What to do and how to make changes when you are surrounded by people who take no interest in you?

[Happyfarm]

I’m sick and tired now of feeling shit worrying about why I’m surrounded by people who take no interest in me as a person. I’ve tried being extra nice but I can’t sustain being something I’m not. I mean I’m nice but I just seem to have the wrong people in my life who don’t like me for me.

Has anyone been like this? I don’t know why I’m in this situation or how to change it really, any advice?

Just some info. I’m a survivor of 15 years of abuse and neglect as a child. I just want to be accepted but really they aren’t people who can understand me or me understand them in return. I need a real different approach because it’s getting me down.

I'm sorry to hear you're having such a hard time.

I haven't got an answer for you, but I don't want you to think that everyone is ignoring you on here too.

All the best!

Could you try to meet new people? The people in your life sound pretty grim and you can't change other people no matter what you do. So instead of tying yourself in knots to please them, replace them with more caring people. You don't have to keep people in your life who don't give a damn about you. It's okay to let them go. I just want you to know that I get it and I care. You can PM me if you need support.
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Yes I really need to create my own family of support with like minded people. I don’t know how to go about it. I’m 40 now and feel like most people have got people and don’t need anymore friends. My own family is very small. My husband’s family I have always found because I came into it late have made their connections and don’t have space for me. I’m not like them either, they are all people who are in their same marriages, no divorce, no abuse, all appear content. I feel like I’m dirty and they kind of make me feel it. I was once like them when I was 20, oblivious and then I met my ex husband. I never asked to have this past. I find once you’ve got some not so pleasant baggage people think you just bad. Fiends I don’t hard to make at my age. Most people have their group. I get very lonely.

I'm sorry you feel lonely. It's very common for survivors of abuse to feel different to others. I'm wondering if you've considered therapy. There's a type of therapy you might find useful called Compassion Focused Therapy:
https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/compassion-focused-therapy.html#whatiscompassionfocusedtherapy

You seem to be approaching people as wanting to get them to like you (fawning) rather than considering if you actually like them. It might help to take some control and decide if you actually like these people. It might also help to draw up some boundaries about how you want to be treated.

I would have a look at Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and see if it resonates. There's a good book called CPTSD from surviving to thriving by Pete Walker that you might find helpful.

I was told a long time ago by a therapist I knew personally not professionally that I probably have c-ptsd. I’m just so fed up with it all now, all the feelings and my brain. I think I just so badly want a family, that support system. I hear so many time from people that family is all you need, why need friends when you have family etc etc. It’s just out of my reach all the time. I feel so very different, I can small talk but there is no intimate connection. They don’t ask about me, they aren’t interested in me. I am interested in return but it’s isn’t there.

I really have got to a point where I think i am just stuck in a cycle of getting the wrong people to like me. Perhaps I need a place where people are “damaged” like me because “normal” people don’t want people like me around it feels. Maybe that’s my bad thinking.

I agree with @cupcaske123 — approaching people with the mindset of ‘I want you to like me and I’m going behave in a certain way to try to make that happen’ isn’t going to work, because you can’t control how other people perceive or behave, and because your behaviour is inauthentic. You’re putting on an act to try to force something that isn’t happening.

As @cupcaske123 said, why aren’t you asking yourself whether you like them? Do you in fact like them? Who are these people, anyway, and why are they in your life — relatives, colleagues?

I likewise had a neglected childhood that featured SA, and it certainly has an ongoing impact on my ability to form relationships, but I do approach new relationships primarily in terms of whether I like the other person…

There are very few people in my life that I actually like. I do spent too much time trying to get people to like me I suspect and it not working because we are too different. I get into this loop that if they don’t like me then the bad stuff has won and I’m too bad to like. I need to make new friends with people who are more open minded and can look past the struggles.

Can you be a bit more specific OP about the type of things you want and from whom, and what you’re getting currently from the people in your life by way of comparison?

OP a lot of people are self absorbed and don't really consider others. It's not you, it's them. I know you feel different, that's where therapy can help.

There's no such thing as 'normal'; you'd be very surprised if you knew what others were thinking or going through. I know you feel somehow marked by your past and that you can't find a connection with others.

What you're looking for isn't possible for others to fulfil. You're looking for the unconditional love and acceptance of family. That's something you need to explore in therapy.

For the time being, when it comes to friendships take one step forward and two steps back. Be friendly but if the other person isn't interested, then back away. Mirror their interest.

I'm exactly like this, also have childhood trauma. I just hear things like 'find your tribe' and 'your people' and I've yet to meet a single person that likes the same as me. The things I care about, nobody else I've met does. And I'll mee up with people who either want to gossip, sit on the phone or generally just complain rather than take an interest. At family dinners nobody asks about me or my job, just my husbands 'very improtant' work. I get spoken over and ignored! I feel like my husband doesn't even get me,.nobody ever has or ever will 🤷‍♀️

I know, I’ve realise I’m going round in circles. I watch how others are accepted into families, lots are accepted and loved liked they are part of it. I wonder if I’m not because something is wrong with me or if mine perhaps are not as accepting as others. I don’t know what I am doing wrong. Friends wise I am better with because I will just go straight for the kind I know I will click with. They are harder to find because they probably more like me and not doing the “normal” things. I sometimes wish I had not entered this marriage because the extended family drag up all the pain I have.

I would because I’m exactly the same. I also hate those sayings, these people are really hard to find.

Are you talking about your own family or your ILs? Think about it, neither of those are ‘choice’ situations. If you’re talking about your ILs, they’re only in your life because of who you married — think of them like longterm colleagues. It’s great if you gel, but not particularly important if you don’t, as long as you keep doing your job/ attending the occasional family thing without undue stress. And if your family was responsible for your neglected childhood, surely they’re the last place you’d look to for unproblematic love and acceptance?

For instance, my PILs and SILs would absolutely have preferred DH to marry his previous girlfriend, as they don’t particular ‘get’ me, and that’s ok. I’m fond of them, but my whole sense of identity doesn’t rest on being accepted by them. We’re just very different.

And ironically, my own mother would have liked a very different type of daughter, someone of the type she considers ‘normal’ (jolly SAHM to a large family and totally absorbed n them). Instead she got an academic high achiever who writes books, got married in secret and had one child by choice aged 40. Again, I’m fond of her, but I’m not her type of person. So I don’t look for ‘acceptance’ there either. And my siblings aren’t close — we were all left traumatised by a neglected childhood and struck off independently.

Don’t hang your sense of self on other people ‘seeing’ you.

I wonder whether your expectations are unrealistic when it comes to your husband's family? I think it's the exception not the norm for spouses to be embraced into the other spouse's family like one of their own. For me and all my married friends we get on well enough with the in laws, will make polite conversation with the wider family when we see them, but it doesn't go much deeper than that. It hadn't occurred to me that this was an issue. I'm not their family, they didn't choose me and they have busy lives. It's no reflection on me.

It sounds like, understandably, you were hoping that your DH's family could be the family you didn't have. You've developed a narrative that the fact it hasn't worked out that way is a reflection on you or that the are judging you. But the situation is entirely normal.

I think the best thing you can do is work on building friendships and having friends be your support network.

I met my best friend in my late 30s. She has a similar background to you. She has no contact with her family at all, and she is single, so no family at all. She has built up a big group of friends and they are her support network. E.g. she spends Christmas with friends, holidays with them etc. I think that on balance she's happier for it because everyone she spends time with outside of work is someone who she likes and has proactively chosen to be around. There's something very empowering about that.

I really hope you can find your peace.

How can you work on that fondness? I’m finding it hard to be fond of people who don’t really get me or want to put effort in. I think Im too black and white. If they don’t really want to know me then I want to just completely ignore them because I don’t know how to do that small talk with people who aren’t invested.

So is it really just down to luck that you fit in with family or not?

I’ve never ‘worked on it’ at all. I suppose ‘fondness’ has emerged out of longtime familiarity? They were never going to get me or indeed pay much attention to me ( I’ve had the same very straightforward career ever since MIL has known me, and a few months ago I heard her telling a neighbour who asked that she didn’t know what I did for a living!), but we co-exist peacefully enough because we’re not looking for anything from one another…? I don’t think I particularly do small talk. DH will take the lead in conversations. I make pleasant noises in the background!

Yes, I think so.

Yup, total luck. A bit like with work colleagues. Sometimes you just rub along together and exchange pleasantries, other times you meet someone who you just click with and would be friends with if you'd met them in another circumstance. It's no reflection on either of you.

I suppose the more things you got through the people who you click with narrow down a bit.

It might help if you figure out what type of people you'd like around you and keep that as your guide going forward. Not easy I know but as someone who had a crappy childhood I've had a lifetime of emotionally unavailable and exploitative people around me.

It's familiar to tolerate the wrong people and if you're a fawner (people pleaser) it's inevitable. I got lucky with a few people who I've kept but everyone else had to go. Which was easy, I just stopped chasing, haven't seen them since!

Through therapy I built up my self esteem and no longer accept bad friendships. My tester is reliability, reciprocation, positivity and empathy. I also know myself very well so can flick off other's opinions that don't fit with me.

I would recommend therapy or lots of reading around the subject. Pete Walkers book is very good. If you keep drinking from the poisoned well (ie surrounding yourself with people you don't actually like) you'll always feel sick.

You are young enough to build your tribe.

I think that is a lot of my problems, expecting different outcomes from the same people, instead of changing the people I end up hating myself for being me. I sometimes get so caught up in wishing I could be someone else who never went through the things I have.

Yes I know exactly what you mean. Wasted many years flogging dead horses. However, you have to focus on them being the wrong people for you, not you being wrong for failing to make them the right people. This is what affects your self esteem, the constant failure leads to thoughts of 'there's something wrong/bad about me'.

You have to be discerning about who you allow round you. Clinging onto anyone because you crave the attachment doesn't work. Honestly, I have been exactly where you are. I know how it feels. But it can get better with a lot of practice. 😔

Thanks. I wish someone could just come and give my head a massive shake.

I hear you and empathize with your situation.
Do you have any special interests? You could try getting involved in things you are passionate about in order to meet like-minded people.