I feel like I keep popping on here when I have a problem/crisis of confidence but don't contribute much the rest of the time. I do read daily, but sometimes the conversation has just moved on too far. I love reading other people's good stuff 
and am sorry for all the shit other people are having/going through 
So I had my weekly counselling today. I hope you don't mind me 'debriefing' on here. I don't have anyone IRL I'd feel comfortable talking to about it. I don't even expect anyone to read and respond - especially given how long it is! It's just that it helps to write it down afterwards. It was hard work, and quite sad. I came away feeling comforted that I'd had a realisation, but sad at what that realisation meant.
I realised that I push every single person who is nice to me away. All of them. Or, probably more acurately, I deflect them at the first opportunity. Or avoid them. And I don't even mean in a romantic situation, but just in any social situation. No that's not quite true either. I'm ok in a group situation but I rarely see any of my friends 1-2-1, only ever in a group. And there's only 1 I see on her own. I tried to see another on their own last summer, but I really struggled with it and so didn't bother again. And I never talk to any of them on the phone. One of them phoned me at the weekend (he doesn't know he's not supposed to!!) and after chatting for about 10 minutes, I really needed to just get off the phone and it all started to feel a bit 'intense' and I felt like I needed to run away. It was only a friendly catch up
Sometimes it's quite subtle but sometimes it's blatant - if someone is confident and friendly and is just being a nice person, I will avoid them - proper crossing over the road to avoid them type behaviours. And those who are let in are kept very much at arm's length. I know how it looks, but the need to get away is overwhelming.
It's not because I'm being a twat, I just don't know what else to do! I actually don't know what to do when a nice person is nice to me. How fucked up is that? I don't know how to respond; I worry about them realising I'm worthless; it makes me feel really uncomfortable. I feel like I can hide it in a group, but 1-2-1 I just feel really exposed and scared.
I think it's that I want to have friends and nice people around me, but I'm scared that I'm not good enough to have nice people in my life and that I might like them too much and they'd realise that I'm not like them. I'm a 'not good enough' person
Someone said to me on the last thread, I think it was, (sorry can't remember who it was) that it I kept saying I wasn't going to fall in love with the man I'm seeing (and I'm not. I occasionally feel like I'm teetering on the edge of deeper feeling, but that I then regain my balance and stop it from happening. Does that make sense?) but that I seem to want him to fall for me completely. In an odd way it's true. But at the same time I know he doesn't, and he won't. I feel like I'm punishing myself for being so bloody ridiculous by wanting it, I feel like I might as well be feeling sad because I know I'm never going to win the lottery.
But I would, just once, like to know what it feels like to be loved by someone. And to really love someone back. And not to feel like the best I can do is seeing someone once a fortnight and keeping them at an emotional distance. I'm like one of those 'emotionally unavailable' men we tell each other to avoid except that I'm sitting here in tears because I don't want to be like that.
I had an email from my exH about an hour ago asking how the counselling was going and to tell me he hoped it was helping (the counselling isn't to do with anything to do with him, as such, so I do know he's genuine about that). I said it was hard realising I was more broken than I thought. He replied saying that I'm not broken, I'd just had 30+ tough years and that was all (all!) He said I owed it to myself to make the next 30 years awesome to make up for it. I'm really trying, but I just don't feel like I know how. :'(