Post by seeking on Mar 4, 2023 14:04:29 GMT
I'm back in this pattern for beating myself up about how I feel about the people in my life.
Don't I have my own work to do?
I also don't even know which forum I'm posting in anymore -- though I feel more avoidant most days.
I'm having issues with feeling alone in all the work I have done -- all the years of therapy, personal development, hard sh*t I've been through and the ways in which people around me still "get away with" denying their stuff (or trying to deny mine) or I don't know, I guess their defense mechanisms is what it comes down to?
While I am on a dating site and open to dating, I've been mostly focused on my current relationships - men or women - who are friends and looking at myself in relationship to them and seeing what dynamics were there.
But the biggest one across the board is this issue with people being rather dissociative. And then I feel like if we're in conversation about something going on in their life, I either have to kind of enable them or end up being a jerk and saying "Hey, come down from the clouds." OR - I suppose I could just listen? But I don't seem capable of that!
I do work on my own triggers when this stuff comes up and with my own "parts" of me, but I can't seem to get a total handle on it - working on it in therapy (which is only 2x a month) slow going....
Here are some examples. Would love any input on a more "secure" way of handling these things -
* I show my sister something concerning about what is going on in the world. She said "Yes, I know. But I like to keep it positive." -- So there really is nothing to say to that. I feel dismissed though? So then what is a relationship-friendly or even self-talk friendly thing to do? As far as I can tell she bases her whole life on denying things and I guess as long as she "gets away with it," it works for her? But then people like me, who look at reality, are kind of a downer to her. So she avoids me.
* A friend hears me talk about some money concerns - more in passing (not asking for advice) and later tells me about Law of Attraction and that she hates to see me fretting about money, etc. ? I ask her to explain more what she means and basically it's like "Just trust things will be okay." I tell her that I was stressed after doing my budget this past month b/c I had such a deficit and trying to sort that out but also working more on not getting stressed then "trusting it will work out" -- I asked for an example and she said when she was a single mom and living on X a month she just had to "trust that it would be okay" -- and I was like "Was it?" -- but I know it wasn't. She's told me she has enormous amounts of debt and recently that she was close to ruin. But her father died and now she has an inheritance. I know this but she talks about it like Law of Attraction - like the money just came from magic. So do I just stop talking to her about this subject? Do I keep on, letting her know how I see things? I do notice I have a slight agenda about showing her I'm right (i.e., being financially responsible seems the way to go) but honestly if I "leave it alone" it starts to build up - like if it's not this, it'll be some other way she says "Just trust" or "It'll all turn out okay." And then I end up resentful. And I don't want to -- I have mentioned to her before the idea of spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in.
The thing is she kind of implicitly asks me for help on things all the time or she's always struggling and I can see that part of her struggles are that she has a really hard time just facing reality and being okay with when things aren't going well or are hard etc-- everything is always "it'll work out" etc -- and the more I don't say anything about my observing this, the more I just distance myself and shut down.
* A friend is in crises with her son and wants me to help. I've had to have major boundaries here, which was really hard but actually great practice for me. I finally found a way to help her that can work for me (that is sustainable and not sinking my own ship) and she is having a REALLY hard time with it - so, more boundaries. Finally, she seems to be coming around to taking what I can offer. I do a modality that I've spent 6 years studying and learning and practicing and it's still ongoing work. She admits she is impatient, has ADHD, I know she has tons of unresolved trauma and is still in a lot of really dysfunctional patterns - Anyway, I start helping her. And she leaves me a message last night asking if I think she should go to a conference for the work I do b/c she decided she wants to do it now - i.e., become a practitioner. I know she has zero sense of how much work goes into this sort of thing. I just tell her, maybe focus on your own healing right now - which feels okay to do. But I had major enmeshmenty trigger. But I handled that by just saying - you can do what you want, but know that it's a lot of work and maybe focus on your own healing now.
I think at the end of the day, all of this adds up to me feeling lonely. Like I either end up in a position of supporting these friends, or staying quiet while I listen to them talk about pretty dysfunctional patterns that they really seem to have no interest in looking at (well, the last friend does now b/c her son was in such an intense crises -- but even then, she kind of keeps distracting herself rather than facing it).
I also think there is some kind of childhood trigger here for me b/c of my early upbringing. Like lets just keep walking around the elephant -- and I had to kind of stay in denial along with everyone in order to get along. My behavior (esp. as an adolescent) said otherwise -- like big "F U" - but that's all I knew how to do back then. And I nearly destroyed myself in the process. The end of my relationship with my daughter's dad was because I asked him to really look at our stuff - our patterns (esp that we inherited) and make a change. And instead he ran off and got someone pregnant.
I think I'm just longing to be around people who can kind of live in reality and look at their stuff head on - I can't say I'm perfect at it, and I can't say I always chose that - but I think life at times made it nearly impossible for me NOT to do that. And now it feels really hard for me to be around people who are wanting to stay in la la land. And I'm amazed that literally NONE of them are in therapy? How is that even an option??
If I had a metaphor to sum it up, it would be like I grew up in a family of alcoholics, I ended up with one, and had a lot of friends who were - and then I got sober. And it can feel intolerable to me to be around now -- like, oh, you still want to drink? And you want me to listen to you talk about the problems you have as a result of still drinking? And, not only that, but you want me to "trust it'll all work out" and basically go back to drinking?
These are all really good-hearted, empathic, sensitive people (well, my sister can be a PITA) but I'm feeling like I either have to keep speaking up or just end the relationship or figure something out. My current default is "It must just be me. It's my trigger, and I need to get over it."
Don't I have my own work to do?
I also don't even know which forum I'm posting in anymore -- though I feel more avoidant most days.
I'm having issues with feeling alone in all the work I have done -- all the years of therapy, personal development, hard sh*t I've been through and the ways in which people around me still "get away with" denying their stuff (or trying to deny mine) or I don't know, I guess their defense mechanisms is what it comes down to?
While I am on a dating site and open to dating, I've been mostly focused on my current relationships - men or women - who are friends and looking at myself in relationship to them and seeing what dynamics were there.
But the biggest one across the board is this issue with people being rather dissociative. And then I feel like if we're in conversation about something going on in their life, I either have to kind of enable them or end up being a jerk and saying "Hey, come down from the clouds." OR - I suppose I could just listen? But I don't seem capable of that!
I do work on my own triggers when this stuff comes up and with my own "parts" of me, but I can't seem to get a total handle on it - working on it in therapy (which is only 2x a month) slow going....
Here are some examples. Would love any input on a more "secure" way of handling these things -
* I show my sister something concerning about what is going on in the world. She said "Yes, I know. But I like to keep it positive." -- So there really is nothing to say to that. I feel dismissed though? So then what is a relationship-friendly or even self-talk friendly thing to do? As far as I can tell she bases her whole life on denying things and I guess as long as she "gets away with it," it works for her? But then people like me, who look at reality, are kind of a downer to her. So she avoids me.
* A friend hears me talk about some money concerns - more in passing (not asking for advice) and later tells me about Law of Attraction and that she hates to see me fretting about money, etc. ? I ask her to explain more what she means and basically it's like "Just trust things will be okay." I tell her that I was stressed after doing my budget this past month b/c I had such a deficit and trying to sort that out but also working more on not getting stressed then "trusting it will work out" -- I asked for an example and she said when she was a single mom and living on X a month she just had to "trust that it would be okay" -- and I was like "Was it?" -- but I know it wasn't. She's told me she has enormous amounts of debt and recently that she was close to ruin. But her father died and now she has an inheritance. I know this but she talks about it like Law of Attraction - like the money just came from magic. So do I just stop talking to her about this subject? Do I keep on, letting her know how I see things? I do notice I have a slight agenda about showing her I'm right (i.e., being financially responsible seems the way to go) but honestly if I "leave it alone" it starts to build up - like if it's not this, it'll be some other way she says "Just trust" or "It'll all turn out okay." And then I end up resentful. And I don't want to -- I have mentioned to her before the idea of spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in.
The thing is she kind of implicitly asks me for help on things all the time or she's always struggling and I can see that part of her struggles are that she has a really hard time just facing reality and being okay with when things aren't going well or are hard etc-- everything is always "it'll work out" etc -- and the more I don't say anything about my observing this, the more I just distance myself and shut down.
* A friend is in crises with her son and wants me to help. I've had to have major boundaries here, which was really hard but actually great practice for me. I finally found a way to help her that can work for me (that is sustainable and not sinking my own ship) and she is having a REALLY hard time with it - so, more boundaries. Finally, she seems to be coming around to taking what I can offer. I do a modality that I've spent 6 years studying and learning and practicing and it's still ongoing work. She admits she is impatient, has ADHD, I know she has tons of unresolved trauma and is still in a lot of really dysfunctional patterns - Anyway, I start helping her. And she leaves me a message last night asking if I think she should go to a conference for the work I do b/c she decided she wants to do it now - i.e., become a practitioner. I know she has zero sense of how much work goes into this sort of thing. I just tell her, maybe focus on your own healing right now - which feels okay to do. But I had major enmeshmenty trigger. But I handled that by just saying - you can do what you want, but know that it's a lot of work and maybe focus on your own healing now.
I think at the end of the day, all of this adds up to me feeling lonely. Like I either end up in a position of supporting these friends, or staying quiet while I listen to them talk about pretty dysfunctional patterns that they really seem to have no interest in looking at (well, the last friend does now b/c her son was in such an intense crises -- but even then, she kind of keeps distracting herself rather than facing it).
I also think there is some kind of childhood trigger here for me b/c of my early upbringing. Like lets just keep walking around the elephant -- and I had to kind of stay in denial along with everyone in order to get along. My behavior (esp. as an adolescent) said otherwise -- like big "F U" - but that's all I knew how to do back then. And I nearly destroyed myself in the process. The end of my relationship with my daughter's dad was because I asked him to really look at our stuff - our patterns (esp that we inherited) and make a change. And instead he ran off and got someone pregnant.
I think I'm just longing to be around people who can kind of live in reality and look at their stuff head on - I can't say I'm perfect at it, and I can't say I always chose that - but I think life at times made it nearly impossible for me NOT to do that. And now it feels really hard for me to be around people who are wanting to stay in la la land. And I'm amazed that literally NONE of them are in therapy? How is that even an option??
If I had a metaphor to sum it up, it would be like I grew up in a family of alcoholics, I ended up with one, and had a lot of friends who were - and then I got sober. And it can feel intolerable to me to be around now -- like, oh, you still want to drink? And you want me to listen to you talk about the problems you have as a result of still drinking? And, not only that, but you want me to "trust it'll all work out" and basically go back to drinking?
These are all really good-hearted, empathic, sensitive people (well, my sister can be a PITA) but I'm feeling like I either have to keep speaking up or just end the relationship or figure something out. My current default is "It must just be me. It's my trigger, and I need to get over it."
