Labeled the “Over-Dramatic” Child

[u/kairvr]

Was anyone else constantly labeled as over-dramatic, drama queen, attention seeking, etc. growing up? I wasn’t diagnosed until my 20s so as a grade schooler my big reactions, unfiltered facial expressions, and meltdowns were all viewed as me wanting attention. I also feel like a lot of times when bad things would happen to me, I would have to exaggerate about it for people to perceive them as being worthy of the amount of distress I felt. For most of my childhood I ended up just accepting this as my label. In my head, I was the annoying attention seeking drama queen and deserved to be hated for that. Did anyone else have a similar experience?

EDIT - There is so much strength to be found in shared experiences. I hope that everyone reading and commenting on this thread feels less alone and can understand that you were NOT being too dramatic or difficult or attention seeking. We were all doing our best to emotionally regulate and have our needs met different levels of information and resources… for some of us, that was none. You should all be so proud of yourselves for surviving that and coming out on the other side to a space where we can learn and heal and forgive ourselves.

[u/goozakkc]

Yes. A thousand time yes.