Totally emotionally locked down after lockdown

[joysexreno]

I came out of an emotionally abusive relationship a year and a half ago. The idea of getting involved with another man ever again is horrible to me.

I have social anxiety and find it difficult to be close to/trust others generally. To make this worse, in the past year two close friends have ghosted me.

My identity now is mainly that I'm a mother. It's also where most of my time and energy goes.

After over a year of lockdown, I feel like I have nothing to offer - I feel that I'm boring, annoying, and narrow in my interests and outlook. I can't imagine meeting up with friends. I can't imagine meeting a man.

Help! Does anyone else feel this way?

They say there's a lid for every post, and I think that's true with friends as well as romantic relationships.

Do the freedom program first if you've not already and definitely put finding friends above finding romance for now.

Part of the problem is that I don't even want to open myself up to friends. I don't want to be ghosted again.

I find myself not making time for this anyway - I have a number of acquaintances but I have usually felt too stressed with work and parenting to even grab a coffee and walk.

Friends are optional. If you're happiest by yourself, that's fine too.

I think the issue is that I know I feel this way due to fear, and the result is that I'm becoming a weird hermit. I don't want to be that.

Well, if you've got acquaintances, the easy way is to start there, I'd have thought.

I wonder if you could still be healing from your previous relationship OP, particularly as it was abusive. Have you considered therapy or counselling?

It's not you that is boring, it is lockdown!

Sorry to hear about the ghosting you experienced. I had a similar experience with a close friend when I was younger and I found it devastating tbh. This podcast has an episode on ghosting which I found helpful: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/in-your-feelings/id1495592153

The book Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness by Gillian Butler is also worth looking at, as a starting point.

What is so important is not to blame yourself or take responsibility for the behaviour of others.

It's only natural to have your trust affected by what you have been through, it's not your fault. Trust is something that does take time to grow and in my opinion shouldn't be given away too easily. There are decent & kind people out there who will be worthy of your time though xx

@Automaticforthepeople thanks, that's all very kind and helpful. I have sought therapy and my therapist actually thinks I've gotten past the worse of the abuse, to the extent that she suggested we stop our sessions. My self confidence and boundaries in the rest of life are much stronger now.

You're probably right that this is a long healing process. I probably need time to heal from the ghostings in addition to the romantic relationship - and I do totally recognise that my ex friends have their own things going on. One of them actually 'likes' my posts on social media while ignoring all communications

It seems weird that your friend is still liking your social media posts. Glad that the therapy was helpful and healing OP. It sounds like you have come a long way. I 'm still working on boundaries myself but they are definitely stronger.