I dont get it.

[neeeel]

I have no friends. No one seems interested in me, in spending time with me. To be fair, I suppose I am not interested in other people or spending time with them, but the few people that I do spend time with, I seem to be disposable and not at all valued. I dont understand what is wrong with me. I dont seem to have a proper understanding of what being friends is. Other people seem to find value in each other, to spend time with each other, to care for each other, and I just dont get it. I dont know if its because I am just sort of wierd and needy and have a fucked up idea of what being friends means. I have no idea how to change anything. 

 

I am in therapy and I like my therapist and generally think hes good. 

 

( I realise that this is really whiny and teenagery, but its where I am right now)

 

[aviet]

The more I think about it, the more it appears that humans are largely/completely selfish. Even when people may appear to be generous, there may be selfish motives, e.g. if I give you a £500 gift, it is because I am caring only for you or is it because I want to use that as a way to manipulate your perceptions of me so I can get more access to value I perceive in you.

If both people don't perceive value in a relationship it's unlikely to last minus feelings of guilt. Rich and attractive business magnates don't tend to marry toothless old beggars and the most popular, exciting girls don't tend to want anything to do with frumps...

One thing I have observed is that people who are not viewed as having particularly high social value who may hang around with each other tend to not openly view each other as friends. In my school there were two sets of people the popular people and the unpopular (known as the wanker gang). The wanker gang hung around together, but if you walked in on them they would often start disparaging each other in an effort to elevate themselves from wankerdom. I remember on occasions hearing them say that they were not friends with other people in the wanker gang.

Social interaction could be compared to the affects of drugs. When you are making social connections your physiology changes and you feel good. But when you are in a social situation when you and/or the other person are separating yourself with increasingly thick sheets of ice and your physiology is changing to make you feel worse.

People who make better social connections will likely seek new connections and many people will enjoy those connections and want to spend time with them. While people who struggle to make good connections may avoid them because of the mental and physiological affects.

So it's a vicious circle of you feeling bad about social interaction and avoiding them and you having a negative impact on others and them wanting to get away from you.

The only way you can change anything like this by changing your perceptions. Right now you perceive social interaction as something negative to avoid and you don't think you have anything to offer the other person. If that's how you think, that's the reality that you will manifest. Some knowledge and perspectives are useful to do this. I would recommend looking into the info put out by pick-up artists and neo-masculinists like Roosh V, David Deida, RSD Tyler, Gavin McInnes...

[ofd]

Quote

To be fair, I suppose I am not interested in other people or spending time with them, but the few people that I do spend time with, I seem to be disposable and not at all valued.

Don't get me wrong, I have sympathy for you but how do you plan to find a friend if you spend time with only a few people?

 

Quote

 I dont seem to have a proper understanding of what being friends is.

I don't think so. There are few good friends at the top of the pyramid, then more semi close friends and many acquaintances. Those come and go. But they are the people that can become semi close or good friends. By having few acquaintances the chances of one of them 'moving up' is pretty slim.

 

Quote

Other people seem to find value in each other

For every good friend there are a lot of people on the periphery you know but don't care about.

 

Quote

( I realise that this is really whiny and teenagery, but its where I am right now)

Not at all. Man is a social animal.

[_LiveFree_]

3 hours ago, neeeel said:

I have no friends. No one seems interested in me, in spending time with me. To be fair, I suppose I am not interested in other people or spending time with them, but the few people that I do spend time with, I seem to be disposable and not at all valued. I dont understand what is wrong with me. I dont seem to have a proper understanding of what being friends is. Other people seem to find value in each other, to spend time with each other, to care for each other, and I just dont get it. I dont know if its because I am just sort of wierd and needy and have a fucked up idea of what being friends means. I have no idea how to change anything. 

 

I am in therapy and I like my therapist and generally think hes good. 

 

( I realise that this is really whiny and teenagery, but its where I am right now)

 

Maybe you don't have any friends that value you because you spend time with people that do not value you.

 

How do these people display that they do not value you?

[RichardY]

 

A few thoughts. Lot of people probably thinking along a similar line, in that we live in a corrupt society and are ourselves corrupted. The time for purity has passed for now, blood is required one way or another. Telling the truth is all well and good, but virtue requires strength, maybe even sacrifice. How to build strength or how to sacrifice are questions that need answers. I've looked at some of Ayn Rands and Aristotle on virtue and not found an easy answer, alternatively there is still Stoicism and  haven't looked much into sacrifice, although Nietzsche mentions it a bit. How to connect with people or at least one person? To some extent being Northern European means greater individualism, but there is often the necessity of having to mix with people. How to embrace your own individuality who knows... 

Bart: Willie I've got a girlfriend.

Willie: I do too, she's a bikini model from Sweden...

Inga: Willie come back to bed.

Willie: Don't compete with my Job Inga you'll never win.

"If you build it, he/they will come." 

 

 

 

[DaVinci]

9 hours ago, neeeel said:

I have no friends. No one seems interested in me, in spending time with me. To be fair, I suppose I am not interested in other people or spending time with them, but the few people that I do spend time with, I seem to be disposable and not at all valued. I dont understand what is wrong with me. I dont seem to have a proper understanding of what being friends is. Other people seem to find value in each other, to spend time with each other, to care for each other, and I just dont get it. I dont know if its because I am just sort of wierd and needy and have a fucked up idea of what being friends means. I have no idea how to change anything. 

 

I am in therapy and I like my therapist and generally think hes good. 

 

( I realise that this is really whiny and teenagery, but its where I am right now)

 

I don't think that there is anything wrong with you. Wrong in the case of human interactions seems to imply "broken". Some kind of dysfunction. Like you are just some kind of wind up toy. 

Think about this like hunger. When you are hungry you eat. When you are out of breath you breathe harder. You have needs and you take in the environment to meet those needs. The same thing happens with emotional needs. When you feel lonely you seek companionship. What you see as other people finding value in each other is effectively the same thing as watching someone eat or breathe. People take in the world around them to satiate themselves. This sometimes means taking in people. 

I think becoming more independent and aware of who you are, the more clarity you posses about your past, the more you can form your own opinions and thoughts on any given subject, the less you will feel the need to have lots of friends. 

The few interactions I've had with people over the past few years have been very different from the ones I used to have. For one, I try not to emotionally throw up on people anymore. If someone wants to know something personal about me I'll tell them, but I'll also ask them if they really want to hear about it. I don't just start telling them all this crap at the first sign of interest. I don't have that kind of need anymore. I want to know how they feel about hearing about my past, as I've put in the work into my past to where I don't feel the pain I did during my original experience, but it might be hard for them to hear. I also feel no desire to find people to be friends with just to combat loneliness, or have someone be interested in me so I can be interested in them. There is something fake about that to me now. 

People aren't food to consume when you're feeling loneliness pangs in your head. 

I think the reason why you are having a hard time understanding what being friends is might be because most people view friends as drugs. You inject me and I'll inject you and we'll both forget we're unhappy with life for a few minutes. Perhaps you don't fit in with the people around you anymore because with things like therapy you are finding you don't need to be like that anymore. That you can't go back to being that shape. 

I admit that it can be tough, because we're social, tribal creatures, and the brain processes some of this emotional stuff the same way it does physical pain. So your brain thinks "no friends = broken arm" (or something kind of like that) which drives you to correct the problem, but, being reasonable, you wouldn't go to the shady under the bridge drug dealer to mend your arm.

The problem is really finding a quality friend who isn't interested in using you. Remember those old cartoons where someone who was hungry would look at another character and imagine them turning into a steak dinner? You don't want that kind of person in your life. You aren't meat, or a toy, or a vomit bucket. 

I know I'm not providing you with any real solutions. I'm not sure I have any. I don't have any friends either. But I hope some of what I said helps you in some way. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[neeeel]

12 hours ago, aviet said:

Social interaction could be compared to the affects of drugs. When you are making social connections your physiology changes and you feel good. But when you are in a social situation when you and/or the other person are separating yourself with increasingly thick sheets of ice and your physiology is changing to make you feel worse.

People who make better social connections will likely seek new connections and many people will enjoy those connections and want to spend time with them. While people who struggle to make good connections may avoid them because of the mental and physiological affects.

So it's a vicious circle of you feeling bad about social interaction and avoiding them and you having a negative impact on others and them wanting to get away from you.
 

Yes, this is part of it, I think. It seems like I just have some vital thing missing that other people have and use without even having to think about it. Maybe making social connections is something that you just cant learn after a certain developmental stage. I could probably fake it to a certain extent, but at some point it all comes crashing down and I realise that theres nothing there.

I see other people relaxed and confident that they are liked and wanted, I always assume that I am not liked and not wanted. 

 

10 hours ago, _LiveFree_ said:

Maybe you don't have any friends that value you because you spend time with people that do not value you.

 

How do these people display that they do not value you?

 

The thing that set this off was that a friend and I , who were both big Alien Fans, had kind of arranged, as in, not a total formal agreement, but said we would go to see the new Alien movie this weekend. When I saw him yesterday I said , do you still want to go to see the Alien movie, and he said um, oh, yeah, we can still go tomorrow, I will text you. Later on , on twitter, I saw that he had tweeted "new alien movie was pretty interesting", so he had gone a day or two before, without me. Maybe there is some rational explanation for this, or that he just plain forgot, but on top of a few other things happening, this just plunged me into self loathing and despair. Even if he does text me, I dont want to go any more.

 

 

11 hours ago, ofd said:

Don't get me wrong, I have sympathy for you but how do you plan to find a friend if you spend time with only a few people?
 

 

Its a good point.  One that I am trying to make sense of. I am just starting to realise through therapy that I am lonely and un-attached and isolated and distant. I dont really want to spend time with other people, or at least, the desire to not be lonely hasnt outweighed all the other stuff. It is kind of hypocritical to say that no one likes me, when I dont really like anyone. This is why I think I have an unrealistic understanding of what friendship is. Perhaps I think that just spending time with someone qualifies me as a friend. I dont know how to explain it, even with people that I like, there is a feeling, a "need", I dont know how to describe it exactly, like an itch on my back. I guess I come across as wanting something, or needy, I dont know. Definitely not relaxed and fun and friendly, for sure.

 

4 hours ago, RichardY said:

 

A few thoughts. Lot of people probably thinking along a similar line, in that we live in a corrupt society and are ourselves corrupted. The time for purity has passed for now, blood is required one way or another. Telling the truth is all well and good, but virtue requires strength, maybe even sacrifice. How to build strength or how to sacrifice are questions that need answers. I've looked at some of Ayn Rands and Aristotle on virtue and not found an easy answer, alternatively there is still Stoicism and  haven't looked much into sacrifice, although Nietzsche mentions it a bit. How to connect with people or at least one person? To some extent being Northern European means greater individualism, but there is often the necessity of having to mix with people. How to embrace your own individuality who knows... 

Bart: Willie I've got a girlfriend.

Willie: I do too, she's a bikini model from Sweden...

Inga: Willie come back to bed.

Willie: Don't compete with my Job Inga you'll never win.

"If you build it, he/they will come." 

 

 

 

 

Im not sure what you are saying here?

 

 

3 hours ago, DaVinci said:

I don't think that there is anything wrong with you. Wrong in the case of human interactions seems to imply "broken". Some kind of dysfunction. Like you are just some kind of wind up toy. 

Think about this like hunger. When you are hungry you eat. When you are out of breath you breathe harder. You have needs and you take in the environment to meet those needs. The same thing happens with emotional needs. When you feel lonely you seek companionship. What you see as other people finding value in each other is effectively the same thing as watching someone eat or breathe. People take in the world around them to satiate themselves. This sometimes means taking in people. 

I think becoming more independent and aware of who you are, the more clarity you posses about your past, the more you can form your own opinions and thoughts on any given subject, the less you will feel the need to have lots of friends. 

The few interactions I've had with people over the past few years have been very different from the ones I used to have. For one, I try not to emotionally throw up on people anymore. If someone wants to know something personal about me I'll tell them, but I'll also ask them if they really want to hear about it. I don't just start telling them all this crap at the first sign of interest. I don't have that kind of need anymore. I want to know how they feel about hearing about my past, as I've put in the work into my past to where I don't feel the pain I did during my original experience, but it might be hard for them to hear. I also feel no desire to find people to be friends with just to combat loneliness, or have someone be interested in me so I can be interested in them. There is something fake about that to me now. 

People aren't food to consume when you're feeling loneliness pangs in your head. 

I think the reason why you are having a hard time understanding what being friends is might be because most people view friends as drugs. You inject me and I'll inject you and we'll both forget we're unhappy with life for a few minutes. Perhaps you don't fit in with the people around you anymore because with things like therapy you are finding you don't need to be like that anymore. That you can't go back to being that shape. 

I admit that it can be tough, because we're social, tribal creatures, and the brain processes some of this emotional stuff the same way it does physical pain. So your brain thinks "no friends = broken arm" (or something kind of like that) which drives you to correct the problem, but, being reasonable, you wouldn't go to the shady under the bridge drug dealer to mend your arm.

The problem is really finding a quality friend who isn't interested in using you. Remember those old cartoons where someone who was hungry would look at another character and imagine them turning into a steak dinner? You don't want that kind of person in your life. You aren't meat, or a toy, or a vomit bucket. 

I know I'm not providing you with any real solutions. I'm not sure I have any. I don't have any friends either. But I hope some of what I said helps you in some way. 

 

Perhaps thats the problem. Perhaps I am the one with the drug problem. Perhaps I am the one who is using people.
Are there such things as friends who dont use each other? I mean, on a basic level, arent even quality friends using each other for social interaction etc?

 

[S1988]

Maybe you can start small, like getting a pen pal. It's not the same as in-person friendships, but it's something. Sometimes, you can find friends in the most unexpected places. My first (and only pen pal so far) was in prison, and I got more support from him during the year I was conversing with him than from people who were around during most of my life. He was released from jail over a year ago, so I don't speak to him anymore, but I'll never forget our friendship. What do you think about that?

[DaVinci]

12 hours ago, neeeel said:

Perhaps thats the problem. Perhaps I am the one with the drug problem. Perhaps I am the one who is using people.
Are there such things as friends who dont use each other? I mean, on a basic level, arent even quality friends using each other for social interaction etc?

 

That's a good question. I don't think it is possible to completely escape biological drives without potentially harming ourselves. For example, you could move to a deserted island (deserted except for you) and you would no longer have the capacity to use another human being as a means to satiating your emotional needs. It wouldn't be physically possible anymore. But that kind of isolation is rough because your needs wouldn't just go away. In fact that kind of isolation might make your needs worse, both physically and emotionally. You see this with prisoners who get put into isolation. It's way worse than someone being in prison but they are still part of the general prison population. 

I also think a traumatic childhood tends to put people into an "emotional deficit". It's why you see so many people having sex at an early age, surrounding themselves with dozens of friends, and getting into dead end relationships. There is a desperate scramble to find some kind of human connection to make up for the lack of an earlier one, like a starving person stuffing stolen food into a jacket so they can live for another day. Just stuff a bunch of friends in your jacket to "eat" later. 

The comparison between physical and emotional needs is interesting because if you actually were on a deserted island you would eventually find food and water. You would sharpen a stick into a spear and fish in the beach water, or catch rain water on the leaves of palm trees. (Or something like that) You would become largely self sufficient in terms of your base physical needs. You could at least survive. The question then becomes is it possible to become largely self sufficient with emotional needs to the point where you could "survive" emotionally? Well, I honestly don't know. I also don't think most people would consider survival  (physical or emotional) the same thing as "living" so being able to survive might not be what most people would even prefer.

I don't think "quality friends" would consider their friendship to be built on the foundation of "using each other". You aren't food, or air. I think it's minimizing to reduce everything about another human being down to the level of some molecules of air entering your nose. I mean, you had to describe it as "quality friends". You would think friend automatically implies some kind of quality that separates them from the masses, except it doesn't really anymore, which is probably why you phrased it that way. 

We have biological drives, but we also have free will. You really don't have to do anything you don't want to. You could choose to starve if you wanted. You aren't just a meat based computer program devoid of will. You don't have to use anyone. Perhaps it's just in the world of intent that some kind of solution to this problem can be found. I know for myself I have no desire to seek out friends to cure loneliness anymore. I don't want to treat people like that. My intent isn't to use anyone. 

Obviously, these are just some of my thoughts on this subject. I don't completely understand it, and I can't give you any definitive answers. I do think about this subject a lot, and I hope something I've said has helped in some way. Perhaps if we keep talking about it we can figure it out. 

 

 

 

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

Find someone/some people who have qualities, materials, connections, money, or whatever else you may desire, and figure out how to change yourself so that you might have what they desire, then you can exchange.

[ofd]

There are two steps to fixing a dysfunctional / problematic behaviour. They don't come out of the blue, rather they are adaptations to a previous enviroment. The survival impulse makes us to adapt to an enviroment, once that enviroment changes the adaption can become malfunctional. The 'weirdness' you identify yourself with can be just that. 

[_LiveFree_]

On 5/14/2017 at 6:24 AM, neeeel said:

The thing that set this off was that a friend and I , who were both big Alien Fans, had kind of arranged, as in, not a total formal agreement, but said we would go to see the new Alien movie this weekend. When I saw him yesterday I said , do you still want to go to see the Alien movie, and he said um, oh, yeah, we can still go tomorrow, I will text you. Later on , on twitter, I saw that he had tweeted "new alien movie was pretty interesting", so he had gone a day or two before, without me. Maybe there is some rational explanation for this, or that he just plain forgot, but on top of a few other things happening, this just plunged me into self loathing and despair. Even if he does text me, I dont want to go any more.

 

How would you feel if you went up to your friend and said, "Hey, I saw that you tweeted about seeing the new Alien movie, but I thought you and I were going to go see it. I feel kinda down about that."

When you play that scenario in your mind, what feelings come up for you?

[neeeel]

Just now, _LiveFree_ said:

 

How would you feel if you went up to your friend and said, "Hey, I saw that you tweeted about seeing the new Alien movie, but I thought you and I were going to go see it. I feel kinda down about that."

When you play that scenario in your mind, what feelings come up for you?

Ye, this is something I have wondered about. I feel like I cant do that, because I would appear to be being whiny and insecure and needy. I would fear it would be just dismissed as not a big deal, or being questioned as to why I am making a big deal out of it. I also dont think I would believe him, not deep down anyway, if he gave me a plausible reason as to why he didnt go with me. Perhaps I dont want to find out that hes not my friend ( or I suppose, find out that he IS my friend)

[_LiveFree_]

2 hours ago, neeeel said:

Ye, this is something I have wondered about. I feel like I cant do that, because I would appear to be being whiny and insecure and needy. I would fear it would be just dismissed as not a big deal, or being questioned as to why I am making a big deal out of it. I also dont think I would believe him, not deep down anyway, if he gave me a plausible reason as to why he didnt go with me. Perhaps I dont want to find out that hes not my friend ( or I suppose, find out that he IS my friend)

So let's say he called you whiny or dismissed you somehow. Then what would you do?

[neeeel]

30 minutes ago, _LiveFree_ said:

So let's say he called you whiny or dismissed you somehow. Then what would you do?

I would get very quiet and withdrawn and sad.

[_LiveFree_]

34 minutes ago, neeeel said:

I would get very quiet and withdrawn and sad.

And what would you think of your "friend"?

--------------------------------------------------------

What if the opposite happened and he became curious about what you were feeling? How would you react, what would you feel?

 

[neeeel]

2 hours ago, _LiveFree_ said:

And what would you think of your "friend"?

--------------------------------------------------------

What if the opposite happened and he became curious about what you were feeling? How would you react, what would you feel?

 

For some reason I am reluctant to answer this.

I would think that he was probably right, that I was just a whiny pussy, and stupid to get worked up about it.

 

If he reacted with curiosity, I dont know, I think I would feel awkward and unsure. 

 

 

[DaVinci]

The problem is that he won't react with curiosity, and if he did it would be to keep you on the line. You're emotional food to him. This guy can't possibly be your friend if he did that to you. Why didn't he just tell you he already saw the movie? 

[neeeel]

1 minute ago, DaVinci said:

The problem is that he won't react with curiosity, and if he did it would be to keep you on the line. You're emotional food to him. This guy can't possibly be your friend if he did that to you. Why didn't he just tell you he already saw the movie? 

because he knows I would be upset. Or he just doesnt care

[S1988]

Do you have any friends from your K-12 days? Perhaps you can re-establish any lost connections, and it's easier to do that these days thanks to social media.

[M.2]

Wow, this just might be one of the deepest conversations on the forums. Thanks for sharing, neeeel.

I too think that individualism has a lot to do with your problem. But if its any consolation, you are not the only one suffering from the drawbacks of an individualistic society.
Although we despise collectivism as much as any intelligent person does, I think it is time to realise that collectivist cultures are going to dominate in the very near future. Individualistic countries have low birth rates, high suicide rates, and high social fragmentation. https://www.geert-hofstede.com/national-culture.html

The reason for social fragmentation is simply that we do not really need each other in the west anymore. There are no wars, no famine, no catastrophies. In order to solve this problem, some join a cult, a religion, a club, or the military, where there is a sense of unity and codependence.

I know this may not be a popular notion in the community of FDR, but in the end, we are not on this planet for ourselves, but for others. We must all find the people worth living for, and dying for.

[_LiveFree_]

4 hours ago, neeeel said:

For some reason I am reluctant to answer this.

I would think that he was probably right, that I was just a whiny pussy, and stupid to get worked up about it.

 

If he reacted with curiosity, I dont know, I think I would feel awkward and unsure. 

 

 

What does "worked up about it" mean? 

I can tell you if one of my friends did this to me I'd be a little miffed and would definitely ask them "what the hell man?" 

What evidence would your friend have that you're in the wrong here and why is curiousity awkward for you? 

 

I can tell you by your answers to these simple questions that your self-esteem is all out of whack. Nathaniel Branden's "Psychology of Self-Esteem" lays out the case that the esteem of which we hold ourselves is the direct response to how we treat ourselves in accordance with our inner most values. If you haven't read it, do. So in your case, you call this person a friend but you are not comfortable saying a simple thing like, "hey what the hell?" But you trust his opinion about you more than your own.

 

[DaVinci]

3 hours ago, neeeel said:

because he knows I would be upset. Or he just doesnt care

If he knows that you will be upset then he must feel, on some level, like he did something wrong, but if you stay silent you will be telling him "I'm okay with you treating me like this" without saying any words. 

If he doesn't care, and if he doesn't care in that "Meh, Neeeel's feelings don't matter" kind of way, then that's just as bad. He's staying silent in the hope that you didn't catch him. 

 

[neeeel]

On 2017-5-14 at 10:48 PM, S1988 said:

Maybe you can start small, like getting a pen pal. It's not the same as in-person friendships, but it's something. Sometimes, you can find friends in the most unexpected places. My first (and only pen pal so far) was in prison, and I got more support from him during the year I was conversing with him than from people who were around during most of my life. He was released from jail over a year ago, so I don't speak to him anymore, but I'll never forget our friendship. What do you think about that?

Its an interesting idea, I will look into it

 

22 hours ago, S1988 said:

Do you have any friends from your K-12 days? Perhaps you can re-establish any lost connections, and it's easier to do that these days thanks to social media.

Nope, no one from the past.

 

18 hours ago, _LiveFree_ said:

What does "worked up about it" mean? 

I can tell you if one of my friends did this to me I'd be a little miffed and would definitely ask them "what the hell man?" 

What evidence would your friend have that you're in the wrong here and why is curiousity awkward for you? 

 

I can tell you by your answers to these simple questions that your self-esteem is all out of whack. Nathaniel Branden's "Psychology of Self-Esteem" lays out the case that the esteem of which we hold ourselves is the direct response to how we treat ourselves in accordance with our inner most values. If you haven't read it, do. So in your case, you call this person a friend but you are not comfortable saying a simple thing like, "hey what the hell?" But you trust his opinion about you more than your own.

 

Ye, it feels like I shouldnt be upset, or that I am wrong in some way. I have read psychology of self esteem, a while ago. 

 

18 hours ago, DaVinci said:

If he knows that you will be upset then he must feel, on some level, like he did something wrong, but if you stay silent you will be telling him "I'm okay with you treating me like this" without saying any words. 

If he doesn't care, and if he doesn't care in that "Meh, Neeeel's feelings don't matter" kind of way, then that's just as bad. He's staying silent in the hope that you didn't catch him. 

 

If he doesnt think he did something wrong, at least he must realise that I would be upset about it, which is why he didnt say anything. I dunno, maybe he would have said "actually I already saw this" if I had gone to the cinema with him.

I dunno, im all confused. One minute I think "what sort of a friend would do that" next minute "its not a big deal, maybe he just forgot"

[_LiveFree_]

39 minutes ago, neeeel said:

 

Ye, it feels like I shouldnt be upset, or that I am wrong in some way. I have read psychology of self esteem, a while ago. 

 

Those are not feelings. Those are conclusions. How did you reach those conclusions?

[neeeel]

Just now, _LiveFree_ said:

Those are not feelings. Those are conclusions. How did you reach those conclusions?

you are right, they are not feelings. I was definitely feeling upset, in despair actually, after I found out about my friend. Im not sure how I reach these conclusions. We have looked at this a bit in therapy, I think its the base belief I have about myself,kind of like the water that surrounds a fish, that I am unlikable and unlovable.

 

[_LiveFree_]

6 minutes ago, neeeel said:

you are right, they are not feelings. I was definitely feeling upset, in despair actually, after I found out about my friend. Im not sure how I reach these conclusions. We have looked at this a bit in therapy, I think its the base belief I have about myself,kind of like the water that surrounds a fish, that I am unlikable and unlovable.

 

Isn't it interesting how humans identify themselves with their environment? 

 

Have you explored in therapy your relationships with your parents? Do you want to talk about that some here?

[DaVinci]

7 hours ago, neeeel said:

 

I dunno, im all confused. One minute I think "what sort of a friend would do that" next minute "its not a big deal, maybe he just forgot"

Maybe he did just forget. Find out. Don't be aggressively confrontational about it, but ask him casually. "Hey what happened? I thought we were going to see that movie together and then I saw you post about it online." See what he says. Don't interject too much while he is explaining himself. Just let him explain his actions as throughly as he wants to. 

[neeeel]

23 hours ago, _LiveFree_ said:

Isn't it interesting how humans identify themselves with their environment? 

 

Have you explored in therapy your relationships with your parents? Do you want to talk about that some here?

Yes, we have covered this a lot in therapy. My relationship with my parents was bad and is now non existent. even that I am fundamentally unsure about though

[S1988]

3 hours ago, neeeel said:

Yes, we have covered this a lot in therapy. My relationship with my parents was bad and is now non existent. even that I am fundamentally unsure about though

Do you have any other relatives you can reach out to, like siblings, cousins, aunts, or uncles?

[_LiveFree_]

7 hours ago, neeeel said:

Yes, we have covered this a lot in therapy. My relationship with my parents was bad and is now non existent. even that I am fundamentally unsure about though

This doesn't make any sense to me. And are you going to actually give an effort here or not? These short posts are a waste of time. 

[DaVinci]

21 minutes ago, _LiveFree_ said:

This doesn't make any sense to me. And are you going to actually give an effort here or not? These short posts are a waste of time. 

Then leave? Let him respond how he wants to. 

[neeeel]

1 hour ago, _LiveFree_ said:

This doesn't make any sense to me. And are you going to actually give an effort here or not? These short posts are a waste of time. 

You are right, I dont know why I feel reluctant to talk about my parents. I didnt want to do a whole "my parents are terrible" speech. 

but as far as trusting people, relating to people, I can see how a lot of my current problems are connected to how I was raised. I think this is just an intellectual realisation though, it has had a little effect, but Im still stuck.

[DaVinci]

3 hours ago, neeeel said:

You are right, I dont know why I feel reluctant to talk about my parents. I didnt want to do a whole "my parents are terrible" speech. 

but as far as trusting people, relating to people, I can see how a lot of my current problems are connected to how I was raised. I think this is just an intellectual realisation though, it has had a little effect, but Im still stuck.

Why would it need to be a speech? You just said it. "My parents are terrible" You don't have to write a novel to convince anyone here of something like that. 

[_LiveFree_]

20 hours ago, neeeel said:

You are right, I dont know why I feel reluctant to talk about my parents. I didnt want to do a whole "my parents are terrible" speech. 

but as far as trusting people, relating to people, I can see how a lot of my current problems are connected to how I was raised. I think this is just an intellectual realisation though, it has had a little effect, but Im still stuck.

You're absolutely right that there can't be any progress until that emotional connection to what happened to you is made. If you were to make a whole "my parents were terrible" speech, how would it go?