Wrong name

[DogwoodTree]

Lots of pain there that might need addressed.

I'm willing to address it. I just don't know how. I sit with it until it loses its energy. But then it gets triggered again later. Or it doesn't, and I find myself feeling numb.

I was thinking what may needed is for you to accept yourself just as you are and be comfortable with your short comings, and you may be rejected by some, but then others may just well accept everything about you.

I can accept myself okay when I'm alone. But around other people, I feel so isolated and different, on the outside looking in. It hurts. It just does. The only way to avoid that is to avoid people. I've tried for sooo many years to figure out how to be with people and be comfortable with them and be friends, and it hasn't worked. It's only gotten worse. I've learned how to role-play pretty well so that when I need to, I can use a kind of "social camouflage" and people don't notice anything off about me. But that's a lot of work and it's exhausting. And it's not the real me, so people's responses to me don't resonate.

And then there's actual-though-subtle rejection. There are "friends" who said they cared, but when I started trying to let some of my real self into the relationship, they left. T asked me about this earlier this week...if it was only my mom who rejected me, or others, too? And I listed off several groups of people...friends, pastors, coworkers, church members, neighbors (and if he asked for specific info, I could've listed a couple of dozen names without even trying). It's not a matter of seeming different and just accepting my differences. It's a matter of being so different that people seem to be looking for excuses to reduce or fully extinguish the relationship. No matter how much (or how moderately...because I don't want to overdo it) I reach out to people, they lose interest and keep me at arm's length.

And there's actual-and-very-overt rejection. Every so often my mom threatens to kick me out of the family business. She made another threat tonight. Actually, I'm not sure if it's a threat or if this time she's planning to follow through. She sounded even more serious about it than usual. I'm so tired of her holding this over my head. She accepts no responsibility for current problems in our relationship (though she has apologized and asked forgiveness many times for her behavior when I was a kid...and demanded forgiveness so that things could be better between us). When I ask for specifics on what the problem is, she says it's "not fun" to work with me, that I don't have a "spirit of cooperation", and that she can't give any more details because she didn't feel like getting into an argument.

All that together, it makes me wonder if the problem in my relationship with her really is all me. Maybe I really am that difficult to get along with. But I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. All of my Ts have said I'm "doing all the right things." And it's not that I'm distorting information so they think well of me. I bring in as much raw data as I can for them. My mom posts some of her thoughts to YouTube, so I've played a couple of those videos for my T. I've brought in emails. My T says my communication with her is "textbook" assertive communication, keeping clean boundaries and expressing my position while still respecting hers. But her impression of my communication is that I'm "speaking a foreign language" that makes so little sense to her she doesn't even know where to begin in response.

Okay, @scout86 , I can see where reporting on the conversation with my mom helps me organize in my head what was said and try to make sense of it. And figure out where I stand with it. I also report on these conversations to my T so he can give me a reality check: What parts of her comments are legitimate, and what parts are delusional? But...like at this week's session, he kept saying very clearly how much he cared about what I was dealing with and how different parts of my story affect him, and yet it was just words to me. It was empty. I kept looking inside for some spark of comfort from all that...and nuthin.

 

[scout86]

I could have written a LOT of what you said there. I have to take off for the moment and need to think about this some anyway. What you do me a favor? Tag me so I remember to come back to this? (Odd as that might sound, my T says it's an 'adhd'ish' thing.:rolleyes:)

 

[hithere]

I feel like I've experienced most of my life these feelings of not connecting with people and people rejecting me. You express and write about it so well, I feel I can understand it, though don't think to the depth that you are feeling this way. I know trauma does this to people. Are these also symptoms of Ausbergers? I really know very little about Ausbergers syndrome. It sounds really hard and lonely to me. It sounds like you are trying. This may sound weird, but sometimes I wish I didn't feel anything warm from my T. The positive feelings send me into spirals of terror and fear and I want to get out of the feelings so badly. In the past I'd do anything (mostly harmful) to get out of the feelings of feeling kind regard from someone. To not feel anything sounds easier than wanting to kill yourself because someone says something nurturing. I only bring that up because I wonder if our completely different symptoms are part of the same syndrome--caused by similar things and how we deal with the emotions is different? I'm not as a good of a writer as you, so I may have made zero sense just now. I just think what you describe sounds exhausting and very lonely. I never felt "connected" to anyone-felt like a robot -- until this month and just glimmers of it here and there.

 

[scout86]

on the outside looking in.

Those are the exact words I've used, as long as I can remember, to describe myself. I suppose because it worked, I chose to think of it as a good thing. Being on the outside meant freedom and independence. I didn't need anyone or the comfort of being on the inside. Recently, I've run into the alternative view that that is some kind of problem. I really don't know. I'm having a hard time seeing it as a problem. When it seems like the choices are being rejected or being alone......... Anyway, as far as Asperger's goes, the diagnosis might be accurate. Even if it's not, it might be useful. It seems to me that there are a lot of things that can look a lot a like and maybe many routes to the same place.

 

[Tinyflame]

People by-and-large respond to superficiality more comfortably than depth in my experience @DogwoodTree . Also there can be a fair degree of self-absorption and 'presentation' and less than genuine concern. (I find that painful, actually.) Maybe you've been surrounded by some of that. There can be lots of laughter and such, not all serious discussions but the absence of true regard or honesty or equal care for others shows; you sound very authentic and not self-seeking, that is genuinely rare.

:hug:

ETA, I came back just to say because I remembered something, neurotypical or not, suffering changes all of us, and I think it's safe to say we've all had plenty here, different or earlier than some.

I went to a client's funeral once, they were actually all millionaires but supremely gracious, the daughter said she made the reception 'for me', and was disappointed as I didn't go to that part, just the service ('naturally'; oddly that she said 'she made that for me', to me-? :wideeyed: :confused: ). Afterwards I went on my own to some family members' gravesites; one of the women on the way there I knew said "that's why you're so sweet!" (Partly correct- and she didn't know the 1/2 of it- and sweet and sour, too. :rolleyes: .) My mom used to say she had a low tolerance for the same (phoniness/ pretense/ ignorance/ boredom, etc), and she went through a lot, too.

Don't blame yourself for the fact he gets your name wrong- ultimately that comes back to him, not you. :hug: