Therapy impacting relationships

[NotABrag]

Rightly I guess I’ve been in pretty intensive therapy for a year or so. Lots of issues/trauma in childhood (abuse, addiction, suicides etc).

This has meant I’ve existed in state of Red alert, constantly horizon scanning, safety seeking, people pleasing, poor boundaries, seeking external validation, low self worth/self esteem the list goes on.

Im now just taking a step back from people as I’m recognising that some of these people are just not good for me, perhaps they were friends but used me and I need that to stop etc.

However I feel like now I’m finding issues with so many of my relationships. I know nothing is black and white, we are human. I’ve shortened the time I spend with my family as it’s just too much spending too long there.

I guess I’m starting to feel a bit isolated and lonely.

There's two parts to this, really - firstly, that you might be finally able to recognise dangerous patterns or relationships in your life and the sense of loneliness when you realise your life has been built on unhealthy foundations is quite overwhelming.

However, it can also be hard because you're still partly in red alert and safety scanning mode, except you now have a new way of assessing for danger - so you're now over-assessing everything through a therapy lens, and perhaps pulling at things that you might not really need to? For example, a lot of people have friendships that are a bit more one-sided than others, or family relationships which aren't perfect but they're willing to compromise because it's family - it doesn't necessarily mean that they're unhealthy, it just is kind of a fact of life. And you can/should act with that in mind but it doesn't mean you need to cut that person out entirely or decide they're Bad And Not Good For You, you just recalibrate how much energy you bring to the relationship.

Does that make sense? It's a very good thing that you can spot unhealthier patterns in relationships now and you absolutely shouldn't compromise your new boundaries if they're important to you - but fundamentally a LOT of human relationships have little niggles or quirks that aren't the therapy standard of equal and fair all the time.

@beeskipa yes I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I’m an over thinker anyway, I imagine I had ADHD (or I think I do based on just a few convos with my therapist and looking at behaviours).

I can be very black and white, for example I had a friend who I know now I just put in a pedestal. She’s quite forceful and seems to have people wrapped round her little finger, I looked up to her (big car, house, great job etc etc) and I’ve found myself just jumping at every whim. She asked me for something recently, basically a play date at my house for her kids. And I jumped and said yes. However I then pushed back and said No I can’t do it, cos she didn’t want to see me, she never does. It’s always me doing the running around.

But now that friendship has gone silent. I am still on red alert. I’m still very very sensitive. I feel like I’ve been working on all this stuff for a year now and it’s just exhausting, I’m over analysing. Pushing people away. Just too black and white .

In that scenario, I think you're probably right to have been alert to it: she's shown her arse there. Hopefully she invites you for a coffee or something without agenda soon, and if not then - good, you set a boundary and she can't meet it so you don't want her anyway. That's not unreasonable or too protective.

But I know what you mean with the black and white thinking - it's the constant weighing up of "Is this Good or Bad?" but the needle feeling like it can only swing to the extreme end of the scale, so one small '??' interaction becomes 'proof' that it's Bad.

I think it's a self-protective thing, you've been given this new way of seeing the world and you're trying to stop yourself from being hurt any more by guarding as much as possible against any negative effects, even if someone else wouldn't have even registered it as a possible 'threat'. But eventually you'll be able to see the grey areas a little more, or you'll develop a tolerance level you're comfortable with, it just takes practice. If you're feeling a bit raw and hypersensitive while that happens, then - in my experience - that's normal. It's a huge process, working through layers of trauma and unpicking what is your personality and what's a trauma response and what's healthy/unhealthy - it forces you to be so analytical of yourself and others' behaviour that you can swing too far the other way, but you'll get there.

'If you're feeling a bit raw and hypersensitive while that happens, then - in my experience - that's normal. It's a huge process, working through layers of trauma and unpicking what is your personality and what's a trauma response and what's healthy/unhealthy - it forces you to be so analytical of yourself and others' behaviour that you can swing too far the other way, but you'll get there.'

Totally agree. The part of therapy where you are really getting into the tough stuff can be BRUTAL. I remember feeling like I had several layers of skin removed, I was just so raw and in pain all the time. It took a long time before I was able to be more at peace with myself and my relationships.

Like you, I realised that I could be very black and white about people, and held friends to extremely high standards, probably too high. It was all part of self protection, but through a lot of processing and grieving and hard work, I'm learning to go much easier on myself and on others. So sometimes friends or family piss me off or let me down - ok. They're not perfect, neither am I. On balance I would rather have them in my life so I hold my relationships more lightly than I used to

Sounds like you're at a very painful stage of therapy OP, so please go easy on yourself. Things will change, for the better, but it's a process and it will happen over time. Well done for doing such hard work on yourself. It's so worth it

Thank you for your support here, the months are moving on and it did start getting easier. I’m now doing other work. Peeling back more layers!! Hopefully staying true to myself.

PS that friend did get in touch and we went for a walk, more of an equal footing.

Hopefully a big part of therapy is learning to be more compassionate to yourself, and it sounds like you've done a lot of work on understanding how your trauma has shaped some unhealthy behaviours for you, and to build better boundaries.

Part of the next step is extending that same compassion to others (while still holding healthy boundaries), and as a pp said, holding things more lightly if needed to accept that even in healthy relationships, they, like you, have been through things, have blind spots and issues, but are often doing their best.