Don't trust enough to have friends?

[Laura Beth Myers]

As the title states. I've found that the deeper I've experienced cptsd, the harder it is for me to e...

I'm angry at myself for not enjoying things and people's company. I don't feel like it shows, I just am really standoffish and to myself which makes the people in my life mad because they think It's me being rude on purpose...

I was that way and now I'm cutting my wrist and being played by a policeman game of RTS which in CA means religious trauma syndrome and the rest of the world is rape trauma syndrome simply by the woman across the street from me trying to me some type of referee--I make her Romeo and Juliet. Don't even get into this , I tried to make my next door neighbor Othello with image issues and my other neighbor Hamlet. I try to please everyone and nothing works.

Molested, abused, trying to prove, disintegrating, all at different times, no matter how you 'cut it' it's impossible. Try to stick with your therapist and love you. I can't love me. To much space out in the head due to molestation. Luck and love. Laura

 

[mumstheword]

love

I really think this is key, Laura. Learning to love and forgive ourselves makes positive change possible.

 

[EveHarrington]

Somehow I don't know how to let people in so that I can be friends with them.

Still many walls that are many miles high.

 

[Friday]

Its hard to trust for anyone. But these examples on top of my own history makes it feel really impossible. This part of me is really ruining my life and I find it impossible to be happy and normal. What are some ways you guys handle the negative social aspect of ptsd? How do I change myself even though I can't change the past? What encourages you to de-isolate?

For me... You're really hitting on a few issues that ... If/when tied together? Cha! No wonder it's impossible right now!!! There's a huuuuge range of things going on! Even one of those things cropping up can throw a major spanner in the works and make things extremely difficult. When all of them are piling on? Goodnight Irene.

1 - Isolating
2 - Trust
3 - Connection
4 - Social Aspects of many things (PTSD, work, friendship, acquaintances, etc.)
5 - Stress Overload ( Stress Cup )
6 - Triggers & Stressors (being triggered by either triggers or stressors)
7 - Learned behaviors & defense mechanisms (sometimes a lot harder than triggers, because they exist without external stimulus)
7 - Happy vs Normal

To even begin tackling this list? Good on. Truly. Because it's a whole lot to work on.

How do I handle these? First off by doing the above. (And I might have missed some, these are just the ones I got from what you wrote.) I look at what I want, or what I dislike, and I break it down into all the pieces that are making the difficult impossible. And then I start working on the pieces. In a few different ways:

- Individually (aka how can I start working on this piece?)
- Removing some obstacles to allow others to happen. (Which pieces can I remove to allow other pieces to happen)

As an example, if I want to work on being more social, just generally? I may durn well remove trust, connection, friendship, etc. from the table entirely. Just trying to be around people can be hard enough without actually ALSO attempting to connect, make friends, dialing up/down trust, etc. Purely being around people. Might mean I go to an art museum and walk around a little, or go inside at the gas station to pay. If I also want to lower my stress levels? I might pick something that burns off energy whilst being around people (that I do not have to interact with). Going to the gym, or to a busy jogging trail. If I've accustomed myself to being around people in general? I might up my game and pick a structured activity with strangers &/or acquaintances. Taking a class (martial arts, yoga, crew, climbing, whatever)... Something that I'm seeing the same people around, and am interacting with them, but in a very limited way.

My goal when I'm working on these issues by focusing on one, and removing the others? Isn't to jump ahead from "I'll go read at the university library instead of in my car" (to just be physically present / sharing air with people) to "I don't make a best friend forever whom I trust beyond words so Im a miserable failure as a human being waaaaaaaaaah :arghh;" ...:bag: Which can be easy to do. Mission creep. Nope. My mission was JUST to go be around people. Not even interact with them, much less be making acquaintance with them, and reeeeeeally not friendship, and holy cow how the hell did I future trip into trust & inner circle??? Yikes. Those steps? All take time. And come with EASE when I'm actually doing everything in a far slower way.

^^^
Don't run a marathon by seeing the starting line and busting out 26.2 miles, with no training, in high heels. (Everyone else there is running 26.2!!! I should be able to! :arghh;) Nope! Run it by going for a walk. Then a jog. Then short distance running. Then long distance running. Eating properly. Dressed properly. Taking care of injuries as they come up. All the things that "everyone" (at the starting line) has spent months and years doing. And that far MORE people are at home doing... Because they aren't ready for the starting line, either!

Baby steps.

 

[bento]

I come from childhood abuse, poor parental role models, isolation growing up and later
many additional traumas and abuse. It's like I didn't have any idea what normal was
and I just let people drift in and out of my life. It seems most healthy people I know
are very deliberate about who they share their lives with. They look for positive healthy
people they share interests with or stick with life long friends.

Just letting people "choose" you seems to be a bad idea. Personality disordered people
are always on the lookout for empathetic naive people pleasers whom they can manipulate
into whatever con they're running. I'm afraid I fell for a bunch of abusive user types until
I got wise about fixing my "picker". Since then things are a million times easier, though
I'm quite wary, and have a "one strike and you're out" rule. I just don't have the emotional
reserves to deal with BS so I just don't take a chance.

Years ago my therapist said to me "Friendship is supposed to be easy. You're not supposed
to have to work at it, it's just supposed to be about having fun and enjoying each other's
company." That was a Wow! moment for me, because I've had these people in my life that
would be fun at first, (for a fairly short period of time replete with red flags) and then it would
be about having talks about how friendship is supposed to be reciprocal and maybe
if they would be so kind as to follow the Golden Rule. Never worked. Got accusations,
denials, temper tantrums, fake apologies etc, etc. It was a lot of work and in some cases
very traumatic.

Sometimes I feel like a turtle. Slowly walking around with my head poking gingerly out of
my shell, ready to pull back in at the slightest warning. It sucks that so many people
are on the take, but I try and remind myself that there are a lot of kind people out there
as well. But as of now, I still have to basically force myself to socialize. I enjoy it when I
do but it still makes me exhausted afterwards and I still don't really feel enthusiastic about it.

 

[Supervixn]

Thanks for sharing your wisdom with me bento. Extremely good advice that I will work to implement into my life interactions. Thank you again :)

 

[mumstheword]

I come from childhood abuse, poor parental role models, isolation growing up and later
many additional tr...

I can soooooooo relate to everything you have written here @bento ! Thank you for articulating this wise-mind approach so eloquently and clearly. I couldn't have said it better or more clearly, but it is exactly
my own sentiment!