Since my divorce I seem to hate everyone

[Frostycottagegarden]

I used to he the most patient person in the world. Total people pleaser, always saw best in people. Everyone thought I was the nicest person in the world. Helped everyone out, never complained.

Reality was I was a doormat, bullied horrendously at work and at home. I had a breakdown, saw a counsellor, doctors, spoke to Rape Crisis, Women's Aid, posted on here, and saw it all for what it was.

The shock was awful and took a lot of unpicking. I got through the divorce and I'm safe and whole.

But I hate 90% of the people from my old life. I just put the phone down on my mum. One of my siblings has blocked me. They expect me to carry on being a doormat, and I'm not any more.

I'm finding it really hard today. I don't know how to be me, if that makes any sense at all? Do you think this settles, because I just want to curl up and hide right now.

I'm here standing with you and your new found boundaries. Im pretty sure it's not hate as such you're feeling but your eyes are now open to being treated poorly. Maybe you should consider further counselling to explore your feelings. Take care op, and here's to your future happiness ❤️

I hear you Op, I’ve been on a journey not dissimilar.
People who don’t like you with boundaries weren’t worth bothering with in the first place. Hold them firm and keep the people who actually support you and love you. The book ‘where to draw the line’ is brilliant.

Take it easy. Things like you’ve been through take quite a while to get over. You’ll get back on an even keel over time xx

This is part of the recovery - keep going! Soon your new life will expand with new and positive things and bad old relationships fall away.

Sometimes doormats know, deep down, they're being badly treated and when they finally stop letting themselves be walked over, a lot of rather justified fury surfaces.

It's not a bad thing actually, as long as it doesn't go on forever. From what I've seen it gives people the energy to stand up for themselves and then once the first waves have passed they can decide where they want to draw their lines in a much healthier way.

People who take advantage of doormats aren't nice people and boy do they hate it when they have to clean their own shoes instead of wiping them on you.

Thank you. I don't know if you have felt like this, but I am really struggling to truly believe that it's not my fault. I swing from being furious, particularly with my mum, to thinking it's my fault.

She's very similar to my ex, and also my work boss. All three expected me to carry them, criticised me constantly. Dropped me if anyone else came along. No support. Played me off against other people. No empathy whatsoever for my feelings.

I'm so angry with her.

And the thing is, this isn't a deliberate choice. I just can't take it any more, just like I couldn't take my ex anymore. I am so angry, my head has just gone black on them. I have no energy left for them. If they died, I wouldn't care. How awful is that? I hate this feeling, but I can't stop it.

Firstly I want to say what an absolute ordeal you've been through and it's a huge achievement getting through it. I hear you. I have been through similar. Now I say "no" or "I don't want to" or "I'm sorry, I can't help with that" and the look on peoples faces. It's astounding really. So bloody good on you for your boundaries and I hope they stand you in good stead going forward

......and that "feeling" is recovery ❤️‍🩹

I'm afraid it happens. I come from a dodgy background and used to fawn or people please. People were always pushing my boundaries. I had therapy and went no contact with my family as they didn't like the new me.

I don't hang around with people who mess me around. I have fewer friends and am now in contact with my family but on my terms and they're more respectful.

I swing from being furious, particularly with my mum, to thinking it's my fault.

We are programmed from birth to want to please our mums. It's instinctual, for good reason - we are dependent on them for everything at first, and becoming independent is a very slow process. So if something goes wrong it's safer to blame ourselves rather than our mum.

But at some level we -know- we deserve to be treated reasonably well - love, the practical necessities, good boundaries, stability. As we get older that side comes more to the fore, I think. But it's a very hard process so people who've grown up in difficult families tend to take some time to balance everything out.

We also tend to replicate the nature of our relationship with our parents in our partners, if we haven't broken free - either finding people who treat us the same or going completely the other way. Which could well be why you picked someone with the same behaviour patterns as your mum. Eventually with luck we find our own, more balanced path, although it takes a lot of thought and frankly guidance, often through therapy (if it works for you).

You just got unlucky with your boss unfortunately. Did other people tend to leave sooner than you, or did she just pick on you? Unpleasant people develop a nose for whom they can bully and get away with it.

@DucklingSwimmingInstructress
That's what my counsellor said, only it took her a few months to recognise that it was my mum. It then took me another year to really see it, and now I can't stop seeing it.

I definitely repeated the pattern with my ex. The levels of manipulation from both are huge.

Same with my boss - it's a man. Everyone else left. I stayed for decades. Just like my marriage, 25 plus years of marriage. I was such a mug, and now I'm so so angry.

25 years? Oh lord, that's a long long time.

I've never really found a good way of siphoning my anger off other than exercise, trying not to dwell on it and give fuel, and trying to live in the here and now. All three have helped but it's an infuriatingly slow process. Wish I was one if those people who can just be angry then leave it behind.

Embrace your anger.
It's been hiding long enough, and now it's here to make sure people don't treat you like shit ever again.
Your anger is your friend. It's going to help you separate those who love you from those who are only here to take from you (time, energy, validation, money,...).

Sometimes it helps to see this new-found anger as if it were a child. It's still relatively young and inexperienced. Your anger hasn't been around very long and is and still learning how to be more mature and refined. Right now it's throwing tantrums and stomping it's feet. That's what young children do. In time it will learn how to become that what it's here for: your protector, your shield, the wall that keeps out the bad and only lets good people come closer. Your anger still needs to learn how to do that though, and it will. With ups and downs. Right now it's just afraid something will slip through the cracks and hurt you again, so it's being extra careful.
So be proud of your anger being part of your life now. It means well and it wants to be your ally. Give it some time. It will soon realize that screaming in your ears isn't the way to get the message across, and start being more subtle.

I've got a very similar history, except I am still in my relationship. It's hard because since I've withdrawn emotionally he's been much nicer to me so that makes it difficult to end it!

My mother's dead now but I think I'd have had to distance myself if she were still alive.

I have found myself sucked into dramas with similar people. I am pretty good at no longer having friends like this but I do know this woman professionally that appears at all the trainings I do on a niche area (no-one else provides this training).

Every time I see her she kicks off with the trainers about me and cries that I've been mean to her (I never find out exactly what I'm supposed to have done because she goes off into another room with them). I feel very angry towards her because she always starts it (sulking and saying she feels ill then saying someone has upset her without saying how or why until she goes off with the tutor and it's always about me). They're not ballsy enough to call her out because of the tears, so I get all this - we all have to be nice to each other - which drives me mad because I have never done anything to cause it.

I feel drawn into the same psycho-drama that my mother used to drag me into just by my existence.

I kind of feel that you have to keep away from these people completely because they're so manipulative and they've been honing these techniques for decades so you'll never get the better of them. I've tried ignoring it, speakiing up for myself to the tutors, having it out with her. Whatever I do she always gets the better of me with the crocodile tears so I am told to be nice.

My point is that I completely identify with your anger. You have every reason to be furious. For once you are protecting yourself. Your anger is a protection to keep you away from them. Try not to get sucked back in because it will never end well until you are completely able to not be triggered by them, which may be never or you may just become indifferent to them. Being triggered IS exhausting. When I see that woman I sleep almost all the time for days because it is so draining. I am ending the training soon because I can't face her any more even though I miss out professionally.

@spicysugar
I totally get that. I've learned how to handle it with work. Just very strong boundaries from the start now, and I don't let clients cross them. Still exhausting, but I don't get tucked into their drama.

That's exactly what it is, drama. I've got out of the marriage, and blocked him apart from one email. My dcs are old enough to negotiate their own relationship with him.

I'm calmer today. I think the hardest thing is that I dragged myself away from the trauma bonding with my ex, but I can see exactly the same pattern emerging with my mum and I don't want to block her. I know she'll never change, and I know that boundaries are the answer, but I'm so so angry.

Angry about stuff she says now, angry about what she said in the past.

Good to offload. Thanks.

None of it is your fault. You cannot control how people behave, you can control your reaction to that behaviour. We end up in counselling because the people that really need it don't go.

You will learn to let go. It's a process. I am now completely indifferent to the people that caused my pain. That's not to say I won't smile if karma bites them on the arse.

Absolutely fine to be angry. The main thing is that you don't compromise who you are to appease your mum.

Sounds like you're doing great with your boundaries.