I Think I'm Sabotaging Myself.

[Loner]

Yea, I worried that going to live out of my car maybe wasn't going to be best for me but upon further reflection I think it will good.

I think it will do me well to just get away from people completely. I think it will really show that the old survival mechanisms have no place in my new life. Once I'm away from people completely I think they will just fade away. Maybe I'll get a little lonely, realize I do need people, and be less scared to form connections with them when I return.

Regardless of all that, I just feel like I want to get away for a bit. There's a lot of land in southern Utah I need to see sometime in my life.

 

[The Albatross]

Your life, your decisions and choices, but I will say that it is harder to get out of seclusion than it is to get in it. Trust me, I got the merit badge on having to beat back agoraphobia. Rejoining was doubly difficult after a prolonged seclusion. But... maybe you've been stuck with some sense of adventure and wanderlust.

We have a friend who does 6 months to a year doing the Appalachian Trail at a time. Just double check your motivations, that's all I'm saying.

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

From one self aware, analytical, and PTSD sufferer to another, I understand.

I think you said you had a Narcissistic Mom? Well, I know your pain.

Things going well in life can make us feel out of sorts just because we are used to chaos. So, while we are waiting for the other shoe to drop, anxiety rises and we experience the feeling of detaching from one self. Instead of recognizing that it probably started with a trigger and as part of our experience dealing with PTSD, we instead get caught up on the perpetual self blame hamster wheel.

We then go on a mission to find out what's wrong with ourselves because if we can prove that we are crazy, it will confirm what THEY, the N, told us all along. We think that it will explain the reason why such a horrible thing happened to us.

It's the only way we can feel in control. Before we know it, you are thrown into a depressive episode where you feel like you want to die and fear everyone around you will dislike you when they "find out who you really are" because again, the N told you that.

So you isolate, the anxiety and other PTSD symptoms increase. Then you feel like you are drowning. The cycle continues.

Like someone here taught me, get off that wheel, get out of the boxing ring and stop fighting yourself. There is nothing wrong with you! There is nothing wrong with you! Say that out loud to yourself. Every bad awful thing she told you isnt true. It's not true! She is a liar!

Keep meeting people. Get back out there and live well. Living well is the best revenge. You can do this!!!

 

[Loner]

Wow, I have had some realizations the past week or so.

So I've come to view myself over the course of my life as not having failed at interacting with people and forming connections but as having succeeded greatly at isolating myself and keeping people at a distance.

I say this because I can see that for most of my life the patterns of thought and behavior that drove people from me were part of a defense mechanism designed to do exactly that, drive people away.

I think due to how my family was, by the time I started going to school, I was already primarily concerned with keeping myself safe and managing my anxiety levels. When people, kids, teachers, whatever, tried to interact with me, I mostly just saw it as increasing my anxiety, and I did not understand how much was to be gained by interacting with others. So, I learned the best way to behave to get them to leave me alone. Not hate me or be hurt by me, but just leave me alone.

I think with my parents, they just weren't capable of love, so I never learned healthy ways to seek to get that from them. Instead, since they were mean to me, I learned to do my best to evoke pity in them. I carried this over to my interactions with others as well. I tried to do things that would drive people away from me, but I also did the same things in a desire for people to pity me.


I'm trying to stop these thought patterns. Its hard. I feel that now that I know why I do the things I do, when I 'f*ck up' a social situation I will be able to see that I was just overloaded with anxiety and needed a way to lessen it by creating a family situation and destroying an interpersonal connection that was freaking me out, instead of judging myself as a failure socially and getting discouraged.

Its hard though. Its really hard to overcome this fear. You see, I'm not afraid of rejection, I'm afraid to let people like me. Thats the moment I freak out. Is when I feel someone actually likes me, especially if its a young woman. It feels so alien and makes me feel so vulnerable. Any affection with my family always felt like it was some kind of a trap. Also, if someone likes me, and I let myself connect with them, then I lose the ability to control my anxiety.

I want to make these changes though. I want to overcome this. I will keep trying.

Thank you for the kind and helpful words everyone.

Also, Albatros, I still think I'm going to go car camping for a couple months, but I think it will be good for me. I've honestly thought about doing it for some of the wrong reasons like a cry for pity in a weird way, hoping someone feels sorry for me that I just cant figure out how to deal with people, but I think thats done with now. I still want to do it for the right reasons more. I appreciate your concern though.

 

[Loner]

This is just so sad. Its so sad that a beautiful kind caring intelligent sensitive curious loveable little boy would grow up to spend half a lifetime driving everyone away from him, making sure no one could love him because he thought he didn't deserve it. I wanted love so bad but I killed every possibility for me to get any.

A couple years ago I met an amazing and beautiful young woman on chatroulette.com. I think I was just on there out of loneliness and I didn't expect to meet someone like her. Despite being over the internet though, she let me into her heart, let herself care about me. I am having a hard time explaining this, but I dont think she carried on a relationship with me due to being lonely or to fill some void in her. I think she just recognized that I was sharing something real, and she, being the beautiful open adventurous person she is, actually let herself care about and invest her energy and emotions into someone she met on the internet. I wasn't planning on that at all. Of course, I freaked out.

I drove her away from me. She put up with a lot of neediness, a lot of drama from me. I see now that I was doing my very best to get her to leave. I could tell she didn't like the way I often acted but she was willing to accept it and look past it, because she actually cared about me. At the time I had a lot of paranoia about whether she cared and was honest or was just manipulating me (echos of my mother) but in retrospect, she just cared. She has her own issues and isnt perfect but she let herself love some crazy messed up loner with tons of issues that she met on the internet. How dare she! What is wrong with her?

We talked about meeting but she had a very busy life and some medical issues and the time never seemed right until about 8 months had gone by, she finally told me that she really thought she was falling for me and we should meet, and there would be a good time in the near future. I freaked out. I hurt her feelings and I drove her away.

She added me back on facebook and skype a few months back and I've talked to her a couple times but I can tell she isnt romantically interested in me any more, she just cares about me as a friend. That still means a lot to me, I mean she really actually truly cares about me as a person.

I wish I could explain this to her, but thats part of how i drove her away, a bunch of lone needy ramblings about my issues and stuff. Back then I was doing that in an intellectual way to be needy and drive her away, and now I'm being much more real about it, but still, I just don't think I'm going to be able to fix things with her, I think I've killed off any chance for that.

Thats sucks. Its really sad I've done that to myself. i am so angry at my parents for messing me up so bad. I hate that they still have this much effect on me. Its so sad I would destroy any chance at happiness for myself for so long. I've driven away so many other people too, but this woman, I mean I really truly love her, and she really truly loved me, but I did my best to kill it and its just tearing me up right now.

There will be other people and other women in my life I'm sure. As I learn to let people like me and care about me without freaking out and driving them away I am sure I will meet and let people close to me. Its just sad though. What I've done. How bad I wanted it but just could not let myself have it.

 

[p-no]

It is sad, Loner.

I don't think there is any area of our life where we were hurt by abusers that can heal without grieving over what was lost. I am glad you seem to have come to feel the sadness that comes from the loss because I believe it will help you considerably in dealing with the trauma and the effects it or they (traumas) have had on your life.

 

[Loner]

Yea, thanks. I've done a lot of grieving for the hurt of experiencing my childhood, but I guess I havent let myself feel the grief of how much of an effect its had on my life since then until now. Its really sad. I didn't deserve any of this. Thank you.

 

[The Albatross]

I am best served by resisting the notion that I didn't deserve. It was what it was... I can not say why it occurred. It was not my failing, why I suffered or have seen what I have seen. It "was". I have a responsibility to sever ties with the idea that it is connected to anything in my present. It is an echo, the bogey monster, it is past. It has no bearing on who I am now... though in my present I have to deal up front and personal with my psycho drama, my foibles, my shortcomings, my anxiety, and my hesitancy to connect on an intimate level.

 

[WorkOfFire]

"I can not say why it occurred. It was not my failing, why I suffered or have seen what I have seen. It "was". I have a responsibility to sever ties with the idea that it is connected to anything in my present. It is an echo, the bogey monster, it is past. It has no bearing on who I am now..."

LOVE that part Albatross

 

[Loner]

I'm still doing this. Frustrated. Mad at myself. Trying to be at peace with things. Worrying about how attempts at a career will help or hurt my chances at finding love even if I can allow myself to interact with someone somewhat romantically over time without becoming paranoid anxious and acting irrationally in a way I don't feel is authentic to who I really am. Pissed that still inevitably I will have the compulsion to self sabotage and sad about experiences and relationships I have missed out on or messed up and really missing people that used to be in my life. I know dwelling on the past doesn't matter, and only hinders me from embracing the present and future, but it is hard. Have had so few connections. Existence is solitary, connection and warmth however fleeting are precious. Really trying not to compare my life or myself to others but having a hard time with that also. Really trying to get my brain to shut up.

 

[Loner]

Having a very hard time with regards to one relationship. I got anxious and started acting in the old self sabotaging manner just a bit odd and crass then before I know it I've efficiently created a distance between myself and someone I care about, and now its one of those nothing to say or do about the situation I just have to let her go and see if she comes back kind of things. I am having a very hard time with the uncertainty of it all, its hard not to over analyze and obsess about it. Just have to let it go.

 

[Loner]

Still doing this. Still do it allthe time. When I have active thoughts I recognize as being negative towards myself I am working to challenge and overcome them but this is different because the desire to push everyone away is uncontrollable the fact that those who might like or love me will continue to frighten me until they are utterly bored with me at which point I lament their loss. Really shittyway to be. I want so badly to just be able to love and let people love me without destroying it. Why can I not be happy?