For When You Feel Disappointed
From a psychoanalytic perspective, the urge to protect others from disappointment often reflects our own unresolved fears and defenses against this emotion. Disappointment is an inherent part of human experience, yet many of us develop defenses to avoid it, both for ourselves and others. This tendency is rooted in early childhood experiences where disappointment was either mishandled or overwhelming.
As children, when our needs were not met, we were often not shown how to process disappointment. Instead, we may have been implicitly or explicitly taught that other people's emotions were our responsibility. When this happens, disappointment becomes an intolerable emotion, something to be avoided at all costs. As adults, this avoidance manifests as a preoccupation with not disappointing others, often disguising a deeper fear that we are fundamentally disappointing ourselves.
In psychoanalytic terms, this defense is a form of projection—our internal discomfort with feeling disappointment is projected outward, leading us to assume the role of protector for others. This attempt to "save" others from disappointment becomes a way to defend against our own vulnerability. We mistakenly believe that by controlling or alleviating someone else's disappointment, we can prevent feeling our own.
The difficulty with disappointment lies in its passive nature. Unlike other emotions such as anger, which can compel action, disappointment often feels stagnant, as if there is nothing to be done. This helplessness can make the emotion feel particularly intolerable, leading to self-punishing narratives like "If I didn't expect anything, I wouldn’t be disappointed." This belief wrongly equates feeling disappointment with a personal failure, rather than acknowledging it as a natural emotional response.
Similarly, we may internalize the idea that depending on others is the source of disappointment, and thus something to be avoided. This defense mechanism is an attempt to protect ourselves from future pain by eliminating dependence, which psychoanalysis would see as a defense against vulnerability and connection.
At its core, the drive to avoid disappointing others often stems from childhood experiences where our own needs were not adequately met, leaving us feeling disappointed and helpless. Without guidance on how to process or tolerate this emotion, we learned to suppress it and instead became hyper-focused on never disappointing others. This reflects an internalization of unresolved childhood feelings—an unconscious belief that if we can prevent others from feeling disappointed, we can avoid the painful feelings that stem from our own unmet needs.
What is truly needed, both in childhood and adulthood, is not to escape disappointment but to be able to sit with it. We needed caregivers who could model how to tolerate and process disappointment, showing us that it is a valid and manageable emotion. Learning to sit with disappointment, without rushing to fix or avoid it, is essential for emotional growth and the development of authentic relationships.
Psychoanalytically speaking, unhooking ourselves from the fantasy that we can prevent others from feeling disappointment requires confronting our own fears and discomfort with this emotion. It means learning to tolerate the feelings of vulnerability and helplessness that disappointment can bring, without turning to defenses that distance us from others or from our own experience. Only by sitting with our own disappointment can we develop the emotional capacity to allow others to feel theirs.
In moments where we may rush to protect others from disappointment—by downplaying their feelings, offering solutions, or telling them not to expect anything—psychoanalysis encourages us to pause. Instead of trying to alleviate their disappointment, we can simply be with them in their experience, offering the presence and understanding that we may have lacked in our own early experiences. In doing so, we create the space for authentic emotional connection, both with ourselves and with others.
Disappointment, like all emotions, deserves respect and attention. It is a part of the human condition and an essential aspect of emotional development. By allowing ourselves and others to fully experience it, we foster deeper emotional resilience and more genuine relationships.