This was a good video to think about, thank you!