Letter 14: The Emergence of The Fraudulent Self
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dear Future Human,
In my last letter, I introduced you to the concept of three psychological structures at play in nearly every human being: The Flailing Child, the Liminal Space, and the Fraudulent Adult. Previously, I explored the roots and nature of the Flailing Child in detail. In this letter, I will focus on the emergence of the latter two, and the mechanism that allows these structures to coexist: emotional numbness.
This system of numbness is a brilliant and necessary survival strategy that ultimately costs us dearly. In the face of overwhelming early childhood experiences, numbness protects us from emotional collapse.1 However, when left unaddressed, it often becomes a hardened barrier, ultimately cutting us off from our deepest sense of Self, our emotional life, and our capacity to experience and meet life directly.
Many of you have probably seen a National Geographic scene where a lion catches an antelope by the neck. Still alive, but completely overwhelmed, the antelope enters a freeze state. Neurotransmitters flood the animal’s body, numbing the pain as it surrenders. The adrenaline stops. The antelope grows strangely calm, as if surrendering to what is happening.2
When we, as children, endure repeated psychological threats—domination, rejection, abandonment—we too have a breaking point. At this breaking point, our survival instincts take over. Like an antelope caught by a lion, the body prepares for the worst, releasing natural opiates that numb pain and shut down overwhelm. We are flooded with natural opiates that ease us into apathy and giving up, eventually numbing us from our overwhelming psychological pain.3 This is where numbness sets in, distancing us from our vital, feeling, connected self, and from life as it’s actually lived.
This chemical and neurological mechanism of numbness protects us from utter collapse every time we experience the trauma of feeling dominated, rejected, or abandoned. Gradually, these moments of numbness accumulate, forming a barrier that dulls our experience of life.
This numbness becomes the foundational layer of the Liminal Space, a barrier that distances us from our original Self. It dulls our direct sensory and emotional connection to the world.
To make this clearer, imagine the psyche like layers of soil. Our Authentic Self is the bedrock—the deepest and truest layer. Just above it lies the Flailing Child, holding the raw fears and unmet needs that couldn’t safely be expressed.
Above that is the hardened clay layer, the Liminal Space. While it shields us from the pain of the Flailing Child, it also prevents us from accessing the fullness of our gifts and experiencing directly all of life.
The Flailing Child exists like an underground spring or aquifer, a source of raw, vital energy that became trapped when the clay layer hardened. Just as underground water can create pressure, erosion, and sudden breaches in the earth above, the Flailing Child’s unprocessed pain and terror continue to move beneath the surface, typically breaking through when the defenses in the Liminal Space no longer work.
This layer of numbness becomes the ground where other defenses take root: repression, denial, avoidance, rigidity, projection, and more. They build on top of one another, growing more complex, but also moving us farther from the bedrock of our Authentic Self and the buried pain of the Flailing Child.
The Fraudulent Adult lives in this topsoil layer—visible, functional, socially acceptable. But like plants growing in shallow soil, this persona lacks deep roots. It appears stable on the surface but is vulnerable to drought, storms, and the unpredictable eruptions from the underground spring below.
However, these defense mechanisms are not simply random constructions. The way we defend ourselves is often shaped by our uniquely innate gifts and talents. If humor is our gift, we use it to deflect pain with wit. If intelligence is our strength, we use it to explain away what we don’t want to feel. If creativity is our natural talent, we invent fantastical stories that keep us from feeling discomfort. In this way, each of us builds our armor. Every coping mechanism arises from our innate brilliance, reshaped and subdued in the service of protection.
As we grow, we often lose touch with our Authentic Self, which becomes buried beneath layers of numbness and protection. In this Liminal Space, a Fraudulent Adult emerges, socially adaptive and self-guided by what feels safe. Meanwhile, buried beneath it all, the Flailing Child continues to exist—hurting, unseen, and exiled.
These two personas—the Fraudulent Adult and the Flailing Child—rarely know the other exists. This leaves us oscillating between feeling capable, confident, and in control (Fraudulent Adult), or feeling lost, ashamed, helpless, and all alone (Flailing Child). Even though at times we can feel “confident” when our Fraudulent Adult is running the show, those times don’t last too long. Because this persona is built on disconnection, its stability is an illusion. Eventually, we slip back into the despair experienced by our Flailing Child. The unsustainable nature of the Fraudulent Adult rests upon the reality that a part of us, deep down, actually knows we are being fraudulent. Thus, we are caught in a perpetual loop between two dissociated states: our Fraudulent Adult, which tries to survive and belong in our social environments, and our inner Flailing Child, which dissociates back into our Fraudulent Adult when the pain of being in our bodies becomes intolerable.
What can we do? Our healing begins by breaking through numbness and reconnecting with our bodies. We do this by gently returning to our sensory, emotional, and bodily intelligence—the capacities that once had to shut down when we were overwhelmed and alone.
To reclaim our authentic selves, we must first learn to come alive again—to awaken to our bodies, our senses, and our lived experiences.
But even here, there’s a hidden obstacle: my words may point the way, but they don’t always help you feel what I’m describing. What does it really mean to be “authentic”? To “awaken”? To have a “lived experience”? We believe we “know” something when, in reality, we only know the string of words—not their embodied meaning.
If we are going to soothe the terror and pain the Flailing Child carries, we must return to a direct, embodied way of knowing, before words came between us and experience.
In my next letter, I’ll explore this gap. Though essential, language doesn’t always carry the experience with it. Too often, it leaves us feeling like we understand when we haven’t actually lived what the words describe.
With you,
Ronit
Newport Institute, What It Means When You’re Feeling Emotionally Numb, February 2024.
Abraham Miranda-Páez et al, Involvement of Opioid and GABA Systems in the Ventrolateral Periaqueductal Gray on Analgesia Associated with Tonic Immobility, Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, January 2016.
Kasia Kozlowska, MBBS, PhD et al, Fear and the Defense Cascade: Clinical Implications and Management, Harvard Review of Psychiatry, July 2015.
By reading this letter I was able to touch and understand my numbness in a deepr level. And with my numbness, my distance from being alive. And with distance, my pain and intention to live. Somehow I cannot distinguish being alive from hypomania. And I am sure it is not the case. How about a letter to future humans with instuctions to be alive? Thank you!
This letter stayed with me. I can track my own oscillation: from the “flail” and its automatic reactions to numb and soothe on the one hand, to the supposed calm and togetherness of the fraudulent adult. Neither is real. And the key to uncovering aliveness is - feeling the pain that connects me and us. A lot to be with! Thank you.