Releasing the past in order to find myself

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Isolated

Sometimes, being an ACoN can seem intensely isolating.  It's been touched on in many posts, across many blogs.  The isolation, the loneliness, the feeling of being an out-cast, an outsider.  An outsider most of all in our own families.  Isolated, sometimes, in our own mind, as we struggle with reality and the reality that our narcs have created for us.  Isolated, thinking we are the only soul in the world  that feels like we do.

When I was little, I don't remember my mother encouraging me to have many friendships.  Outside of my sister.  She liked me and my sister to get along.  I get that.  I would like my kids to be friends.  But that's up to them.  They need to grow and develop their own relationship.  Anyway, I don't remember my mother asking about my friends or expressing any real interest in my social life at all.  She didn't discourage it, but she just never seemed to care.  My sister and I spent a lot of time with her.  Shopping, running errands.  Doing the things she did.  Where she went, we went.  Because I had allergies, I often couldn't stay at friends' houses for sleepovers or go visit.  So, by design, I was even more isolated.  I remember a few birthday parties.  When I did go,  I remember feeling guilty.  So, obligated, even at 8 or 9 or 10 to be with my family.  Feeling like spending time with my family was the most important thing to do.  It seems so weird to think back on.  I mean, obviously, I was picking up on those messages from NM so early.  But also, that even at 10, I did feel family was important.  I somehow, never took them for granted.  And it all seems so ironic now.

I had one or two close friends in my life.  I always had a group of friends.  I always did things.  But I had only one or two "best friends".   One moved away in sixth grade.  The other stole money from me (a lot of money), helped my sister get abused and took advantage of my sister herself (had her steal a car at 14), and then never spoke to me again.  I always seemed to be gathering the wrong kinds of friends.  I always was the "odd-man out".  On the fringe of the group, but never really fitting in.  Never having true intimacy and friendship.  I spent many days in the "friendship triangle".  The third, odd-ball girl in relationship of friends.  Think Phoebe, in friends.  Except she was happy to be the individual.  I was not the free-wheeling, independent, happy-my-self girl Phoebe was.   I always just felt left out.  Repeating, and repeating the relationship I had with my sister and mother.  Sometimes being closer to one than the other.  But never being in the "primary relationship" and always knowing they'd choose each other over me any day.

When I got to college, an acquaintance pushed me into a sorority.  I actually found a lot of kinship at first in the house.  These happened to be sweet, down to earth women.  But I soon found myself repeating the same patterns.  Feeling left out.  Being cast as the "weirdo".  Replaying same old dramas from my childhood.  All the while, my family life at home was dissolving.  Looking back, I know that some of the friendships I should have pursued, I pushed aside.  There were friendships I might have had, but I wouldn't allow myself a good friend.  There definitely were toxic women I knew, but a lot of the blame was my fucked up strategies to relationships.  Things fell more and more apart, internally, in my family and in my life.  So, feeling misunderstood and oh, so lonely in a home of 40 women, I moved out.  And I swore off friendship.

Over the years, I've only lately begun to trust women.  I don't have a lot of faith in them.  And, I believe I tend to attract woman who just want me to be their rock, be their sounding board.  I've attracted a lot of mean, spiteful women.  I've never known the true feelings of those friendships I've seen others have or on TV.   I don't have a close cousin or an aunt.   I had hoped with my in-laws that I'd develop some sort of relationship.  But, you all know how that has turned out.

So, here I sit.  Feeling like a social misfit.  It's hard to explain to people.  Why you don't have a good girlfriend.  Every woman has her friends.  People always say they don't trust women who have no women friends.  And here I sit.  I'm always much more comfortable with men.  I like that they (tend to be) more blunt, to the point, and honest.  They don't generally play games.  They don't get jealous and catty.  They talk about more than who has the cutest clothes and who needs to loose weight.  I know, I know, I'm stereotyping.  I know lots and lots of women are not like this.  But these are the women I've had in my life.

DH always says I need more women friends.  I try to explain that I don't want any.  I fear the neediness of a female relationship.  The phone calls.  The hour long emotional chats.  They needing-to-talk several times a week.   I'm so not that girl.  I hate shopping with other women.  I know, weird.  (And ironically, the only person I do like shopping with is my sister.)  I'd be OK to talk on the phone here and there.  But my mom and sister trap me on the phone and now I feel I have a phobia. Like I'll be trapped.   Hours later, I'm stuck in a repetitive conversation about the troubles they've gone through and them not wanting a solution.  I've never learned (or been able to) end a conversation without feeling guilty.  I don't trust a lot of women.  I don't believe they will be there when I need them.  I don't believe they won't sell me out.

And on top of it, I just don't feel like a lot of people can relate to me.  I see Facebook posts saying "I am so at home when my mom visits."  or "Everything is better when my mom is here."  You know, people who's mom makes life easier.  Better.  Less stressful.  I have no idea what that feels like.  And I struggle to explain me.  My life, my reality.  I've had more than one friend accuse me of being unfair to my NM or NMIL.  I've had friends, unable to see my fear of leaving my boys with the narcs, get angry for me not being able to go out.  And I have so many friends that I feel take advantage of me, use me and DH, or just disregard us when we are not useful.  The worst part is, I don't know when someone is really treating me badly and when I'm just sensitive  to being walked on (because although I hate being called "oversensitive" the reality is, sometimes I am, well, let's say "ultra sensitive".  Somethings hurt more because I've been so badly burned already.)  I have one, or two, girlfriends that I really talk to.  But even they don't understand what it's like to process all of this shit (in fact, no one knows I'm even doing all of this processing.)

I recently revealed to a friend I was feeling closer too about my NM and NMIL.  She, too, has a NM.  We were friends before, but when I found that out, I suddenly felt...I don't know, not like an outsider?  Anyway, I told her about my NM over email (we usually communicate by email when not in person.  Although impersonal, we both feel it works for us.)  I didn't get a response.  I don't know if she just is waiting to talk in person.  But it worries me.  Makes me anxious.

So, I'm lonely.  I feel like an outcast.  I have an active social life.  I know many people would say I'm their friend.  I know a lot of people would say they like me.  But even in a room filled with these people, I know now one of them truly knows me.  No one understands me.  So, although I'm surrounded by people, I'm lonely.

16 comments:

  1. Jessie, I relate so much to this post. I was a Phoebe too. I think this is a work in progress. As we get better we'll be able to find people who will be true friends to us. I've started to meet a few people who get this, one girl I had already known for a year (she was a friend of a friend) before we even spoke about this. I think a lot of us are hesitant to open up to people because of bad experiences.(I really hate that look of bewilderment they give you even if you only remotely hint at how difficult things are with Nfamilies). So it's going to take time but I can see us getting there.

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  2. On friends: I would call anyone I knew for an extended period of time a "friend" because a lot of me thought they were. I knew these people, interacted with them, had some laughs intermittently, so they must be friends right? Also, these people tended to be females, and very few males. This though, stems back to my mother issues, and how she impressed upon me that females existed to do my bidding, to be used like a resource - after all, that's how she saw people, and such is what she did.

    I've always called myself the social chameleon, because I could fit or blend into nearly any group at any time. I didn’t have a set group of friends, not really, or I didn’t feel like it anyway. Other people would say that I tended to hang out with or be around a certain group of people, but I found myself floating, drifting from one social caste to another. Indeed, I had one or two “best friends” at a time, but they came and went too. One friend I had for over 20 years if you can believe it, but in time he proved to be as useless as the rest of the people I knew.

    I gave myself the moniker of social chameleon because I didn’t have an identity, not really. My identity, in retrospect, was a Fraud, but that was because I wasn’t allowed to have an identity – if I did, my mother would not have a “Mirror Mirror On The Wall, Who’s The Fairest Of Them All” resource, and we all know THAT just can’t happen. Seems to me, your identity became a tragedy of the NMother as well, enveloped by whatever She was/is. Part of the reason I have to have a new reality is because my old one just didn’t work. I couldn’t be a chameleon anymore. I could not be a Fraud and expect to have a fruitful life with my wife, with my family. And that’s what’s important, that it’s my family, not my mother’s. I have made a choice to be someone and something different. I have to remove her parasitic grasp of me and See that I am able to become something more than what she wants for me.

    Another thing my mother gave to me which I took with and ran, was the ability to constantly pick out people to be close to that were not healthy, that would use me somehow. I did this because I was trying to fill a void with the love and attention I was seeking throughout childhood. The love and attention that should have come from MommyDearest, but was instead a vacuum of souls. The people I was attracted to and were attracted to me were all the same types of people that I grew up with: vapid, superficial, all-consuming, selfish collection of biophysical, biochemical reactions that created something that walks and talks. So now, while the prospect of good, deep friendship is there, I’m not concerned with that because I can’t be, and that’s the kicker. Right now, I’m more likely to fall in with the likes of the Past. Instead, as focus more intently on myself, the natural gravity will shift from those of the Past, to a more healthy, and prosperous Present and Future. But, as my wife points out, start with myself, and the rest will follow.

    Until then, it’s comforting to know there is community here struggling with very similar issues where support is always offered…without strings.

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    1. Thanks for sharing LSV. It is helpful to know that others out there, somewhere, understand what the hell I'm talking about.
      I think, that while I have, somehow, managed an identity for myself, I didn't have the courage to show it. I would relieve my mother relationship with friends: being there for them, supporting them, and expecting nothing in return. Then, I'd get exhausted and tired and become resentful for their constant sucking of my energy and time. Or resentful that they never seemed to care about me really, no matter how much I did for them. Like you said, trying to heal holes in myself from old wounds with new people.
      Another thing, my mother has no friends. I remember feeling, at a very young age, that you could have no conflict in a relationship. That if there was conflict, or disagreements, that the relationship was over. I believe I learned from my mother that relationships were black and white. If there was one thing I didn't like about someone, or they hurt me or offended me (even if it was unintentional) that you just cut them off. I remember, very vividly, when I started to unravel this thinking. When I realized that friendships could have conflict and still continue on. That someone could love you, despite minor disagreements. That it wasn't all black and white.

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  3. I wonder if this is why my husband (who has an NM) doesn't have good friends, period. He has friends, yes, even friends who would consider my husband a good friend. But he doesn't truly trust anyone other than me (and I think he doubts me from time to time).

    I relate to this post also because up until I was in my mid-20s, I didn't have close female friends either. I had a difficult relationship with my mother, so like you, I didn't trust women and felt them to be catty and judgmental. At almost 40, I have since found a few good female friends, but I don't think I will have any more beyond that. So I get it! I hope this friend writes you back soon and that the friendship can blossom through your shared experiences.

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    1. Thanks Anna for your thoughts. I think that if you have a few close female friends, then you are fortunate. Good for you that you have been able to make those friendships. And who knows, as your life changes and grows, new friendships may form.

      I'm guessing (without knowing anything about your husband) that your husband's NM is definitely contributing to his lack of friendships. As I said to LSV in the above comment, my mother saw relationships in black and white. This included her relationship with me. And I often felt that if I "offended" her in someway she would abandon me and not love me anymore. Her love was always conditional. I was never free to be myself. She rejected me over and over. And if your own mother doesn't love you for who you are, it's awfully hard to believe that someone else will. It's a horrible outcome of the NM, that you are always waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under you and left alone.
      I do think my friend will speak to me about this. I actually will be seeing her this weekend.

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  4. Boy do I relate to so many of the paragraphs you wrote Jessie.
    " Never having true intimacy and friendship. I spent many days in the "friendship triangle". The third, odd-ball girl in relationship of friends." I too have often been in triangles of friends, and was usually the one who was 'less important than." I think people can sense the depth of our loneliness. We've been trained to wait for the shoe to drop. It makes us at once tentative, and over-eager to please; withdrawn and needy simultaneously. I always felt like the odd one out when I was younger. Even now, with work colleagues, I often feel excluded. But part of that is I don't have kids, and many colleagues bond around their children. But yes, give your friend a chance. If she's like you, she might have felt awkward afterward about disclosing too much. Give her a chance.

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  5. "I think people can sense the depth of our loneliness. We've been trained to wait for the shoe to drop. It makes us at once tentative, and over-eager to please; withdrawn and needy simultaneously."

    Yes!

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  6. I described this feeling to my counselor by saying, "It is like I am outside the candy store looking in, but can't find the door. They are all living a happy life and I am outside, unable to get in." Your post touched on so many of my challenges. Interesting thing now that I am moving towards healthy, so are my relationships. My blog and reading other people's blog opened my eyes to others that feel alone. You are not alone and I agree that men are easier to have an open conversation but I also felt like an outsider in those relationships too. I can tell you that you are not alone on this one.
    Ruth

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    1. I'm hoping so Ruth. Hoping that things will get better and change as I grow and change. It just feels, sometimes, like so much weight to shed.

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  7. Once again jessie you post is just what I needed to read. I completely understand how you feel. I find I struggle in relationships and I am always the one who does everything for everyone, I can see now it is in search of that all important approval.

    My mum is similar in relationships as you describe black and white with no direct conflict allowed. I makes it very difficult to form normal relationships with this as your 'set rules'. My mum believes fully in punishment by silence and if I don't toe the line I get the silent treatment!

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    1. I'm glad my post could help you today! It helps to know we are not alone in this struggle.

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  8. How you doing this week Jessie? a little worried and want to know if you're feeling any less isolated? xox

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    1. CS, Thank you so much for checking on me. I got your comment just as I was sitting down to write a new post. I've had a lot going on this past week, but I've actually been so overwhelmed with it all that I couldn't even find my voice to write.

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  9. I love when I read a post that makes me go "That's totally me!" And then I see the comments from others who also relate - it's wonderful to see so many friendly "faces", who are so alike. It's a pretty lonely place out here in ACoNland, so it's nice to realize we're not going through this alone!

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    1. I am glad you've been able to find a place out here with us.

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