What pushes you from liking someone to actively getting them into your life?

[ToGoBoldly]

Hi,

What the thread title says, really.

I'm really struggling with feeling isolated and lonely. I've felt like this all my life, but it's been really intense recently so I have been feeling even more low than I ususally do.

I have a handfull of friends but no one really close, and they are all kind of fairweather friends. They've all kind of retreated away from me into their own lives, which is fine, I accept people grow apart, but it feels like everyone in the world has a network of friends and a partner, and I am being left on my own. I try really hard to get out and meet new people and stuff, but I feel like I am constantly rejected and it is really, really difficult to bear.

I have been doing some work on my feelings around this with my therapist and have been asked to drill down on why I believe I don't form close bonds with people. I can only think that people don't like me enough - they don't dislike me, but they don't like me enough to actively want me in their lives. It's as simple as that. She's tried to suggest I might be familiar with the feeling of rejection so kind of invite it, but I really don't think that's true. I try really hard to go out of my comfort zone with people - I am shy but friendly, I invite people to things, I make the first move, I volunteer myself for things, I am generous, I'm laid back and not pushy... but none of this seems to count. It feels like plenty of people think I am nice enough but they don't want or need me as a close friend. I don't blame other people for this - no one is obliged to be friends with everyone - but I just feel like everyone chooses people to be in their lives, but no one chooses me. And I've really hit a wall in trying to work this out.

This post sounds really needy and whiny, I promise I am not like this when I am trying to make friends or boyfriends! Like I said I am having counselling (for various things) but we've kind of reached an impasse on this one.

I've felt like this forever. I felt it at primary school, at secondary school, at university, at work, and in my love life. The only way I could explain clearly to my counsellor was how I felt it at primary school, so their behaviour is clear, not because they are horrible children but because they don't try to hide their feelings. But you can see more clearly with kids how people naturally gravitate towards those they want to be friends with, and that often is the really pretty girl, or the boy who is really good at football or whatever. I don't think things change a lot as an adult, it's just more subtle. And I don't think anything bad about people who have those who gravitate towards them and want to be their friend, but I just feel really sad because it feels like no one naturally gravitates towards me. It makes me feel really unloved and depressed.

I try to be proactive, no matter how many knockbacks I get I try to carry on with life and try new things, but it's really overwhelming. I asked my counsellor what she thinks I could do differently, but she is either stumped, or wants me to work the answer out myself. But I really can't think of anything beyond "people don't like me enough", which is their prerogative, but really hurtful when it feels like I'm not good enough for anyone I've met in my whole life.

So I guess I'm trying to bash out these thoughts a bit more. Am I just hideously unlucky that I never seem to meet people at the right time for them to want to pursue a friendship or relationship with me? Or what is the magic ingredient that makes people want to move things forward? I feel like there is a locked door and people will smlile and wave at me through a window and think "there's that woman, she's nice", but they won't ever invite me in, if that makes sense.

I am sorry if this sounds quite immature and self indulgent

Bloody hell this is getting to be a bit intense in many ways what parents can do to their children but!. Sorry this might not be best placed here and is a bit long winded.

It won't make anyone here feel any better but my first wife was a lovely person she was very olde world, wore long Edwardian and Victorian dresses was well educated at Rodean where Princess Anne went, was well into Russian literature and so much else she should have lived around a 100 years before she was born couldn't understand this modern world, she was most all that any man could want. Our relationship was good for the greater part except her mother was always disapproving of our relationship.

She had a very good lifestyle never wanted for anything but it seemed never wanted that much anyway, the fathers firm was doing very well until there was a crash and it all came apart. On the face of it all was well. I was of a working class background and it was also implied that her daughter married beneath herself and should have married a lawyer, doctor or other professional of good stock and class yada yada!.

Mother would phone her up and whenever that happened she'd go quiet and be very upset and would not want to talk and i learned that it was best to leave her alone when that happened she never wanted to talk about it just said that "mother" was upset again. However this started to cause problems in our relationship and it started to go downhill. It was obvious that mother was upsetting her she was always called "mother" never used her Christian name!.

She fell pregnant and we had the absolute gift of a beautiful daughter but totally out of the blue she developed what was described as puerperal psychosis these days i think it might be better described as post natal depression, so around a week after our child was born my wife was in a mental hospital with no one there seeming to know what to do with her, i was trying the hold our business together and fortunately my lovely mum stepped in to take the baby and care for her which she and my dad did so very well "mother" was bloody useless.

However this went on the illness over many years she had since been described as manic depressive she did have periods where she was all right but had relapses from time to time usually requiring hospital admission. Even more sad was that she took her own life a few years later when our child was just 6 years old. I became a single dad from that time and raised our daughter single handedly.

Mother eventually passed away and I did go to her funeral there were around just 6 people there. After a few years her brother turned up he'd been on some long expedition to darkest Peru literally! for many years and had shacked up with a native girl or girls!there an was of a totally differing lifestyle!. He was a drunkard loved his pop and one night we went out he was an interesting character and told a good tale of his jungle exploits.

Now one night we went out he got well oiled and then i asked him how my wife and mother got on I'd never seen anyone go so very quiet.

It transpired that mother had her knife into her daughter not any of the sons for most all of the time she was alive, she was very mentally abused it was no bloody wonder she was badly affected when mother was on the phone she was taking this further crap all the time she had been conditioned to do so, how our relationship was so apparently normal otherwise alludes me to this day but it was.

Then there came a bombshell. It seems that poor mother was raped by her father and i use that word very loosely night after night during her teenage years and to make it worse her sister too. I know that she had a sister but she had disappeared many years ago and no one had heard from her. Poor mothers mother had just kept quiet as in those days it seemed it was the "done thing" that fecking stupid middle class stiff upper lip.

So you can see what a trail of parental damage was caused over two generations you might be forgiven for thinking I've made it all up!.

As to our daughter shes a fantastic girl and despite loosing her mum under horrific circumstances is one of the most well balanced people around shes an excellent listener to all her mates and she as some really good ones, bring their problems to her and she helps them out she dosent take shit off no one and someone i know said a while ago said that he saw her in London and said she looked like she had "just stepped off the front page of Vogue" magazine:)..

Lets reflect on what our parents and their parents can do to us.
I'm just so very glad than my mum and dad were simple people their marriage had its ups and downs but he loved her and she was the most loyal wife until death did indeed did part them their now at peace.

thanks.

ToGoBoldly

You've done well just to be wanting to make friends! That's quite a story :(

The past is the past and you can't change that, true. However, it would probably help somewhat to recognize that these childhood experiences will be having an effect on how you approach all your relationships. Have you spoken about this with your counsellor?

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

I'd look into female aspergeers.
You describe the way my mum and sister have both always felt and they both have it
Female aspergers is completely different to the commonly known male form.
If you've always felt like this and a therapist hasn't really helped, look into it!

OP: for what it's worth I'm going through something similar to you at the moment -- marriage ended a few months ago and while generally I'm doing pretty well considering life can feel a bit stark sometimes.

The thing I would say is that I firmly believe that people go through stages where they feel more isolated and stages where they feel they are coping better. I've been through periods of my life where I feel completely surrounded by my tribe, ensconced with my friends and totally plugged into a network. At the moment, I don't, I don't really know who I am and what I'm supposed to be doing and how I'm supposed to behave.

It's uncomfortable but I know it will pass.

I think its quite normal and healthy to go through feelings of alienation from people if you are going through a life transition and actually its a good way of making you question the things you take for granted.

If you look back on your life, have you felt like this all the time? Or has this tended to be prompted by big life changes -- deaths, relationship breakdowns, changes in situation? I'm not minimising as there may be an underling anxiety. But I think some of this is the mind's way of doing a bit of housekeeping and making sure it knows its ready to move on....

I had quite an extensive period of counselling which did help my understanding of myself and my family's influence on me.

But funnily enough it was researching my family tree that helped me accept it all a bit more. Most parents do the best they can, but (as Justaboy so painfully ilustrated above) sometimes they have their own baggage that prevents them being adequate enough to be "good enough" parents.

The best part of any counselling is to develop a real understanding of the influences that make you behave the way you do and to then start taking small steps away from those influences. For me it is to sometimes share information with friends/acquaintances and not feel overly anxious about it or worry too much about their approval.

The effects of an abusive childhood can often look like aspergers/on the spectrum. Just saying.

There also something to be said for very intelligent people feeling alienated and out of step with people in general. Bcs they are. Very bright is not on the same frequency as most. I seem to remember a story along those lines in the Road Less Travelled (by M Scott Peck - a huge bestseller in its day).

That's very true, springy.

I've been referred for an ASD assessment. I tick so many of the boxes but I also had an abusive childhood. And I think that might explain it more.

I thought I was just angry at my mother for being a bitch, but I'm realising that the impact it has had on me is so profound, it's impacted on the way I process every aspect of the world around me.

I have recently lost my 3 'closest' friends. One because she decided to tell me all the things she didn't like about me, all with best of intentions of course, (which turned out to be all the aspects of me that result from the abuse) and the two friends she implicated who deny that it was like that but refuse to talk about it because I'm over reacting. They all know my past, but clearly have no insight. It means I've lost them all because I just don't trust them anymore.

And I do have an emotional off switch. I don't get all this nonsense I read on here about 'limerence', I've never 'grieved' for anyone who has died, I don't trust easily at all and I find it incredibly easy to cut people out if they have upset me/shown they don't like me. I'm upset this has happened, but I don't miss the people. Iyswim.

I thought I had turned a corner with these people. I thought I'd finally got it sussed and I'd managed to get this 'friends' business sorted. But now I'm absolutely floored because nothing I do is good enough. I can't just walk away from the abuse. I've been nc with my mother for 3+ years and she's still fucking things up.

I'm devastated. I actually have no one.

Well, no, like you, OP, I have a handful of friemds, but no one close. People I go out with in a group who don't really know me. But no one close. I'm single because I've realised I'm the reason my relationships fail. It's not just because I choose crappy mem - I either forgive all, or not a single transgression.

So, Boldly, I completely get this.

And I'm worried about the way I, in turn, am affecting my children as a result.

FolkGirl

It's like we feel we have to learn something by rote what healthy people, or people with non-fuck-up parenting, learnt naturally at the right time, like breathing ffs - and they can therefore develop intuitive skills on the bedrock. We had to learn the bedrock in our heads, almost, and try to apply it. If it all comes crashing down we can think 'oh no! I'm never going to get this!'

But there are arseholes everywhere, all the time, just we can't cope, wobble dangerously, when we come up against one. Ime friends made closer to the epicentre of the blast - the fuck-up-parenting - usually correlate closer with the original abuse; made, accepted, at a time when I didn't know I deserved better. Or still believed I deserved to be treated badly.

It's a bloody minefield. I can see a definite progression in quality of friendships as I have moved, timewise, dripping in therapy, further away from the epicentre, though. I still have some 'old' friends - horribly flawed people, similar flaws to my fuck-up-parenting - whom I would probably have swerved if I met them today. Some 'old' friends I ditched outright as too far along the continuum, too close to the quality of the epicentre abuse, for the friendship to be sustainable; but some I have kept: enough of the good stuff to warrant continuing. But they are painful friendships - or at least tinged with it. Bcs you have to balance out flaws with heart intention...

It just is painful when a friendship explodes - or implodes; even for healthy-parenting people. Just that we get a lot more of the explosions, all in . Agony

One dickhead therapist, to justify continued funding it turned out, once tried to pin a borderline pd badge on me. Until I found out she was pinning that badge on everybody who came through her door - eye on aforementioned funding. I did take her seriously enough at the time, had a good look at it. I don't think I am borderline, per se, but I do recognise some of the outlying traits, certainly. As a result of a certain type of fuck-up-parenting, the criteria for ppl with borderline.

Just a thought. Though labels are helpful for me, nobody else.

Justaboy, I'm sorry you lost your wife in that hideous way

Justaboy I also offer sympathies, sounds like you've done a tremendous job in the circumstances.

Springydaffs

What you say about naturally learned intuition chimes with me. I think most people function using intuition most of the time. Intelligent people work on intuition AND intellect, but when you get to a certain level of intelligence the intellect takes over. If a difficult childhood prevents the intuitive side developing - well, all that's left is the intellect. In a way, that's good because our intellects allow us to function (i.e. have jobs, have kids) when normal people probably end up dropping out of life. The down side is that whilst typical people can recover from a bad childhood through developing their immature intuition later in life, if a dominant intellect is already in charge it gets in the way of the intuitive side growing. In a way, the intellect has an emotionally abusive attitude towards the intuition, which may be why people like us, sensitive people who appear to be outwardly successful but have no natural intuition, end up in abusive relationships. We imprison our intuition inside a cage of rationalization, and that makes us vulnerable. The way other people treat our inner, emotional selves is often little different to our own self-criticism and self-denial! It also makes us look like we're on the spectrum (as you suggest).

If you think about it, this must be confusing to other people - here we are, apparently normal, successful, intelligent people but somehow lacking something intangibly important. Normal people who are normally fucked-up are obviously fucked-up, and that gives other normal people something to work with. We are the mysterious 'other', who normal people can't get a feel for. If we're not following our intuition, then normal people can't use their own (healthy) intuition to interact with us and understand us. Creating an intellectual framework for friendship will not help us form relationships with people working on an intuitive level.

I've been doing a lot of work on developing my intuitive side, by recognizing and validating my deeper feelings about things and trying to limit the rationalization. I have found that very little of my life, as it is now, comes from a healthy place. It's very hard work, precisely because the intellect is so pervasive. I'm trying to subvert it by recontextualizing its role and by focusing it in specific directions. Friendship? Intellect switched off, try not to worry and try not to think about why other people do what they do. Stop attempting to explicitly understand other people and allow that understanding to form in the background instead (i.e. using my intuition). At the same time, accept that my intellect is a very important part of me, and that it needs to be occupied as the main focus of my life. Work? Not challenging enough. Solution - take on more at work, and if that isn't possible then change jobs. Read lots of non-fiction. Take part in intellectual pursuits, such as this post! But make time for non-intellectual activities so that the intellect isn't in charge all the time. Things are getting better, but slowly, and with tremendous effort.

The one idea I'm holding on to is that intelligence is not a specific ability, but a general one. In principle, my intuition should be just as smart as my intellect. If I can just learn to trust my intuition then I can utilize my intelligence in a healthy way. I'd also suggest that some counselors and therapists are not smart enough to understand. My counselor isn't as smart as I am, but she has a reasonable level of intelligence and an awful lot of wisdom, which more than compensates. She knows how to point out where my intellect is getting in the way and can help force me to push thoughts and feelings through my intuitive side.

InTheProcess. I'm not hugely successful (because of confidence/self esteem issues), but I have a first class degree, a professional career and laughably high iq (for what it's worth).

What you say about the intellect vs intuition is very interesting.

I need someone who can see things I can't, who can challenge me in such a way that I can't deconstruct their input out of existence. But I can't afford that.

I can completely relate. In my case I think I do self sabotage and I do put up barriers. I'm trying to keep a mental log of invites I've turned down and why I've turned them down. For example I didn't go to a party a few months back because I thought it would be full of 'popular kids' eg the host's 'real friends' and I thought I'd stand out like a sore thumb and spend the whole evening desperately trying to get people to like me - and looking desperate. You sound a lot nicer and more positive than me though, so you probably don't do this.

I think intelligence develops - themes, links - when we are presented, as a child, with a home life that makes absolutely no sense. In order to try to make sense of it - to predict what's going to happen next, tbf - we develop hyper awareness of behaviour, clues, hints, in order to have some hope of predicting. Doesn't work, though. That's the sadness of it. Things do kick off unpredictably, we never can quite gauge what's going to happen next. Blow ups in adult life hit on all that stuff, I think, sending us into a major spin.

Takes a lot of therapy to finally get it its not us who is stupid/bad/thick/disordered - particularly if others in the family fully signed up to the status quo (survival) and we were the ones who couldn't. Perhaps our intuition wasn't that lacking after all..

I was once on a coach to Cambridge and got chatting to the woman next to me - a kindred spirit, it turns out. She recommended Cambridge therapists because many of them are bright.

Intheprocess, that last post was brilliant, especially about "lacking something intangibly important" which is exactly how I feel but have never been able to put into words or of course fix.

ToGoBoldly, you've done brilliantly to be still around and still hopeful and trying, after that appalling childhood and all that abuse and neglect.
But if you can't see the connection between your early experience and your current state, I am wondering how good your therapist is and how much progress you can make.

Yes, there are people who say, and make you feel, that was a long time ago, you can't keep blaming your parents, you have to take responsibility for yourself...but that's not how trauma works, sadly.

Please read www.pete-walker.com about complex PTSD and the wound of emotional abandonment. He's wonderful and has been through this himself so he understands.

Otherwise I don't have any helpful advice as I am still grappling with the same issues myself. Outwardly I seem to have done well, academically and professionally, but have had relationships only with emotionally abusive men, have trouble making friends (at the moment I have two, both of whom are happy to flake on me, like yours) or dealing with people and social situations generally. You're way ahead of me there.
Best of luck. And hugs.xx

Yes, there are people who say, and make you feel, that was a long time ago, you can't keep blaming your parents, you have to take responsibility for yourself...but that's not how trauma works, sadly.

God, absolutely.

Springydaffs, yy to struggling to learn things that come naturally to other people...and feeling even more pathetic as a result.
My current therapist keeps saying. "But that's only part of you, you can speak in public and run a department and do things that would terrify other people"—so what? I can't figure out how to do basic, essential things that other people can do without even having to think about it.
As a result I feel as if I fell off the planet tomorrow no one would notice or care.
Then there are all those soppy online posts about all that matters is how much you loved or something...yes, but what if you can't get anyone to love—and not just romantic relationships—because you can't make friends? Who cares if you were great in the office?

Springydafs

+1

Our intuition tells us to gtfo, but we can't because we're kids (and still are, emotionally?). I think that's the start of the problem. We grow up leaning to ignore important things our brains are telling us. A lot of my counselling has been based around validating what comes from my intuition.

ThisIsStillFolkGirl

I got a Third, despite also having a very high IQ.

My counselor costs me less than £50 a visit. I think I'm very lucky - she's not as outwardly intelligent as I am, but has an apparently supernatural ability to get me to think in a certain way. It's like she can undo the child-proof cap on my own mind. I struggle and struggle, running the lid under the hot tap, banging it on the edge of the kitchen table, putting on rubber bands, trying to jimmy it off with a kitchen knife etc. She just pops the lid off in a flash, empties the contents out into my hands and lets me figure the rest out for myself. She has wisdom, which is more important than intelligence, and I can accept that from her.

LesserOfTwoWeevils

Have you worked in a department with a shit boss? Your underlings would be very sad if you vanished and they ended up with some unpleasant fool in charge. But that's not to invalidate what you say. It's true that work relationships aren't as meaningful as social / romantic ones. Still working on that one, my counselor is pushing me towards looking for a romantic relationship at the moment.

Lesser yes. I keep reading those fb posts about how your tears were your mother's tears and how having an adult daughter is like being best friends with the best parts of yourself. And cut out the people you hate and only surround yourself with the people who love you...

But what if that's not true for you?

I have cut out the people who hurt me and what am I left with? Two children I'm failing miserably because they only have me (and their dad) and I haven't provided them with a family or close family friends. And half a dozen people who are happy to socialise with me in a group who are, at best, somewhat ambivalent about me. And that's it. There are no people who love me!

Sad thing is, if someone did love me, I wouldn't know what to do with it anyway. I tend to avoid emotional intimacy because it makes me feel anxious/uncomfortable.

That's what I need, Intheprocess

OP you sound like me, I think I come across as uninterested and never quite manage to make proper friendships, just people I know. I never know exactly what I'm doing wrong I think I just give off an unintended impression. I do think I have aspergers although not diagnosed, my children are diagnosed with high functioning ASD.

I think I want deeper friendships than other people also, I want to have real meaningful conversations not just chit chat, in fact I find chit chat dull and draining and I really don't think people are really interested In where I am going on holiday and the weather. Also because I always expect to be rejected I hold back so it's a self fulfilling prophecy really. I have been trying a lot more recently, I have started a few college courses which are going well ?? and I have started to be more smiley and ask more questions about people which really seems to help.

I do have "friends" they just feel like real friendships, they are just people that I pass the time of day with if they have nothing better to do I guess.

I'm afraid I currently think all therapists are dickheads. My stuff, undoubtedly: partly experience of abysmal low cost therapy, partly childhood overhang (re dickhead parents, teachers etc). The thing, of course, would be to work out my dickhead rage with these erm dickhead therapists.. That would be a luxury. But shouldn't be!

Because my shit has really impacted on my career and therefore income. Long story, aren't they all, but I have lost my way and it's too late to get it back (genuinely: I am not young). The only thing for it is self-employment and I'm gearing up to that.

I don't want to frighten anybody but ime I didn't get by on sub-standard/not-quite-good-enough therapy bcs the undertow of all this shit was too strong. I have certainly gained a great deal from my years of valuable therapy but i wish I'd made the serious financial investment earlier to break through what has been a glass ceiling (aka 'dickhead' therapists ie limited training: my last (low cost) therapy ended with me telling her to get some more bloody training). I am currently selling the family home (now defunct) to release funds to start addressing at least this properly - at last.

Op, i hope you don't mind me saying you are 'lucky' to be only 31 and to have years ahead of you to address this properly. But I do think it means therapy and a reordering of priorities - bcs therapy isn't cheap but it's essential in situations like ours. Childhood stuff like ours doesn't just drain away.

Imo

ThisIsStillFolkGirl

I went to see a psychologist when much younger. One visit and I decided he had nothing to contribute. Possibly the problem was that I was seeing him as an intellectual competitor rather than an emotional guide. My counselor is very humble, very gentle and very accepting. I occasionally get the feeling that she doesn't actually think I'm the lovely person she tells me I am, but I let that thought slip by as I trust her to do what's best for me.

Sad thing is, if someone did love me, I wouldn't know what to do with it anyway. I tend to avoid emotional intimacy because it makes me feel anxious/uncomfortable.

Hmmm. Think of two axes. One is conscious, logically rational and intellectual, the other is unconscious, bayesian and intuitive. On which axis is it most important to score highly when it comes to understanding people in real time? I think part of being intelligent is that we have blind spots. Not just normal gaps in knowledge, but gaps in our awareness of the gaps in our knowledge - we're so used to being insightful and ahead of the curve we form our own internal model of "correct" thinking and don't appreciate there are other modes of thought that may be more useful in certain situations. A kind of second-level ignorance, if you will. Intuition gives normal folk a superior (all-be-it unconscious) understanding of how people feel about them in the real world. These people get close to us, then their intuitive part hits an invisible emotional wall. That wall is our fear of emotional intimacy. Does that make any sense?

EnterNicknameHere

To me, "deep and meaningful" means communicating profound personal insights - handing over a great lump of my inner intellectual and emotional self. To others, I think what's more important is an ongoing emotional "checking in" process that creates a sense of shared experience and mutual support. Perhaps chit-chat, for those who like it, is part of that process. I think you're on the right track - I'm now making an effort to ask questions and be interested and it does seem to help.

I get what people are saying about intuition. My experience growing up was that my intuition - or my assessment of situations I experienced - was constantly dismissed by my mother as incorrect. And my father always backed her up. I'd report something verbatim to my mother and she'd ALWAYS say 'I'm sure she/he didn't mean that. That doesn't sound like x'.

Also, nothing I ever told her remained confidential. She bought me a diary when I was maybe 11, and I can still feel the crushing emotional pain of walking into my room and finding her and my 8 year old brother reading it and pissing themselves laughing. I know that sounds minor but to me it taught me a lot about what I could expect from people I loved.

There's lots of other stuff I won't go into now, but the fact is, I can never seem to get the balance right between trusting and not trusting, between lettiing people in and not. I really don't think it's aspergers - I was always highly intuitive in my early childhood - but I feel it was abused and gaslighted out of me - every so often I feel like I see a glimpse of it again, but then somehow I fuck it all up.

I can completely relate to feeling like you've cut out the people who are 'bad for you' and you're left with no-one to share your children's lives with. There's just a big hole where family and friends should be, and I know I'm letting them down.

No it doesn't sound minor at all. Because it wasn't minor. Awful