How can you tell the difference between being too needy and having the wrong people in your life?

[Fortheloveof83]

When is it a case of expecting too much and when is the case that those in your life aren’t capable of meeting your needs and your needs are healthy. I can’t tell anymore.

My mum is ND so is my partner and his mum. I feel lost currently.

I don’t blame her or hate her because all of this is really hard. It’s not going to help me having hate for someone probably traumatised.

Having no memory is pretty significant. Doesn’t mean a big capital T trauma but probably signals a continuous small t trauma of attachment. Lots of work on children of depressed or missing mothers. None that im aware of for children of ND mothers but you might consider doing that reading. My observations stand: you know what kind of person your mother is. So you can guess what kind of mothering you got as a baby.

My MIL’s mum died when she was a young child. I thought it may be why she is also so emotionally disconnected and runs a mile from me or mocks me because it makes her feel better. I tried to be kind to her but she isn’t able to return it and I’ve come to the conclusion I can’t change her opinion of me whether it’s down to her own trauma or whatever. People have their own stuff and that’s not a reflection of me. I’m trying to break that notion.

I think I’m slowly coming to understand that I can’t make the people I love, love me in return. My mum can’t give me what I needed because she is damaged. His mum who I thought would welcome me into the family I can’t make her do this. This doesn’t happen because I’m not worth loving and I don’t have to change to get it. As long as I know I’m worth it then the problem is not mine. I think I’m worth it, I’m not so bad.

Maybe start with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, then chase it down with a few studies on primates and what they require to thrive.

As long as you are searching for contentment or happiness in others, I can assure you, you will never find it. It is human nature to disappoint intermittently, the beautiful mixed in with the ugly, that is the nature of life.

Accept the world and its people for what it is.

Contentment can be found only within yourself.

You can find the fulfilment you’re looking for by cultivating your needs within yourself, become the thing that you want.

Meeting your own needs is far more satisfying than waiting for someone to know what you need and give it to you unprompted.

The truly thrilling phase is when you begin to see your same need in others, and find solace in relieving them, with no strings attached.

The whole house of cards collapses when we have strong expectations / entitlement.

Embody the great people you want to look after you, and you will find it is its own great satisfaction.

Try some therapy, it will help you to become more emotionally literate so you can understand your own nature and that of others and humanity in general.

@AzureAssured i understand what you are saying but entitled doesn’t seem like the right word and makes it feel like Im the issue. This is the love of a mother it’s supposed to be unconditional. But I understand this was not my doing.

That is all you have taken from my post?

You are very locked into a narrow deprived view and seem defensively determined to stay there.

Look at it this way, what if you are living in a two dimensional world, believing it to be all there is, and right there in front of you is the three dimensional world.

Think new thoughts, open and expand your mind, ferociously listen read and learn from others who’ve walked this path before you or are professionals.

You could be having quite deep involved conversations here exploring new ways of being, understanding what is going on better…
Instead, you are locked into defensiveness.
You will not get very far with a mindset like that.

Rigorously self evaluate yourself sometimes, what is the source of the feeling that makes me feel defensive and lock in on one word, ignoring the majority of the thoughtful views shared with you?

This sort of internal weighing of reality more towards the negative might be an issue you need to sort out.

@AzureAssured I did say I understood what you had said. I’ve had a lot of great posts and have learnt a load of massive things in a couple of days. It’s a lot to take in. I can’t be expected to react immediately in the right way. I thought my mums love was supposed to be unconditional instead she has caused me a great deal of harm. Give me a break to let this sink in, I’ve had 40 years of my old thinking.

OP, between @Watchkeys, @pikkumyy77 and @AzureAssured posts.... you are probably getting a couple of thousands worth of free therapy if you can really dig deep, reread, and think about what they are trying to tell you.

You cannot derive comfort nor affirmation from unhappy, empty people. Ever.
No matter how many times you try and appeal to a better nature they do not possess.
You cannot find likability for yourself from others.
Constantly seeking them out, for them to denigrate you, breeds only further disdain and scorn in them towards you.
They despise you for chasing them over and over.
You are being strongly advised to step away, work on accepting who you really are WITHOUT their approval.
All this energy to be a people pleaser will cost your child, as it will distract you from being a contented mother who values herself and her contribution to her family and society.
Don't wait till menopause to find yourself and the realisation that you wasted decades chasing a mirage.
Do the work NOW and reap the benefits early.
Those that are happiest and most content in their lives do NOT surround themselves with toxic people who make them feel bad.
They choose radiators rather than drains for friends, and they bear the great fruit of those relationships as a result.

Again, gently, the entire post is about defensiveness, not engagement.

Think carefully about the difference between the two.

@AzureAssured Im sorry. I’m stressed today with all the info. Im thankful, it will sink in.

@Snappers3 I read you bit about the more I try the more they dislike me. Are people really like this, why do they despise it? Why are they talking nicely over the internet or msgs then change in RL? I get confused.

Because they know well that they treat you poorly and they see you accepting it and trying even harder to be liked.
You are not behaving like someone who loves and values herself, so they then treat you even worse.
We teach people how to treat us.

Many many years ago my flatmate started going out with this guy. She really liked him and they got on very well. After 6 months they were going to a wedding of a friend of his and they stayed at his family home. He seemed very stressed and anxious about it on the journey there, a side of him, she hadn't seen before. She met his mother and it became very clear. She was barely polite, a bit dismissive of her, just bloody rude.
Thankfully they left early the next morning, went to the wedding and she broke up with him when they got back. She told him that she came from a nice normal family and she hadn't a notion of becoming seriously involved with anyone whose mother was such a rude bitch to a visitor whilst he stood by, afraid of her.

She literally said fxxk that for a game of soldiers, neither you, nor your family are good enough for ME, it would never work.

He was devastated and he begged for another chance etc. She never backed down. She met and married another nice guy with a nice family.
She had boundaries.
She knew her self worth.
She likely saved herself years of drama and grief.
I never heard any more about him, but he seemed like a nice guy. I hope he learned something from it.

This quote should be hand embroidered on a cushion it’s that good.

@Snappers3 see to me that seems not nice, it’s not his fault his family didn’t treat him well. I would have major sympathy because I know how it feels. I wouldn’t feel the need to fix it but I can relate. I have a lot of sympathy for a lot of people and can often see pain and want to help. I just don’t seem to put it in the right direction. I don’t think I realise how people work and that some people are just not nice. I always think oh its sad they aren’t nice they must need some love and they will be nice. It’s naive.

I also don’t have an ego it feels, I don’t think I’m better than anyone or deserve better. I’m genuinely shocked by behaviour others can see outright.

I think only very sick people despise people who are being good to them.

A well balanced person will value and respect your kindness and try to reciprocate.

We can’t tar everyone with the same brush.

@AzureAssured there are many complexities that I just don’t and have never understood. That’s why I wondered if I am ND as well as carrying the attachment trauma. I can’t read people very well.

There is abundant help available, make it your mission to find it.

The difference as you write is that you might feel that mother needs someone to be nice to her, that you need to fix her, feel responsible for her.

My flatmate didn't go deep. She saw a very rude woman who was the mother of the guy she was seeing and thought, Nope, fxxk that...I have no interest in being around someone so rude again and in effect lost her attraction to him as he squirmed at his mothers rudeness to her.

She saw her future instantly and said Nope I choose ME.

Decent people do not treat others badly, it really is that simple.
Some people have the urge to fix others.
I consider that a HUGE flaw.
I find it hard enough to change things about myself I don't like, why the hell would I think I could fix others?

So when I have come across someone rude, unkind to me etc.,....I'm gone.

A really great saying I love is "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me".

@Snappers3 I think my problem is I don’t want people to suffer. I feel terrible for my mum despite how she’s treated me. Her father was a drunk who hit them all and her mum packed her bags and left only telling her sister and not her. I can feel the pain she must have been in and it hurts me. The same for my MIL having her mum die as young child. She died from M.S, the same illness my own mum has. I hate to feel the pain. If I can fix them perhaps it will be better. I had a 10 year relationship to a damaged man. He was abused by his dad and I felt deeply awful for him and let him get away with shouting and throwing things at me when he got angry (which was often). I’m so consumed with trying to fix people. The wrong people. I guess like I’ve learned fixing because I love them and don’t want them to be in pain and fixing because it’s how I solved a lot of stress as a child. People are more complicated than I have learned. I think my brain is a bit child like in that sense.

I’ve had this thought on and off for a while now that inside I’m bad like I’m a narcissist and perhaps the reason people don’t like me, like my ex and my MIL ex is because they can see through me and see a monster. I’m afraid of being a narcissist and un fixable.

I just want to thank all of those for the support. It’s has cleared my head out and I’m going to work on these feelings going forward. I have an 8 year old daughter from my previous relationship that is showing signs of ADHD. We are awaiting an assessment from the school. I desperately want to resolve this for her, she needs me. We are so very similar at her age. She is different and she struggles with noise and her emotions and any requests and I will do anything to make sure she knows that being different is absolutely OK! Her mum is different and she is going to be OK! I wish this is what I had from my mum, someone on my side.

Get therapy. Your responses here show you are very stuck, still, in assigning responsibility and blame for situations. In reality, as Axure pointed out, this is not useful to you. You are not the world’s sin eater or dustman, doomed to carry out other people’s trash and sorrow for the rest of your life.

You are just a person with bad luck i n family life, who has drawn the wrong lesson from your horrible experiences. You can not fix people—its not your job, its not your forte, and its not a safe hobby.

Imagine these people are radioactive? You can’t rush in to help them since you are not invulnerable to their toxic rays.

As to whether you have some narcissistic tendencies—everyone does. There is a kind of childish egotism in thinking that you must serve snd save others and martyr yourself for their benefit since really you are desperate to get something from the sacrifice. You should address this with a good therapist. It is a behavior or character strategy that is adopted very early by vulnerable children who fear shame and abandonment.