Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Understanding People
Twoapenny:
Thank you, Skep and Hops for your wise advice, as always. I've been pondering things over the weekend and a friend situation arose that gave me a chance to examine my feelings about things and to try and see the situation objectively and to be a little bit more truthful with myself about my own role in all of it (argh! I hate that bit!).
So ......... I think a lot of it is tied up in my need to be 'liked' because I am 'nice' and I do what people want. When my phone doesn't ring it doesn't signal to me that people are busy, or I've outgrown most of my friends, or that I've dropped off of people's radar because I've been so busy with my son for so many years, it shouts 'no-one likes you because you are not nice'.
I also felt that I really had to prove to myself and everyone around me that I had an amazing group of friends who all adored me when I cut off contact with my family and was left suddenly without those close, albeit in an unhealthy way, relationships that I had had all my life. I think the fact that I have lost this group of friends over the years has felt like my family rejecting me all over again and has made me feel angry and resentful, albeit in a way that wasn't necessarily directed at the right people (and by that I think a lot of it was still to do with the hurt of my family choosing my step-dad over me; in the same way there are friends who have chosen other friends over my company and I think that brought up a lot of unresolved stuff over the years).
If I am brutally honest I don't actually want to spend time with most of the people I know around here. Most of them are people I became friends with in my teens and I am a very different person now to the person I was then. I don't particularly enjoy their company and I don't feel I can really talk to them or be myself around them. I am also aware that it's a very gossip driven area and anything I say or do inevitably ends up doing the rounds and that also makes me feel self-conscious and inhibited most of the time.
I do find my situation with my son makes friendships hard, partly because I don't get a lot of time to be with other people and partly because I find it easier to be around people who also have disabled children as they seem to 'get' my son in a way that others don't. That said, I have been to a lot of groups for parents with disabled kids over the years and I find most of them aren't really my cup of tea; there does seem to be competition about whose child is the most disabled or who has the most problems to deal with and I've just found most of the people I've met that way just aren't really the sort of people I like to hang out with.
So - with that in mind, and my plans to leave the area looking like they will come good (and keeping everything crossed, this time next month we will be literally days away from the big escape - I am just going to try and focus my mind on spending time with the friends that I do like in the area we are moving to and at least having some new opportunities to meet people. I think it's really just time for a really big change in my life and I need to just let go of the old stuff and all the bits that go with it.
Thank you, as always, for giving me a bit of a prod in the right direction, it really helps when other people say things as it can help me assess the situation a bit more objectively, I think, and points me in a new direction (which is always good :) ).
JustKathy:
Hey Tupp,
I wish I had some advice on this, but I don't. If it makes you feel any better, please know that you're not alone. What you wrote describes my own relationships to a tee. I've never felt worthy of love or friendship, but how can we expect to grow up with the confidence to form relationships when we were raised to believe that we were stupid, ugly, worthless, or whatever poison our NMs fed us. I've dealt with this in therapy for years, and while I may walk out of the Ts office feeling empowered, it doesn't take long for the old feelings to creep back in. I just don't see a way to erase years of brainwashing that took place during the developmental years of childhood.
I do find it interesting that we both feel that we have to initiate contact, and that our friends will often drop off or pull away. That has happened to me many times, which of course validates the feelings of being unworthy. I've always had friends at the office, but when I leave that job, they no longer want contact, which leads me to believe that they were only friendly towards me out of a workplace obligation. It's quite possible that they weren't good people to begin with, but of course, I always blame myself. And like you, I also fail miserably at asserting myself, so if a friendship slips away, I don't pursue it.
Now, just when I think I'm too emotionally messed up to have normal relationships, I'm reminded that it could be much worse. My sister, to my knowledge, has had only one date in her 51 years. Both of my parents laughed at her, and ridiculed her with things like, "You finally got some sucker to take you out." She crawled back into her shell and never dated again, and will most likely die alone. She now spends all of her time with Co-F, having no friends or romantic interests. That's the far end end of the spectrum when it comes to emotional abuse, so maybe our situations aren't all that bad. I know I'm mentally damaged by what my NM did to me, but had I remained in their grasp, I can see how much worse I would have ended up. I imagine that there are many children of Ns out there who live as complete recluses, so maybe our relationships are more normal than we realize, and we just aren't able to recognize that.
I liked what Skeps said about becoming comfortable not having a lot of face to face interaction. Over the years, I've become more comfortable with that as well. I've had more than one therapist tell me that it isn't healthy, but they aren't always right. I think it's a lot more healthy to avoid social interactions than to make an attempt at friendships with the wrong people, only to be rejected and hurt. Everyone is different. I've had co-workers who had 500 guests at their wedding, which would be a level of friends and acquaintances that would make me feel overwhelmed and uncomfortable. I wouldn't want that life.
I may not be making much sense here .... just random thoughts. Hops is right. You ARE love-worthy, and so am I. I think, by nature of our upbringing, we are probably far too thin-skinned and sensitive when it comes to relationships. I know I am. Getting past that is the difficult part. Difficult. Not impossible. :)
Twoapenny:
Kathy, all of that makes perfect sense. I do find very few people put much effort into keeping in contact these days but maybe that is more just about the way the world is now? I know Hops mentioned something about Facebook being the go to place for communicating now and I know a lot of people that do that and nothing else. For me that's not enough. It's a bit like eating junk food instead of a proper meal; it's alright every now and again but I like proper food! And in the same way I like proper conversation and I LOVE conversation that I haven't had to go out looking for or initiate. I love it when friends remember that you had a doctor's appointment or some sort of big thing going on and call to ask how it went - it just makes me feel like someone cares enough about me to be aware of what's going on in my life and wants to know about it. But I am trying very hard to focus on the friends I have who I do have healthy relationships with and not think too much about no-one called or I haven't seen so and so for x number of months. It does feel like things are changing. I can't really explain it but things feel like they're shifting and starting to improve. We're still hoping to move, although there may be a slight delay now as my son needs some more medical 'stuff' and it's easier to sort from here because he's already in the system, but the move will still happen and will only be delayed by a few months at most. So I'm really hoping that the move is the literal shove I need to help with the emotional shove that seems to be happening as well. But I do think those early childhood bonding experiences (or lack of them) seem to leave a hole that nothing else seems to fill too easily?
JustKathy:
Facebook has definitely changed the way people interact with one another. Your junk food analogy is dead on. It's almost like a drug for some people. You really have to know how to use it in moderation or it can be truly addicting. I know people who are on Facebook all day long, and I just can't wrap my head around that ... spending 8+ hours a days interacting with people you have never met, and may never meet.
The plus side of Facebook is that I've been able to reconnect with some actual friends that I had lost touch with, a few from high school, and one childhood friend who I grew up with in Canada. Also, the person who I would consider my best friend right now is someone I met online. We first took an online writing class together at UCLA, then became friends on Facebook before finally meeting in person. Rachel is a transgender woman who also had a really rough time with her parents, so we have a lot in common. She's the one person who is reliably there for me. When she's in my neck of the woods she'll always call me to have lunch, which I love since I so rarely get out. You just can't compare online chat to sitting down and dishing over lunch at a busy diner. Facebook is a great place to connect, but people who spend all day talking to "friends" on Facebook are really living in isolation.
I do hope the move works out for you. I wouldn't worry about the delay. A few months may seem like an eternity when you're in a bad place, but keep focusing on the positive changes in your future, and you'll find it goes quickly. :)
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: JustKathy on February 18, 2016, 12:07:48 PM ---Facebook has definitely changed the way people interact with one another. Your junk food analogy is dead on. It's almost like a drug for some people. You really have to know how to use it in moderation or it can be truly addicting. I know people who are on Facebook all day long, and I just can't wrap my head around that ... spending 8+ hours a days interacting with people you have never met, and may never meet.
The plus side of Facebook is that I've been able to reconnect with some actual friends that I had lost touch with, a few from high school, and one childhood friend who I grew up with in Canada. Also, the person who I would consider my best friend right now is someone I met online. We first took an online writing class together at UCLA, then became friends on Facebook before finally meeting in person. Rachel is a transgender woman who also had a really rough time with her parents, so we have a lot in common. She's the one person who is reliably there for me. When she's in my neck of the woods she'll always call me to have lunch, which I love since I so rarely get out. You just can't compare online chat to sitting down and dishing over lunch at a busy diner. Facebook is a great place to connect, but people who spend all day talking to "friends" on Facebook are really living in isolation.
I do hope the move works out for you. I wouldn't worry about the delay. A few months may seem like an eternity when you're in a bad place, but keep focusing on the positive changes in your future, and you'll find it goes quickly. :)
--- End quote ---
Yes, catching up with people you've lost touch with is great, although for me I was quite quickly reminded with some of them why we'd lost touch :) That's lovely that you've got this great new friend, the thing I do love about the internet is that it can bring you wonderful people that you might not have met in the real world (like this place does!).
I think delaying for a few months will actually make moving a little bit easier; a bit more time to save some more money and get more organised, I can get a bit more work done on my van and just do it all at a slightly slower pace which will be nice. Things seem to be flowing well at the moment which is unusual so I'm trying to enjoy it :) I hope you get to have lunch with your friend again soon :) xx
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