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.

ummm not really. I have 2 young children and can never find the time to do much or meet people other than play dates. I end up dwelling in my mind which doesn’t help and having the same pool of people around me who I don’t relate to that much. To answer a previous question, no I don’t like many of them that much, a lot of our values are different and it is madness trying to connect with them as they much realise I’m not that keen or stay away from many conversations as I don’t agree.

Some great posts on this thread. I’m a recovering people pleaser and the most important steps I’ve taken are to nourish myself, to centre my own interests, understand what I like and want. I stopped thinking so much about others (which was hard as people pleasuring at its root is a strategy for physical and emotional safety) and then used the time to strengthen my own sense of self by prioritising my own joy and pleasure.

It has caused a lot of changes in my relationships (guess what - people used to being attuned towards, don’t like it when you start actually walking on the eggshells) but I think it will be positive in the medium term. And I’m really enjoying feeling the joy and pleasure and the empowerment of giving that to myself.

I’ve sat here this morning and asked myself what do I really like and what do I want to do. It’s a difficult question and like you have said my behaviour is rooted in safety and I feel very unsafe when I’m not liked. I instantly feel like something is wrong with me or sometimes the other person. It’s horrible thinking and I don’t want to think this way anymore.

I know with certainty that the family in my circle will not be attracted to me if I stay honest in who I am and what I like. They like a particular kind of person which isn’t me. I have to break the link in my head that this means I’m bad. I’m not bad but we are different.

@Happyfarm Can you describe the sort of person you would want to be friends with?

People who understand me or want to understand me and we feel comfortable with each other. I am a very understanding and accepting person. Maybe too much.

But what exactly do you mean by ‘understand you’? Do you mean specifically as someone with an abusive past? I think frightening numbers of us do have that. I never talk about my own. I only told my closest friend of almost 30 years last year, after she’d disclosed some things about her own childhood.

Ummm no but maybe understand that I don’t really know how to behave. don’t understand family situations, I often feel awkward. I don’t come from close family, I end up just thinking I’m better alone but that isn’t really what I want. Maybe more open or inclusive people. The particular family I have around now have no time for this kind of nonsense as they say, you behave a particular way or you aren’t a part of it. I feel wrong because I don’t know which particular way to behave.

I could have written your post. I'm not sure that if I disappeared, anyone would notice. I have a large extended family and whilst I could be in contact with a couple of them it seems pointless as there is no connection. I know lots of people but have 2 friends. Of those 2 friends one uses me and I'm beginning to feel I'm not that keen on the other. No one cares and, other than my deceased mother, I don't think more than a couple ever have. I'm 57 and it's always been like this. There's this presumption in psychology that friends and a support system are available to us all and they're really not.

Sounds like they're not particularly introspective or even empathetic and don't have time for people with 'problems'. The stiff upper lip type maybe? Or because they've never experienced trauma it doesn't exist in their heads? No wonder you feel dismissed!

Again, you're looking in the wrong place and perhaps opening yourself up for their rejection by revealing your vulnerabilities to them? A therapist might be a better receptacle for this? I totally understand the need to get it out but these people don't sound friendly enough or empathetic enough.

Thanks. I don’t really want to get anything out, this is who and how I am. I want to be accepted for the awkward little vulnerable person I am, not made to feel odd or made
to mask. You are totally right that these are not my people even though I’d like to fit into a family I just don’t to this one. They don’t do vulnerability at all, they laugh at it. They have a family member who has downs. They talk about him as this manipulative person who needs to be kept at arms length. They see him as behaving “intentionally” manipulative. Not the same scale but I think they see me as like this.

Oh God, run for the hills then! They don't sound very nice at all if they backstab each other. That's your typical dysfunctional family if anything. Glossy on the outside but unkind and scapegoating within. And it does sound like you're the outsider.

What kind of ‘family situations’ don’t you understand, though? Or what kind of behaviour?

I think you are overthinking things.
I would say people are very self-centred and interested only in things directly affecting them. Whether someone else is good or nice or behaves a certain way -they really don’t care unless it directly affects them.
You think your in-laws don’t like you - how do you know this-I suspect they are maybe on a different wavelength but like I say only interested if it affects them so they prob never form an opinion of you.
you need to carve out a little bit of time for you -it’s not selfish to leave the kids in front of the tele or not rush around doing housework when they are at nursery. They need a happy mum. Read a good book, go for a swim -write a list and do something for you every week (or day). Then when you have done things they are there to chat about with others -then you can form bonds, find an interest -hopefully meet others with the same interest.

I get confused because we have children so their grandchildren, they aren’t really interested in them either. You would think they would be unless they are that self absorbed.

I’m definitely an over thinker!!!! It’s not good!

They just seem to see vulnerable people or people with issues as manipulative when it’s not the case.

The Stately Homes thread on Relationships may be your friend on MN because it seems like you're craving approval from a toxic family.

It's very common to come out of a toxic family of origin and not have the tools to recognize another one because your sense of 'normal' is skewed.

So your husband's family might seem better because they have different habits than yours but they're actually dysfunctional in their own way. Seeing people with issues as blanket manipulative is not 'normal' or kind. Would you treat a friend who has issues this way?

Honestly, @Happyfarm, you sound as if you’re expecting a lot from them.

You don’t sound as if you much like them (understandably), they are unpleasant to and about one of their own family members with Down Syndrome, they’re only in your life because of who you married, and you say yourself you ‘don’t know how to behave’ and describe yourself as ‘awkward’ and ‘vulnerable’.

Bluntly, why would a group of people whom you describe as unsympathetic to difference, and who don’t appear to be particularly interested in you, alter their usual behaviour to accommodate someone who doesn’t ‘know how to behave’? And why would you want them to so badly? It sounds a bit like that Groucho Marx joke about only wanting to join a club that is too exclusive to want him as a member.

Yep it’s madness. But on the outside it looks so good but on the inside it’s so awful. It’s been a theme all my life and I’m trying to break this.

I think you maybe right. I’ve know 3 families. My own which was not good, my exs family who’s father was an abusive drunk and now this family. I sense this feeling all the time holding me back saying something is off but I don’t trust it. I tell myself that I’m the problem and my feelings are wrong. I can’t see the wood for the trees, I swing back and forth all the time.

Given their attitude to the family member with Down’s syndrome, it’s clear they are shit people. Spend less time with them.

People pleasing and masking does make you end up with the wrong people, for sure.

When you’re “yourself” you repel the wrong people and attract the right ones. But people with trauma can’t deal with the rejection so try to please everyone and end up with a “watered down for everyone” persona. No-one can connect to that. You need to show people who you are, have opinions, wants and needs.

I relate a lot! It took me a long time and a lot of reading to learn these things.

I feel extremely uncomfortable talking about my needs. It’s probably the fear of rejection. I end up pretending and feeling crap then getting annoyed no one cares or notices.