Not everyone’s emotional baggage will be the same, and not everyone’s personal problems will be so easy to categorize. But here is a list of the different types of emotional baggage to give you an idea of what might be troubling someone you love.
Table of Contents
1. Guilt from past relationships
If emotional baggage comes from a guilty conscience about a past relationship, that will carry itself into all future relationships.
Say your current partner cheated on their ex. That guilt could manifest itself into your partner driving you away in fear that they’ll also betray you. If they neglected an ex and they haven’t forgiven themself, they might convince themselves that they’re not “good enough” for you.
2. Regrets
“I should’ve done this,” “I could’ve done that,” or, “Why did it take me so long to say that?”. We all carry regrets around with us. But if you don’t forgive yourself for the things you did or didn’t do, they will stack on top of you and weigh you down.
You can’t carry regret with you everywhere you go. If someone you know has plenty of regret in your carry-on, they might need reminding of that.
3. Fear
Fear and regret go hand-in-hand. If a new opportunity comes your way, the fear of failure or rejection can stop you from pursuing things out of your comfort shell. And then, years down the line, you look back at that moment and regret not biting the bullet and going for that opportunity.
So if you know that your loved one is holding themselves back out of fear, they might need a push from you to set that fear down.
Not living your life out of fear will only cause regret, which will only add to the growingly insurmountable pile of emotional baggage this person is lugging around.
4. Self-criticism
We are our own worst critics and rarely our best cheerleaders. But that’s a pattern we all need to break. If our internal thoughts are only ever negative, why would we push ourselves to be better?
Your loved one may just say they have a self-deprecating sense of humor, but it could be deeper than that. They could really be burdening themselves with negative self-talk because they think they deserve it.
5. PTSD
Other types of emotional baggage are easier to understand as a bystander, like fear and regret. But PTSD is much more complicated.
More than just negative self-talk, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a real anxiety-related mental health disorder. After experiencing an incredibly traumatic event, a person can be essentially haunted by that trauma. What that means is their brain forces them to relive the trauma in spontaneous flashbacks, nightmares, and overall feelings of extreme anxiety.
If you think someone you love is struggling with PTSD, this might not be something that you can help them with alone. Talking therapies and medication could be prescribed to them by a professional to help them deal with their trauma.
