Cant Start Relationships

[Born2fightfire]

I will be talking to a lady for about a week and go on a few dates. Everything will be going great and they will express their feelings towards me. All of a sudden they want nothing to do with me. I sometimes feel clingy because it helps me forget about my ptsd while I'm with someone I like. This has happened at least a dozen times. Thank you in advance for any advice!!

 

[Seasounds]

First, you are a good person.

Secondly, I have a so what similar pattern. From the help of others, I've learned that my clinginess can be a problem; so I've just made sure to keep working on staying in my center, rather than clinging.

Third, it is a challenging daily exercise for me; even today I struggled with a loss that made me want to be clingy. I noticed this, and then asked myself to breathe and to feel my connection to the earth and my heart.

I once read a study that showed that anxious peoples' tension tends to make other people uncomfortable, and want to take distance. I saw this pattern with myself; especially in sharing too much.i worked on 'containing my emotions'/a.k.a. emotional regulation. I believe you'll find info on this on Google.

Alanon Family Groups have helped me a lot. Many PTSD folks, myself included, didn't have a secure and safe adult, let alone good modeling for how to be centered in oneself while in a relationship.

:hug:

 

[Morphius]

I understand where you're coming from. I felt clingy too, and like you, I realized that it was more or less because it helped me forget about my PTSD. The fifteen minutes (or an hour) of normalcy is finally when I've forgotten about it while feeling clingy in new or current relationships. Like @Vandya mentioned, I think just working on it and trying to stay centered is the best that you can do. Be the great you you are and relationships will unfold as they should -- naturally. I've started to feel less clingy the more I realized that I needed to keep in my center -- and as long as I did -- and as long as I remembered to be myself, I felt less clingy. It isn't a bad thing, though -- it just means you long for a close relationship with someone. I don't really have much else to say, though. Sorry for my lack of help.

 

[Morphius]

Alanon Family Groups have helped me a lot. Many PTSD folks, myself included, didn't have a secure and safe adult, let alone good modeling for how to be centered in oneself while in a relationship.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[alex7000]

Wow, you can get a date and go out for a few days, that's better than me.

My PTSD gets triggered just walking down the grocery store aisle: I'll see a woman I find attractive, she will walk by me, I will look at her stone face and cold eyes that don't even glance at me, then I'll feel the abandonment depression tear into me again. The next few days I'll be anxious or depressed, and can't stop thinking about it.

As soon as I start feeling a friendly vibe from a woman, the confusion kicks in. That's about as far as I ever get.

I have been married, but the ex was a narcissist. Very charming at first, they hoover you right in. Narcissists are easy to start relationships with. But it ends up being abusive. I'm very kind and empathetic to people, and narcissists love that I feel for them. But the narcissism usually erodes me and I end up feeling abandoned again, and then I cut it off.

Even professional/work relationships are confusing. Most of my coworkers I rarely talk to. It is too confusing.

I've been realizing that a lot of the problems I have with relationships are due to my own faulty thinking and fears. The fears hijack anything positive about the relationship, and the relationship soon dissolves.

 

[Multitudes]

I have been married, but the ex was a narcissist. Very charming at first, they hoover you right in. Narcissists are easy to start relationships with. But it ends up being abusive. I'm very kind and empathetic to people, and narcissists love that I feel for them.

This has been very much my experience!
Three relationships: one marriage, one gf, one long distance.

It follows the same pattern each time - I'm approached by someone interested in me, we enjoy a 'Honeymoon' period for a few weeks, they then become increasingly distant and uncommunicative while I worry, care, try to help.. then the abuse, then they eventually end it.

I've never had any success making the first move myself so, even though I often wonder what it must be like to share a life, love, mutual support, I now feel that it may be less painful to learn to accept living alone.

 

[Butterflies2023]

I am right there with ya all... But I think I have decided that the best way to approach this is to find a place you might want to volunteer an hour or couple hours a week and just meet people there. Generally people who volunteer are rather nice and not self serving individuals.

No - I have never found someone to date but it is still very rewarding and I have hope that's how I might meet someone.

My other tactic this upcoming year is to take a college course and perhaps meet someone in the class.