Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

To wish someone cared?

106 replies

elementofsurprise · 11/03/2016 12:29

I'm the only one who stands up for me or thinks i'm worth anything. I tried to reach out to a friend for support on FB - someone who has previously been shocked a stuff I've been through and been positive about me - and they blanked me. I don't understand this. The evidence suggests no-one can care about me, and if they do it's a mistake. I have been through stuff I can't deal with. I feel dirty and used and frightened. But I am always treated like I am bad and wrong and overreacting if I need support - I am treated differently from others. I have posted here before about my appalling expereinces within the MH system and how I can't get any help or support (have tried private too, but therapist "dumped" me, saying I was too fucked up basiclly, and needed more support - I cannot afford what I apprently need privately).

I try so hard to keep going every day but it's only me on my side and I just wish there was someone there who would give me a hug and not think I'm a bad person or expect things of me and be disappointed with me. It would help bear the pain so much. Is it wrong to wish someone cared? Am I bad? I don't need anyone to do anything, just care, maybe listen sometimes. But people just want to give me self-help tips - I have these coming out my ears. I'd just like someone to not have a vague or overt disaproval of me, or blaming me. Someone who just says "gosh, that must be hard, you poor thing". Someone rooting for me, and who doesn't act like I've done something wrong if I'm hurting. Am I bad for this? Is it wrong?

OP posts:
MiscellaneousAssortment · 14/03/2016 21:25

From your last post but loads more throughout this thread:
"I denied to myself the stuff that happened"
"told myself to blot it out"
"I was overreacting"
"Just keep looking forward, blanking out my past as soon as stuff happened".

But None of these words are caring, kind or respectful of yourself. And I mean that in a very nice and not telling off at all :) This is what I mean by not knowing how to do it if you've not been modelled things like love and respect growing up.

And that's what people mean when they say you need support AND you need to build your own self up...

It's not binary, it's not 'person x gets love from others' and 'person y gets to do it on their own'.

It is, however, 'this person x is very lucky as they had a good enough childhood & circumstances to know how to care for and love themselves, and how to engage in positive and supportive relationships (& critically, with who)'. It also might mean that person X also inherited a strong support network and continues to nurture it and let it grow.'

And then there's person Y. They had a shitty upbringing and was taught that their feelings, self esteem and basic existence wasn't as important as the other (abusive and/or damaging) people. They have to go the long way round which is shitty and not fair. They have to fend for themselves and relearn right from the beginning.

You are RIGHT to feel angry. You are RIGHT to feel it's unfair. You are RIGHT to think you deserve better. You are RIGHT that relationships with (GoOD) people enrich your life and should be there to lean on just as you yearn to be there to be the person who's leaned on in return.

But life is shit and it's not happened for you. Possibly because you have to learn and unlearn bad strategies for living. Possibly because very annoyingly it's SO much harder to build bonds when you are in crisis. Oh the irony there.

Flowers
Broken1Girl · 15/03/2016 00:48

Excellent post, Miscellaneous.
Very true about learning how to build healthy relationships. I can't think of one friend my toxic narcissist mother has had for a long period of time. She doesn't speak to her family. Healthy model there Hmm

MiscellaneousAssortment · 15/03/2016 11:18

"But I dont think i'll ever have the bit where Im loved and supported, do you think its possible to get better without that?"

Yes I do. But only if you can get help to go back and unlearn the deep seated ways of thinking and behaving that you need to help caring about yourself and treating yourself in the way you deserve.

That's mid/ long term counselling not a quick visit to a GP, and counselling by a really experienced person who you personally click with. That's not necessarily liking what they say occasionally, or even liking them sometimes, but knowing they 'get it' and can lead rather than flounder in the depth and complexity of your situation.

By the way, I think in the depths of your pain you are feeling like people don't get or relate to the awful traumatic things you have been through. Does it help to know other people have been in the depths of agony and tragedy as you are now? I'm saying this in a supportive, you're not alone kind of way and not in a 'well other people manage ok' way which would be a very distressing thing to be told, so please bear with me!

I have been through some dreadful times. Still am. I have no one except my DS. Abusive childhood - very. My sister suffered terribly and then died. My father died too, in distressing circumstances. Abusive H. Rape. Debt. Housing worries. I get sick. Parents with hold vital medical info and deny my illness. Become severely disabled. Bad medical care/ no medical care. H abuse. Carer abuse. PTSD on top of a lifetimes damage and trauma. Me and DS could also die.

And that's the perspective I'm posting from. One of knowing only too well how 'a bad childhood' is the joy that keeps on giving. The accumulation of bad experiences hammers you to the ground. Everything you try and grab on your way down actually turns into more badness and makes you sink quicker.

I am now severely disabled and reliant on carers to live. I don't even have basic autonomy over my body, home or belongings. Somewhere in all of this is me struggling like grim death to care for and bring up my child.

So, in short, I do get quite how awful life can be, and that you're not having a moment of sadness that you need to snap out of or peek yourself up. I suspect quite a few posters also are coming from the same place of 'getting it', understanding how bad things can be.

And it's very hard to keep respiring let alone try and change and heal and build resilience and health when you can't even face making yourself a cup of tea. Cope with being your own advocate, dealing with unhelpful people, keep on pushing and trying to get any help.

It's bloody unfair! And no one should ever have to do this. But sadly, it's quite a few people's reality and struggle.

For me it was a gradual breakthrough taking years to finally understand that i didn't know how to create healthy bonds with people, and a lot of pain came from trying to get kindness and support from the wrong people.

I surrounded myself with people who didn't care about me. As that's the only relationship template I had (have, sadly). And then was hurt and traumatised when they didn't support or care about me.

Different standards for other people - I really get that. You can't change them. You can change you and how much you let yourself be vulnerable to people who behave like that.

I lost nearly every friendship I had. Mostly through being inconveniently ill, distraught and needing help which they chose not to give. It was awful but I am a better and healthier person now I don't have them reinforcing my zero self esteem.

I've got a long long way to go but one day I hope I'm able to build some new closer bonds with people. When I'm ready.

I don't look on it as a failure (try not to anyway), I look on it as needing to be very very gentle and caring and kind to myself. I can feel compassion for myself and see what a terrible time I've had / having and that means I have to be even gentler with myself than to a normal healthy person. I'm used to hating myself and seeing myself fail over and over again.

I am far to used to sacrificing all to others and hoping against hope someone spares a crumb of kindness in return. And being devastated when they take everything from me and walk away when I'm empty.

I feel like I've 'gone the long way round' when it comes to this stuff. But I'm glad I'm coming along this way even if it's the longest route in history (!), as where I was was horrible and I don't ever ever want that to be my only world.

I guess I'm rambling but what I wanted to say is, concentrate on yourself for a while. Ignore everyone else. You need care and attention, love and above all, protecting from the things that will hurt you more.

It's like inside you've got a poor hurt bird who has bashed itself by flying into a window (or car / tree which ever you prefer - it's your bird after all!). This bird has been injured badly and needs nursing back to life. You need to put lots of soft materials and cotton wool all around it, maybe laid in a cardboard box (it's your bird, you get to decide!), then you give it water and little bits of food, bandage wings, smooth feathers and you gently gently help it get well... You wouldn't hope it gets better by shoving it outside in a thunder storm would you? Or leave it lying on a bird table with a fox in the garden? Or flopping around on a frozen puddle? Or in the middle of a road? Or leave it without food and water?

So do the same for the you inside there - don't put yourself out there on a metaphorical dual carriage way!

Sorry I hope you're still reading after my epic warbling Smile

PrancingQueen · 15/03/2016 11:43

Wow Miscellaneous Flowers

elementofsurprise · 15/03/2016 13:37

Misc But None of these words are caring, kind or respectful of yourself.
Right. But then I have Organon doing the whole "get over it already" thing, making me feel worse and like I should just expect/accept being treated in a way I'd never treat others. Actually putting up with people who'd blank me, hurt me, whatever, and desperately trying to make up if they were cross with me for unclear reasons, bending over backwards to be supportive to them but getting not even basic consideration back... was not good for me. Actually it's good to say "I dont need people who treat me like that" (isn't it?). It gets very lonely though, and then they come back, being all nice and its so easy to let them back in your life only to be hurt again...

OP posts:
elementofsurprise · 15/03/2016 14:02

Ah shit, got distracted there, realise you have covered that. Wow your posts are really lovely and really helpful. I'm so sorry to hear about everything you've been through Flowers. You're such a lovely person to explain all this and reply when you have so much going on yourself.

What I find really hard is when I think I can actually trust someone, then they hurt me. I've known this guy for YEARS. I also had another friend who I'd gradually trusted over time, was one of the very few people who know/believe what's happened to me, who got into a relationship and completely dumped everybody - I just didn't think they were that sort of person. I mean - how do you know?

I do feel like a fish out of water around most people I know though. It probably sounds silly, but I feel really, erm, 'mumsy' compared to them, I feel older than my peers (not as badly as when I was in my early 20's though), most of them arent that hot on housekeeping type stuff, for example. I find this distressing, I feel like I'm from another world. Those who I meet or am aquainted with that I feel much more similiar to, I suddenly feel there is a huge gulf between us when they talk of their PhD or profession or have bought a house or DC... I know I am viewed as 'a mental person' a bit... it is nice on rare occasions when I meet people like this and we're chatting about, say, politics or travelling around India... then when they find out I am unemployed and I mumble something about illness and you can see the surprise/they have catergorised me differently... it is nice before they know, and I feel like really me rather than being seen in a certain stereotyped way, where people may be kind but not see you as an equal (no matter how well meaning... I understand it, I do it myself to those I know with severe psychosis... despite trying not to).

Hope that all makes sense. Not quite sure what the answers are, but god I just want to find somewhere I fit in.

Thanks again for the replies x

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page