I Need People

[Ami]

This is going to sound like a weird post. However,someone who I don't often talk to pM'ed me with such a beautiful"kindness". My heart just warmed. I realize that I really do need people.
My last thread on "Trusting Myself" was the hardest thread that I have ever written. Friends said that it just looked like a 'normal "thread. However,it was gut wrenching for me. I was praying that someone would help me and someone would understand.
  That has never failed( someone always helped me and always understood).However, this time,it was the worst for me. I realized that this topic ( Trusting myself) was  really the topic of toxic shame.That is why I felt so "undone". I was at the 'level" of age 14 when I gave myself up to my N mother and silent father. I was at the block where I simply gave over my self-- perceptions, emotions, thoughts etc---- to them. I became the Vaknin 'clone"
  Under this layer is the "real ' me-- I think.
   I bring these things up b/c I have had a "detachment" in my relationships with most people . I was "numb" so I wasn't really there. anyway.That was part of what I was saying that I thought made me a "sociopath"  or "cold", I really did not care very much. I can see with my relationship with Maria that most times I don't want to be bothered. I have told her that it is NOT her(which it is not). It is me . She understands. She said,"I know that you are just "like that"
  Anyway, I saw ,when I got that sweet, unexpected e mail, that I really do need people. I can't need them the way that I used to--- to define me. That is why I did not want to be around people ..It was too much stress as to "how" I was going to be defined.However, I can "need" them to interact with  as a "side by side' interaction."
  I detached from people b/c I needed people to define me and it was too much pressure and stress. If I need people to interact and share with,it will be totally different. It will be warm and fun. When it is otherwise( disagreements),it will not decimate me b/c my value is not on the line.This is how I used to feel when I had friends and did many activities.
  This is the next lesson under the "toxic shame lesson( which  is not done with,yet either)
 Thank you again for letting me learn a little more and let go much more from the toxic N mother
                                                                                             Love    Ami

 

[Gaining Strength]

That is very powerful Ami.  It touches so much in me. 

So much so that I am going to skip posting about it - got to go pick up son  300 miles away.  Glad to have an excuse.
So glad you are here. 

I will tell you that last year I found my way through the maze of toxic shame.  It is a maze I had unwittingly lived in my entire life and knowingly faced for a number of years.  but last year I got through it.  Now I still face some residuals - left over psychological programming - but in the midst of it I thought I might not get through it.  The pain was indescribable - but I did get through it and you can to.

your friend - Gaining Strength

ps - naming it was the key for me.  And then I had to name it each and every time and simply tell myself and come to believe that I would get through it.  And lo and behold - I did.

[bigalspal]

Hi Ami,
Hey, I'm feeling a bit better today, so I thought I'd post to this very important topic.
I'm not sure I'm at the point that you are. I'm not sure if I'm READY to need people. I'm not very good at maintaining a friendship.
I just can't relate to a bunch of clothes hungry, gossip mongering women. (I don't count you women on this board as this type).
When I have a close woman friend, she always tends to be OLDER, a mother figure.
We all know why that is.
I'm afraid to let women close. I don't want any male friends, either.
I prefer to be by myself or with my family. (except my NMother, of course)
I've just never had the energy, or patience.
Some days, before my surgery, my husband would beg me to get out of the house. A trip to Wal-Mart is all I can manage, then I feel a distinct pull back to the safety of my house.
I can't say I was always like that, but even when I was younger, I only had one friend at a time & then the friendship would fade away.
My fault, usually.
It's funny, because a lot of women really try hard to be my friend, but I pull away.
I just don't have it in me.
Maybe, in time, all that will change.
I'm not sure I want it to.
I like the way things are. I'm brave on the puter.
Sad, but true.
Ami, I'm just being honest.
And that's SCARY! Letting you people see the REAL me.
I could say all the "right" things, but that would be a lie.
So there it is.
Love,
Bigalspal

[NoMoreMindGames]

Ami,

you are learning so much....and i'm learning so much from you, too.

thank you for posting all of your feelings and thoughts.  i definitely have had problems feeling "detached" from people i love, too...it's something in me that just blocks me from fully trusting or loving...to the point of almost feeling like i don't care.  and them sometimes i care too much, unhealthily or obsessively.

i have never thought of my problem with this as being caused by my avoidance of being stressed out by needing other people to define myself....i always thought it was because being around people often exhausts me and causes anxiety...i guess like "social anxiety disorder"...constantly walking on eggshells, then afterward, replaying everything i did and said in my mind over and over, picking through it for anything that may have been interpreted negatively by the other person...feeling defensive, anxious...all of that.

is that similar to what you feel, or different?

xoxoxo, nmmg