Processing Friendship: Examining My Part

To read the previous installment in this series, click here. 

I had a boyfriend when I met my husband. My boyfriend was not present when we met, and it didn't occur to me to disclose to this new young man that I had a boyfriend. I wasn't trying to be dishonest, but it didn't naturally come up in conversation and I had no idea that Michael liked me as anything other than a friend. 

Michael discovered that I had a boyfriend when he told his friend (my boyfriend) about meeting me, and my boyfriend made the revelation.

I was shocked every time I found out that a boy liked me, because I tend to assume people don't. To varying levels, I dreaded having to interact with the boys I dated because I was terrified that they were going to discover that I wasn't worth dating. 

It generally does not occur to me that someone would want to talk to me or that my presence or viewpoint might be valuable. I assume that I will be in the way or a nuisance. I see myself as weird. As a preteen and teen, I liked weird things. I was a hipster about 10 years before being one was cool. I liked music that other people my age thought was weird. I enjoyed movies and books that nobody else I knew was watching and reading. I never liked cartoons. 

In the absence of relationships, I attached myself to celebrities/historical figures (Princess Diana, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elvis Presley, the Beatles) and music. I didn't have the resources to wear clothes I felt good in. I wore what was available to me, and my clothes were not reflective of current styles. I didn't wear pants so I stuck out at school. All of this labeled me as weird in my own mind. I always felt "other" at home too. Generally speaking, it didn't feel as though anyone had ever really liked me. 

As I realized that the manipulative tactics I had grown up using were not effective, I switched tactics. Eventually, I settled on staying out of people's way. I take up as little space in people's lives as I can. I don't insert myself into other people's lives. I stay in the shadows, hoping to be invited in. I process the non-invitations as rejection.

I don't call people because I assume it would bother them if I did. I don't invite people over, because I assume they would rather not come. I don't start conversations because I assume people would rather be talking to someone else. 

I take up as little mental space as possible, and my body takes up a lot more space than it should. The irony is not lost on me. I believe these two issues are related. 

A few years ago I was diagnosed with ADHD. This revelation was like a light switch being turned on for me. It turns out, a lot of people with ADHD also have something called Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (Shout out to my friend Kim for bringing this to my attention.) What this looks like for me is constantly being on the look out for signs that I am being rejected and then responding with intense pain when I find them. 

So cliques at church feel like big, flashing signs that say "stay out, loser!!" Pictures on social media of other people I know hanging out with each other feels like someone saying "we didn't invite you because we hate you!"

Healing my relationship with friendship, and myself, is going to look like being able to take up space in people's lives and in rooms I am in, and telling myself the truth when I believe the lies that my brain is telling me. 

I can't control other people. I can't make them include me or enjoy my company. I am the only person I can control, and truthfully, more than anyone else has excluded me, I think I've excluded myself. 

To be continued . . . 

 

Processing Friendship Part 2

 To read Part 1, click here.

As we moved within California and then to Texas, and I encountered new systems, I had different experiences. At the first place, I found a stockpile of greeting cards in the church building. So I  documented all the church members birthdays and anniversaries, and used the greeting cards to acknowledge them. I loved doing this. It gave me a great sense of purpose. 

When we moved to Texas, it was like moving to an all new world where people suddenly took an interest in me. I seemed to matter for the first time. When we first arrived, members of the congregation asked me questions like, "what are your hobbies?" I had no answer to this question. What I liked to do had never seemed relevant to anyone else, and most of what I enjoyed doing wasn't something I could really do with other people. I lived a mostly solitary, internal life. Existing at this congregation and within that group of people was a breeding ground for my self-esteem.  

I had a friend group for the first time. I was talking on the phone, spending time with people. I was outgoing and extroverted. I felt like my true self. 

In both of these instances, it seems the growth of my self confidence and security was interpreted in a negative light, and I was punished.

My training in systems theory and work with my own therapist has helped me to see that the system in which I existed would not allow for me to change. The thing about systems is that they work to maintain homeostasis. The quiet, solitary, internal, blank slate was the role I played in the system, and it's all that system would allow for. 

I withdrew from my social circle. The focus shifted from friendship and connection, to escaping the system. I did desperate and wrong things to accomplish this, and I lost sight of the purpose of leaving the system. The things I did to escape were counterproductive and harmful. 

I didn't get what I ultimately wanted: the space to be the truest version of myself. What I got was shame, isolation, regret and body weight. 

I've spent a lot of time and energy in healing from all of that, but I still find myself with loneliness, and unsure of how to overcome it. Talking about it is helping. Friends who have experienced similar things are sharing what they've learned, and that solves the issue of protocols to implement, and the connection I have longed for. 

To be continued . . . 

Processing Friendship

Sifting through my soul, trying to make it all make sense. Am I the cause of my loneliness? What is it about me that makes it difficult for me to connect? I have always felt "other". Like I'm on the outside looking in at the connections of others. The first time I remember feeling this, I was approximately 4 years old. 

I struggle with accepting that God loves me and forgives me, and that makes it difficult to believe that other people can and do. I've done a lot of sucky things to get people to like me. I acted in impulsive and hurtful ways that still haunt me. 

Around four I had an experience with overt rejection that I remember vividly. Another little girl and I were playing on the steps of the church. A group of older girls (I'm thinking they were 11 or 12) came along and made it a point to tell me to shut up and be very attentive to my friend. They called me stupid and pushed me away and told me that they couldn't stand me, while embracing the other girl. They were overtly rejecting me, while embracing her.

I can't remember if I did something to trigger this. I don't have a lot of other memories from this age. I don't remember having mean thoughts about people or scheming to do bad things. Most of the things I did were impulsive and I didn't take into consideration how my actions would impact others. I remember dropping a booster seat on another kids head as a joke, and then being mortified that it was a much bigger deal than I anticipated. I also made up lies about other people liking me in order to impress people. 

By 11 or 12 I had caught on that my actions weren't working and I shut completely down. I lost hope. It felt, and sometimes still feels, like a mental straightjacket. 

Recently I've been thinking through relationships over my lifetime. I've realized that even most of the people I might have considered to be my friends before the age of 15 - weren't really my friends. They didn't like me. They were annoyed by the things I did to get people to like to me. Which is understandable. 

Once, one of these "friends" read a letter, that they had received from another of my "friends", aloud to me. The person who had written the letter spent part of it talking negatively about me and how a boy had said that they would never "go out" with someone "like" me. I don't know what "someone like her" meant because I never asked. Even when she was reading it to me, I remember my face getting hot but I didn't even acknowledge what had been said about me. I don't know if the intent of reading the letter to me was to hurt me or to reveal how they all felt about me. I essentially proceeded as though it didn't happen. Looking back, it was obvious that these people were not really my friends. 

Right now I'm processing what this means. Does it mean that I was more flawed than everyone else and my actions made it impossible for me to have real connections? If so, was I born that way? What does that mean?

Was my immature and impulsive behavior what caused people to dislike me? Or did their dislike of me cause the immature and impulsive behavior? 

My instinct is to say that for whatever reason I had a deep, felt sense that I was unlovable, and this led to maladaptive behaviors that were hurtful and unlikeable by others and it all became a cycle that I struggled to exist outside of. Even though I completely stopped (but re-picked back up a few years later) the bad habits I had, I didn't know how to make amends and the relationships never changed. 

When I was 13, my family began considering a cross country move. I remember feeling excited to have a fresh start. Getting outside of the systems in which I had always existed seemed like a positive thing. 

In both of the new environments, I took advantage of the fresh starts and thrived . . . for a while.

To be continued . . .