Disclaimer

I’m not a certified mental health expert. However, I’m very passionate about observing human behaviours (including mine). I studied psychology as part of the curriculum for both my Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and my Master’s degree in Management, specialising in Systems Thinking. Still, it doesn’t mean I can formally diagnose anyone’s personality/mental disorder.

About This Article

In an ideal world, no human should have allergies. Everyone should be able to devour peanut butter from the jar without getting anaphylaxis (a life-threatening reaction including difficulty breathing, a drop in blood pressure, and cardiovascular collapse).

While food allergy is commonly discussed and (sort of) easily managed, very few people talk about emotional allergy.

This article is about emotional allergy and therefore, let’s forget about devouring peanut butter from the jar, especially if it belongs to your housemate. Don’t do it. It’s wrong and you may end up in jail. Or hospital. Or their freezer.

Additionally, since this is an article, not a book, complex issues are explained in a brief manner.

How Did I Become Interested in Emotional Allergy?

I became interested in the term ‘Emotional Allergy’ after reading a word I find fascinating to pronounce: anaphylaxis. I may name my next dog or cat Anaphylaxis, and call her Phylax. How fancy is that? “Relax, Phylax!” What a beautiful rhyme.

While amazed by how only certain people are allergic to peanuts, I saw similarities in how I react to certain people/certain behaviours, and how other people don’t have the same reaction as I do. 

What is an Emotional Allergy?

Similar to food allergy, but instead of food, the allergy is a strong reaction from certain people or behaviours. 

Just like food allergies, some people can eat anything without having any allergies while some must avoid certain foods if they still want to live. Likewise, some people can get along with various types of people, including any type of personality disorder, while some must avoid certain people if they want to live peacefully and shine authentically.

My ick meter can instantly break when I come across someone who pretends to be dumb while passive-aggressively baiting for my anger, not in a joking way, but in a real, mean way, or being plain disrespectful, to say the least. People like this would usually go further by shaming me for expressing my anger.

At the same time, some friends don’t have any problems with this type of behaviour. They simply ignore it and quickly get over it, busy thinking about what they will eat for lunch.

Another human behaviour that I’m allergic to is people who look warm and friendly at the beginning, but after knowing some of my weaknesses, weaponise them against me. I’d get severely allergic to this type of behaviour while other people just take it easy and move on with their lives without much drama. 

Meanwhile, some people get a strong emotional allergy when someone ghosts them or gives them the silent treatment.

While silent treatment is commonly seen as a type of abuse, I see silent treatment as bliss that lets me live in peace. I would simply put these types of people (who distance themselves or simply ghost me) out of my life without much drama. While I may ask for some explanation, usually I’d see it as not worth my time, let alone my energy. And anyone who comes back after ghosting me would usually either be blocked straight away or be treated as a stranger again, who has to earn my trust again.

As I came across the word anaphylaxis and started to observe the varying nature of humans’ reactions, I arrived at the conclusion that emotional allergy does exist and is something that needs to be taken seriously. Looks like I finally have completed the missing puzzle in my life and one of the most common human sufferings: emotional allergy. *Insert Twilight Zone intro song here.

Is Emotional Allergy the Same as a Pet Peeve?

No. Pet Peeve is just a minor annoyance. It’s annoying, but not annoying enough to get on my nerves and push my buttons. Not enough to get me really angry. 

One of my pet peeves is someone chewing with a loud noise. I’d be like, how on earth are you not in jail with this loud noise? But that’s it. I wouldn’t get angry, I’d just get a little annoyed while also laughing at why I get annoyed by such a little thing, telling myself, “You’re so petty!”

But I also feel sorry for that person… imagine if they come across a serial killer who has the same pet peeve… did you know that some serial killers kill just because they get ‘a little’ annoyed? Let’s pray that this person never comes across a serial killer who has that particular pet peeve. In the name of pet peeve… amen. 

Another pet peeve I have is people who drive slowly on the right side of the highway. It’s annoying, but not enough to make me super angry. 

My Curiosity Has Gone Down the Rabbit Hole

My curiosity about human behaviours and their reactions, including mine, has motivated me to dive deep into extensive research. Down the rabbit hole. It’s been fascinating.

During my research, I came across some fancy terms and these are things that many of us experienced before but didn’t even know they had a name. Some examples are: ‘dysfunctional household’, ‘toxic upbringing’, ‘toxic people’, ‘getting triggered’, ‘reactional abuse’, ‘trauma bonding’, ‘narcissism’, ‘codependency’, ‘people-pleasing’, ‘flying monkeys’, ‘smear campaign’, ‘triangulation’, ‘gaslighting’, ‘projecting’, ‘deflecting’, ‘scapegoating’, ‘borderline personality’, and ‘anxious-avoidant attachment’.

Having watched quite a lot of videos on YouTube about psychology and personality disorders, particularly narcissism and borderline, including the ‘subtle’ and ‘gentle’ abuse the toxic people inflict on people around them, I conclude that some people, like the ‘flying monkeys’, may get along with these ‘toxic’ people just fine, while some others suffer immensely. These people, who suffer immensely, are people who have emotional allergies to ‘toxic’ people. However, this is not to say that ‘flying monkeys’ are healthy people. It’s highly likely that the ‘flying monkeys’ are also toxic and therefore, don’t see their behaviours as toxic.

Who Are Likely to Have Emotional Allergies?

People who were brought up in a dysfunctional household are likely to suffer emotional allergies. This is not an absolute truth of course, but there’s a big tendency that these people may easily suffer emotional allergies. 

However, people who believe they had a ‘healthy’ childhood, while actually wasn’t healthy, are also likely to suffer emotional allergies since they’ve been brainwashed to normalise the unhealthy treatment as ‘normal’. They’re likely to suffer even more than those who have acknowledged the dysfunction in their upbringing. 

By ‘likely to suffer even more’, I mean they may have more chronic, incurable conditions/illnesses including chronic depression, panic disorder, etc while never understanding that the abuse they have to unnecessarily endure has caused havoc in their immune system. Some even become abusers as they think abusing other people is ‘normal’ and also because they need an outlet to project their negative emotions to other people. 

What is a Dysfunctional Household?

A dysfunctional household may include one or more of the following:

1. Parents Who Are Obsessed With Obedient Children

These are parents who obligate their children to obey them blindly. This type of parents will punish their children, often severely, for questioning the parents’ behaviour or decisions. This, not only stifles children’s inquisitiveness or worse, creativity (which may cause depression later in their lives) but also plants a seed of resentment towards the parents and anyone who resembles their parents’ authoritative behaviour. They later become allergic to being told what to do and lash out disproportionately. 

2. Parents Who Parentify Their Young Children

This means that young children are forced to function as adults while they are literally young children. It can range from the obligation of having to babysit their younger sibling(s) and get punished if something goes wrong, to having to attend to their parents’ needs and get punished for failing to do so. When these children grow up, they may get allergic to people who want them to commit, naively assuming that if anything goes wrong, it’ll be their fault and they will get punished.

3. Parents Who Outright Abuse or Neglect Their Children, in Any Form

Parents who abuse their children have their own childhood trauma they haven’t worked on and project their negative emotions onto their children. Their children are basically their punching bags. This is how generational trauma is passed on. 

Children from abusive households often run away, at least, emotionally, and get attached to their friends much closer than necessary. This is how children get into drugs as they get influenced more easily by their friends or even strangers they meet online or on the street since they no longer see their abusive parents as allies.

On the other hand, parents who neglect (neglect in any form) their children may inadvertently train their children to be unnaturally independent, or worse, rob their childhood altogether as these children have to literally raise themselves.

How the Weirdly Super Independent (Lonewolf) People Are Formed

The children who have to raise themselves grow up to be super independent adults who never ask for help despite needing help. In an extreme case, some of them end up killing themselves as they believe nobody will help or at least understand them. These individuals tend to believe they’re not worthy to be helped or understood.

Some of these super independent adults may have difficulties trusting people for the rest of their lives. What happens is, usually, since the first people they trust (their parents) disappoint them consistently, it impairs their ability to discern whom to trust. They may end up trusting the wrong people who later betray them, only to confirm their belief that nobody can be trusted.

How Codependency and People-Pleasing Are Formed

While some grow to be super independent, some children from dysfunctional households grow to be super dependent. They’d bend over backward just to have people around them, terrified of getting abandoned. In a way, not only do they often get manipulated by people around them, but they also abuse themselves by neglecting their own needs. 

How Manipulative (Toxic) People Are Formed

The other group from dysfunctional households grow to be toxic to certain people. These people are super manipulative. They’re fully aware that their parents can’t be there for them so they use people around them to make them feel good about themselves. 

They’d manipulate people to fulfil their needs and discard them when no longer needed. People around them are just ‘supplies’ instead of real people who have their own needs.

The interesting part about this ‘supply’ theory is that they classify their supplies into different categories: the main supply is usually their spouse, children, and best friend(s) while the secondary supply is usually some casual flings, side chicks, side dudes, prostitutes, etc. 

While toxic people will fight tooth and nail to keep their main supply, they will discard their main supply once they can no longer use them. The discard only happens after they find a replacement as toxic people are incapable of being alone.

Is It an Emotional Allergy or a Personality Disorder?

Now instead of trying to decide if it’s an emotional allergy or a personality disorder, the first step to establishing a peaceful, pleasant life is to acknowledge our emotional allergies without naively putting a label on what personality disorder we or the other person may have.

An emotional allergy can be recognised by how we feel and react to certain people/behaviours, while a personality disorder is something that is diagnosed by a certified expert in some fancy field. The diagnosis is usually done by analysing how we react to certain people/behaviours/situations.

When I wrote ‘fancy field’, I didn’t mean to mock the psychology field; my aim is to emphasise that psychology is not gospel. This field is not (yet) an absolute truth. It’s still developing. Its analysis is not 100% accurate.

For example, to this day, they still have difficulties treating depression as they focus on the symptoms instead of the underlying cause. Many of them treat it as a chemical imbalance in the brain while ignoring what causes the chemical imbalance. 

Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD in his book, ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ pointed this out, “Not having a diagnosis now confronts therapists with a serious dilemma: How do we treat people who are coping with the fall-out of abuse, betrayal and abandonment when we are forced to diagnose them with depression, panic disorder, bipolar illness, or borderline personality, which do not really address what they are coping with?” (page 161).

Psychology Is Not 100% Right… Or Wrong

Having mentioned the above, despite not yet achieving 100% accuracy, psychology is not 100% wrong either. So disregarding psychology altogether and even making fun of/shaming people who are passionate about studying psychology are unproductive and unintelligent attitudes that benefit no one.

What Now?

Regardless of what personality disorder you or the other person may have, the first and most important step is to look after yourself by setting your boundaries properly. This includes distancing yourself from people whose behaviours give you ‘allergic’ reactions. 

Does Respecting Our Emotional Allergy Mean Holding On to the Allergy?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: noooooooooooo.

Just kidding. Back to the question, the answer is: not necessarily.

I believe by respecting our emotional allergies, we are on the right path to emotional healing. As we are healing (if done correctly, with proper guidance), we start to get to know ourselves better. At one point, we may no longer have ‘allergies’, no longer get ‘triggered’ by certain behaviours, but at the same time, no longer tolerate anything that forces us to neglect our needs and wellbeing.

By ‘triggered’ I mean, we no longer react but respond. This means we no longer follow emotional impulsiveness but approach the issue in a more thoughtful and measured manner, taking into account the feelings and needs of everyone involved.

Does ‘Not Getting Triggered’ Mean We’re 100% Healed?

Not necessarily. Some people have been gaslighted/brainwashed all their life by manipulative people around them (can be parents, spouses, siblings, and/or friends), normalising their manipulation as something that must be tolerated, or worse, honoured without question. These people have a f*cked-up resilience, as explained by Dr Ramani in one of her videos (click here to watch), and people with f*cked-up resilience are not healed. Furthermore, they may not live up to their best potential.

How Do We Know We’re 100% Healed Then?

The sign of being healed is not just ‘not getting triggered’, but also being able to honour our needs by establishing healthy boundaries without fear of abandonment and without wanting to manipulate other people to boost our egos.

What About Toxic People? Do They Have Emotional Allergies?

Yes. Toxic people are usually allergic to ‘healthy’ people. ‘Healthy’ people are the hardest to manipulate as they know how to love themselves.

And even if these healthy people get manipulated, they usually can entangle themselves without much drama. Drama and negative emotions are what toxic people feed on.

Generally, ‘healthy’ people are not equipped with reading toxicity as they simply have no allergies. Similar to the peanut butter analogy, toxic people, to healthy people, are just another ‘garden variety’ of humans and are not registered as ‘toxic’. Just like most people see peanuts, it’s just another type of snack, it’s not going to kill them.

Should Toxic People Respect Their Emotional Allergies?

This is the question that will not be questioned by toxic people themselves as they know they’re allergic to certain people and will naturally avoid them. In a way, toxic people do a better job than their unhealed counterparts when it comes to respecting their emotional allergies. 

All in All

Some individuals possess an emotional allergy, and this varies from person to person.

Despite wanting to point fingers at who has what personality disorder, we must first reflect on why we react the way we react. It’s not self-blaming, but it’s self-compassion, where we acknowledge and respect our emotional allergies. We then distance ourselves from people whom we are allergic to. This is an essential (but not the only) step to being able to live in a pleasant, peaceful way so we can shine authentically, leading to our best potential. 

Furthermore, it’s important to note that just because certain people are toxic to us doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re evil. Similar to peanut butter, just because eating peanut butter can kill people who are allergic to peanuts doesn’t mean peanuts are evil.

I hope all of us can shine authentically, be free from allergies, and live happily ever after.

Anyway. I gladly and respectfully welcome all comments, questions, and disagreements. You can leave yours in the comment section below, or shoot me a private message and I will do my best to reply promptly. But please be aware that I’m not a licensed mental health expert. I can’t diagnose anyone though I may be able to give some brief feedback on how to deal with certain people. And again, as mentioned, instead of focusing on the disorder, we should focus on our emotional allergy first.

References (Youtube videos I’ve subscribed to and watched):

Dr Ramani
Prof Sam Vaknin
Dr Les Carter
Dr Daniel Fox
Richard Grannon
Robert Greene
Jerry Wise Consulting
Jimmy on Relationships