Emotional Dumpees

​ Something I've noticed over time is that if you have an emotional problem, don't tell the skinny person. The skinny person will immediately try to solve your problem! Predominantly what he's trying to do and of course it's not true in every case is, he's processing the information and processing it very fast and trying to solve it. At the same time, he's giving the impression that he's not listening and that he doesn't understand.

If you have a problem and you want someone to
listen to you, tell the fat person.

​ But now here's the interesting thing. There are people who are very good receptacles for other people's hurt. You might even be this person. Whenever someone has a problem, they bring it to you. They give you the impression that their life is always one of hurt, because whenever they come to you, it's with a problem. 

​ Here's how it works. It's like an emotional transfer. One person feels full of problems and seeks out a person onto whom they can dump all their negative emotions. Sort of like a dumper and a dumpee. The dumper will come along and unload all of his pain and then when he feels better he'll be off. Chances are that if you're a dumpee, you'll never see that person when they're having a good time. 

​ So the impression is that the dumper has a life of one big hurt. They don't invite you to their good times because they don't need you for good times. They need to be able to unload onto you. Basically the dumpees serve as a sponge or receptacle for people's emotional stuff. 

​ If you have someone like a dumper in your life, they may well be keeping you in the receiving position by telling you that you're a great listener and no one understands them as well as you do. They very often don't make any effort to change their situations because they have you in their lives and they can keep coming back to you again and again. You're like a release mechanism for their pain. 

​ This is known as enabling. Some people enable dumping! This allows the dumper not to have to change his behavior. 

​ The point is that there're people who take on other people's pain and suffering. They take on the emotional information from other people.

​ When I share this with clients with weight issues, they invariably recognize people in their lives who dump on them. It could be a mother, friend or a neighbor. They are usually the dumpee to someone else's emotional trauma. Of course this is not always the case, but they often express being trapped in a relationship.

​ What's interesting is that some people aren't just good at taking on other people's pain and emotions. They're very good at retaining and assimilating it. That's why there's such a great feeling of empathy that comes from the dumpee. If you share your problem with somebody else and they take it on board and they assimilate and retain it, then you feel special, understood and heard. 

​ People with overweight issues, are very often able to retain information from their environment. They're likely to ask you about your problems when they see you again.

​ The skinny person will listen to your problem, but when you see him 6 weeks later he will probably not even ask about it. Chances are his taken it in, dealt with it or didn't even take it on board in the first place. 

​ How do you deal with people giving you emotional information? 

​ It's probably the way you've always dealt with it because that's your role. It may well have been the role in your family when you were growing up. 

​ Start to think about people who dump their emotional stuff on to you. What are the phrases they use? What are the things that they do to you that compel you into a position where you don't have a choice but to become a receptacle for all of their problems?