Growing Up Feeling Like a Burden: Hidden Trauma of Being ‘Too Much'

The burden wound begins in childhood. Being treated as “too much” or “a burden” by parents creates a deep, embodied wound. The imprint becomes identity. This is not just a passing experience but attaches to the child’s developing sense of self, carried into adulthood. The body remembers. Shame and burden are felt in the soma, even when never spoken aloud. The wound repeats. It shapes adult relationships: apologizing for existing, scanning for rejection, pushing away kindness.

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 Book: The Trauma We Don't Talk About https://amzn.to/41SjKKL

 

Want to go deeper? Check the link below for Ana’s somatic course on healing intimacy and learning to safely open, receive, and trust again.

https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/offers/zchSQWb5

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Key Takeaways Feeling like a burden is a wound given to you, not an inherent truth. The wound attaches to identity early and can shadow every stage of life. It shapes behaviors: apologizing, shrinking, refusing kindness, sabotaging intimacy. Families pass down the burden story, often unconsciously, and culture amplifies it.

Healing requires:

Naming the wound Recognizing it is not yours

Practicing receiving kindness without apology Reclaiming space and belonging Healing is both personal liberation and political resistance.

Distilled Lessons / Therapeutic Teachings From Self-Blame to Given Burden: Move from “I am the burden” → “This burden was given to me.”

Somatic Awareness: Notice how the wound lives in the body (tension, shrinking, hypervigilance). Relational Practice: Accept kindness, stop compulsive apologizing, risk showing joy/sadness without shame.

Breaking Cycles: By healing, you stop passing the wound forward to partners, children, colleagues. Resistance Practice: Claiming space and worth challenges both family conditioning and systemic oppression.

Main Quotes by Ana Mael to share & tag

“That kind of message doesn’t just hurt in the moment. It takes root deep inside, in our soma.”

“This isn’t weakness. This is the legacy of a burden you never signed up for.”

“Believing you’re a burden to your parents is a deeply felt visceral rejection. It is tremendously painful.”

“If your perception tells you that you are a burden, it catapults you into rejection, isolation, unworthiness, and shame.”

“Feeling like a burden made you believe you were undeserving of love and kindness.”

“The truth is: you are deserving of goodness. You deserve kindness, belonging, unconditional love, and the space to expand.”

“Healing this wound is not just therapy or self-work. It is also a political act of resistance.”

“You were never meant to carry that burden. You were meant to rise.”

About Ana Mael: Ana Mael is a genocide survivor, somatic therapist, and author of The Trauma We Don’t Talk About. She is the founder of the Somatic Trauma Recovery Center and has dedicated her career to helping survivors reclaim their identity, dignity, and self-trust. With decades of lived experience, Ana offers a unique, unapologetic approach to healing that combines trauma justice, somatic therapy, and spiritual integrity. She advocates for vulnerability, accountability, and collective healing to dismantle the systems that perpetuate oppression and harm.

Chapters

• (00:00:00) - The belief that you yourself are a burden
• (00:05:52) - The Trauma of Feeling Like A Burden
• (00:10:02) - How to Stop Feeling Like a Burden as an Adult
• (00:20:42) - A burden on the system