Unrequited friendships or low self-esteem?

Rowen13

How do I know if a friendship is worth it? I told my online friend that I really loved and cared for him as a friend. He told me he liked and cared for me.

After knowing him and sharing my darkest moments and secrets, it hurts that the emotional/energy level is not reciprocated.

I know I have an anxious attachment style and my last girl friend never loved me back either. He knows about this and I have explained how much it hurts and how I worry that the same friendship dynamic is repeating.

l'm tired of always being the one that cares more? Should I try to care less or just cut ties with my friend and move on? I'm aware I can't control his feelings but I find because I am going through a difficult time in my life already..it's really affecting my self esteem and mental health.

He says he wants the friendship but I wonder if it's better to just cut ties and work on my anxious attachment style. So I can find a friend that I don't continually chase and the emotional investment is more equal.

He use to reply and text all the time and now everything I say seems to irritate him and he never initiates contact. I try to get him to see the friendship is already over but he always repeats that he is fighting to keep me in his life.

I know in every relationship that someone always feels more but after everything we have shared and the level of trust I put in to letting him see the "real" me...it just hurts that I know deep down that I am disposable to him and all the time spent and conversations meant nothing.

Opening your heart and being vulnerable and feeling undervalued just hurts.

I know I am the only one keeping the "friendship" alive because, that's not a friendship at all.

Eagle Ray

Hi Rowen13,

I understand. I wasn’t saying you have BPD but responding to you saying you are wondering if you do, and trying to share what I’ve learned from the material I’ve researched. Certain approaches that make sense to me, like Janina Fisher’s approach and the Internal Family Systems approach, are equally valid whether you are talking about C-PTSD or BPD. They are just some of the approaches I have connected with but may or may not resonate for you.

I agree that labels are problematic. A label never constitutes a person. At best it’s an attempt to understand what has happened to a person in their life and how they’ve got to where they’re at, but a person is never a label. For me C-PTSD does very accurately describe my experience and has given me a clear framework to work with. When I read the description I know that’s me. But I still know that at my core I’m not a label and it’s not an identity.

I really don’t know about your friend and I can’t really solve why you can’t block him even though you are wanting to. I think if he is not ending it when you are asking him, rather than viewing it as degrading (taking it on as your problem), you need to see it as his problem and walk away. But the fact this is so difficult and causing ongoing depression and anxiety, it really requires exploring what revelation lies in that for you. What level of insight can you gain into yourself that enables you to see what is driving the behaviour?

I’ve been practising using an altered state of consciousness where I do a meditation and allow visual imagery to come up from my unconscious. It talks to me in pictures and video-like sequences and often gives an indication of what is going on for me at a deep level. It’s like a waking dream. It often presents me with my greatest fears and challenges and deepest emotions. But that is often what I need to know in order to move forward in a situation. Again, it helps to be supported by a therapist with these things, but I’ve also developed these practices which I can do on my own.

I hope you can start to find the balance you are looking for. All the best,

ER

Rowen13

Hi ER,

I knew you weren't saying I'm definitively BPD but, it's something I still kind of dipping my toe in. I just came across it during a Sam Vaknin YouTube video discussing BPD and their entwined relationship with narcissists. It was very interesting and I kind of made a little check list and ticked 9 out of 14 traits of a person Borderline Personalty Disorder. But it was no legit test. But I definitely display both abandonment and engulfment issues he talked about. More females are diagnosed with BPD then man. Whereas narcissism is now a equal 50% of man and women. Interesting stuff.

In regards to my friend or whatever he is lol...starting not to care atm. Um it's a wonderful opportunity to learn why I need him to replay out my early childhood trauma of abandonment by my father. It's quite obvious really, fearing of being abandoned, I need to push him to reject me in order for the script out to work. I guess I don't have to be Sigmund Freud to crack tha puzzle. But I think I need to sit with it. As Professor Vaknin says pain is a great opportunity for growth. I want to use this as the catalyst for introspection and growth. At 50 I want peace and if I have to face my demons to reach it, well it's worth it.

I downloaded the books you suggested, so thank you.

Hope you enjoy your night 🙂

Rowen13

Eagle Ray

Hi Rowen13,

I hope the books may be helpful. I have found the only way I’m starting to shift my experience in the external world is by beginning to transform my relationship with myself. It’s a work in progress but as I understand myself better and care for all the parts of myself, I can feel myself become more integrated. This in turn leads to better experiences in the outer world as well. I hope those books may help with that process of understanding and healing the relationship with yourself which is then so healing for external relationships too.

It makes total sense what you say about your father and the attachment situation. A friend of mine left his pregnant partner, replaying the pattern of his own father leaving his mother. He is at least in his child’s life, but he re-enacted the pattern of a father unable to stay in relationship and be in a family. I know I’ve repeated the patterns I absorbed as a child. I’m definitely still working through my patterns and trying to overcome them and write a different story. Some patterns I’ve broken, others I am still extricating myself from.

The fact your mum is how she is has not made things any easier for you. It’s been really, really hard for you. It’s very challenging when neither parent has been a stable figure in your life and in the case of your dad, absent. So have compassion for yourself (which I know can feel hard to do) as you need that self nurturance. It may help to think of a being you really care for, such as your cat, and try to find that same love and compassion for yourself. I have found animals have played an important role in my life in beginning to trust in relationship. I think it’s very common for people with a complex trauma background to feel safer with animals who become like a portal into the world of relationship.

Take care,

ER

Eagle Ray

P.S. I just thought of another book that may be helpful:

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson.

That one should be available through the public library system. Even if your local library doesn’t have it they should be able to get it on inter library loan. I just thought it may be helpful in handling things with your mother.

Rowen13

Hi ER,

OMG, that so funny...I downloaded that book today. What a coincidence!

Thanks for being so helpful, you're redeeming humanity a little in my life Rn. I have lost my faith in people, not that I ever harboured much to begin with.

It's sad the patterns we repeat. I do own a cat and I am more "Team Animals" than for people...I sound awful don't I? I just hate lying. My mum was a con artist and would teach me to lie, so whilst I do my share white lies, I always go for truth or silence instead of bull crap. I just didn't want to be like her, but I understood why she felt she had to lie. But that's her story to tell and I will not unnecessarily betray her on a online forum. I love her still and she loves me the best she can. She knows no better. No excuses for her, just perhaps a understanding of her situation.

Hurting people, hurt people.

For some reason I feel more betrayed by my friend, maybe because I knew what my mum was. Where I think he is a covert narcissist, doubt still plagues me. The minor chance, the inability to live with the uncertainty is awful. Was he real? Am I crazy and it's not him? It drives me crazy because the thought of hurting someone unintentionally makes me ill.

Sometimes I feel crazy..depression, premenopausal and tired...I literally don't trust my own judgement anymore. And whatever trust I has for people is almost dead. Too many betrayals and at 50...I am so emotionally exhausted by it all. Just really done.

I don't think I can ever fully trust anyone again or would want to. Although I'm not jumping to join a monastery, I do feel the greatest urge to open up to anyone anymore. I'm not getting all dark but just tired of being duped.

I just want peace and at 50 I think I deserve it. The need for human connection is ingrained in us but I will naturally be hypervigilante for awhile. And hope to never fully drop my guard completely, not out of hatred but pure exhaustion from having to guard one's back from all the stabbing for people we thought loved us or we thought we knew.

Damn...I really apologise for the negative undercurrent in my reply. I only got 3 hours sleep last night and of course this wrecks havoc on your cognitive thinking.

Thanks again. I really appreciate the great advice.

Rowen13,

Ps. Take care of you 😊

Eagle Ray

Hi Rowen13,

When it comes to trusting people, I have had a pattern in the past of two things:

- trusting people who were not the right people to trust and allow in.

- pushing away the people who would have been healthy, good people in my life.

Apparently this is quite a common pattern with complex trauma. Often if we had an abusive or dysfunctional interpersonal dynamic in childhood with caregivers, it is very hard to realise as an adult when we are being drawn into an unhealthy dynamic. It feels familiar and therefore somehow safer, but then we find ourselves in the same patterns, frustrations and difficult emotions from our childhood. When we encounter a healthy, balanced person we almost don't know what to do with that and can even reject the person because it feels unfamiliar and almost scary. So knowing who to trust can feel like a minefield.

What I have discovered is that as I start to develop more trust in myself, I'm also developing a much keener sense of who I can trust in the external world. I also realise looking back that my instincts often knew when something wasn't right with another person, but my programming overrode it. Recently it's become very clear to me if someone else is being manipulative or not fully sincere with me. I will feel it in my body as a dissonance and I won't be at ease during or after spending time with the person. If that keeps happening I know something is wrong. It doesn't mean the other person is somehow "bad", so much as they are often a person with their own traumas and issues that are being acted out largely unconsciously. Their adaptation to the world has been to manipulate. My heart is still open to the person, but if engaging with them keeps being unhealthy for me I've made the decision to walk away. If I know it is safer and better for my well being to not be around that person, then that is what I now choose. This has really freed up my time and energy for the people in my life where there is a really genuine, open connection and trust is clear.

Two years ago I was running away from all people. I got in my car and drove off to remote locations on my own. This was actually what I needed to do at the time. There's often a polar opposite reactivity to that which is overwhelming, and for me my fear of people reached a kind of fever-pitch intensity that I needed total escape. We often pendulate like this during trauma recovery. It's not something to be frightened of. It's our nervous system trying to correct itself. I had gone into a deep freeze to the point of being immovable in my own home, sitting for hours, frozen, unable to function. I could not answer the door or my phone. The getting in the car and driving was my nervous system enacting the fight-or-flight response to get out of that freeze. I had to get the locked down energy out of my system. Now I am coming back to myself, other people and the world. I am balancing, and with that I have greater trust in myself and others, while also recognising where trust might be problematic. I have non-judgement and compassion though towards the people I can't easily trust, while at the same time recognising where it's not healthy for me to be around them.

So what I'm trying to say in a very long-winded way, is that finding trust is possible, in both yourself and others. You might have to go through a bit to get there but it can happen. Having a good guide or mentor, whether that is a therapist or anyone else in your life, can be really helpful in that process, even if it is just someone to check in with here and there on your journey who is sensitive to what you're experiencing.

Anyway, I've written a lot again, but I just wanted to share those experiences around trust.

Take care,

ER

Rowen13

Hi ER,

The fact that you write long replies is very kind of you. I appreciate the time and effort you put in to them.

My mum has bren gone in to hospital today and I kind of feel emotionally shut down. I wonder if my heart has calcified or its the sleep deprivation.

I should be at the hospital but feel so physically ill myself that I am not being the best carer atm.

I feel as though I'm shut down to a degree. Everything inside me is tired.

The guy who was my friend (have no real idea what he is), has contacted me with a "Hey". Wow...the effort that must of took. I haven't replied back. He doesn't fully trust me, nor I him...so what is the point?!?. My jaded mind wanders if it's breadcrumbing.

I told him goodbye but since I always came back, it's most likely breadcrumbing.

I think I deserve more than scraps and our friendship felt equally invested...now it like I'm playing tennis against the drapes. I still miss him of course but logically I know that will take time. I can't honestly trust him or anyone. It still feels sad, but I'm worth more than scraps. I console myself it's just an on-line friendship but I let him in. A mistake I plan to never do again.

My mum is coming out of hospital which is good news, she will probably out live me. Because being her carer is killing me slowly anyway, only half joking there.

I hope you are well and happy.

Take care,

Rowen13

Eagle Ray

Hi Rowen13,

I think exhaustion and sleep deprivation can definitely lead to shutdown as a survival response. I’m quite sure you are not being a bad carer whatsoever. Your body is just trying to protect you. I’ve been getting bouts of severe insomnia and in perimenopause, serotonin levels fall as oestrogen levels fall, and melatonin levels fall as serotonin falls. So your lack of sleep could very well be connected with that too. I am only sleeping about 3 hours many nights. Last night I didn’t sleep until 6am this morning and then woke up around 10:30am. I know this is a hormonal issue and it’s frustrating as it doesn’t matter how tired I am, I won’t sleep. Though I am often helped by putting on a podcast (something about the sound of human voices) and if I do take a sleep hormone med. I just feel like you are dealing with these multiple factors right now where potentially hormones and the stress of being a carer are compounding and it’s utterly exhausting.

I’m really wondering if you could get some ACAT assessment support in place, you could just focus a lot more on you. It’s like really shifting attention to yourself and your wellbeing as priority. I pushed myself so far caring for my mum that the crash was extreme afterwards. I am very slowly recovering from that now, but based on what I did to myself I would really, really recommend a whole paradigm shift where you take care of yourself first. This is not selfish and the reality is if you don’t shift to self-care, you eventually become incapacitated to help anyone else anyway. If I had done better self-care for me, I actually would have been more there for my mum in a healthy way. It’s only now, since she’s passed, that I’m learning the self-care skills that would have been so valuable then.

I think if the situation with the guy friend really feels unrewarding, like breadcrumbing, it really would be healthy to direct your energy elsewhere, especially when you are so tired. I understand though that it probably felt like a supportive friendship for a while and may have felt like it was helping you through your challenges with your mum etc. It just sounds like it isn’t sustaining in a healthy way for you now. It might be that proximate, face-to-face connections would be helpful right now too. There is something about being actually with people irl that is really beneficial. When meeting someone you can sense more about the person through body language and expression and just how they feel as a person. I even wonder if something like a carer support group might help? Just a way of meeting and connecting with others.

Anyway, take care and see if you can have some rest and recovery time,

ER