howtobealone
Member
- Joined
- May 11, 2015
- Messages
- 18
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When I was 13, I started having digestive issues that caused me to withdraw socially. Even today, in my early 30's, on the rare occasions when someone invites me somewhere, my first thought is if I can make it through the entire event without embarrassing myself.
I don't really have friends, so whenever I have tried to let someone into my life, I depend on them far too much and come across as needy and desperate, which I suppose I am. I didn't have a girlfriend until I was 21, and I broke up with her because I was convinced she was going to break up with me. I am easily offended by other people's actions and I feel betrayed by what most people seem to consider normal interpersonal behavior.
After my first girlfriend, I literally went another 12 years without dating. I lived in a state of numbness to cope. Then I had a severe panic attack and decided to give life another shot. I felt I needed a change of scenery so I decided to move out of state (which hasn't happened yet) and to start dating again. I met a nice girl, but she told me she loved me after six weeks and I didn't feel that way at all about her, so I broke up with her. We made the mistake of trying to be friends, and we were pretty good friends for about another six weeks after that. We both started dating other people, but she started to develop strong feelings for the new guy she was seeing. This made me jealous, and whether or not I really did love her (or was just jealous), I believed that I did and I told her. Long story short, she said she still loved me too, but that it was too late for us (it's complicated) and we haven't contacted each other in months.
The details of the love story aren't really important. The whole affair shocked me out of the numbness I had been living in for a decade and I went through a few weeks where I was barely able to sleep or eat and I wondered if I would ever be functional again. Having emerged from that state, I realize that almost everybody has a story like this. The reason I've come to this message board is that I want to explore the feelings of intense need and desire I had when I felt rejected by the woman I loved. I am such a needy person that I'm not sure whether I felt a desire for her (as an actual person) or a desire for a fantasy that if she loved me back I would never have to be alone again. And when I follow that feeling further down the road, I think the real feeling that I'm wrestling with is my fear of death.
I'm finally going to move out of state in another 2 months and I have something very preliminary started up with another woman there. I've done a decent job of reigning in my neediness with her so far, but I can already feel myself starting to become too emotionally dependent on her, like I've just kicked the neediness can down the road from the last woman to the new woman. I've resolved to devote myself to building a network of friends when I move, but I worry about how much of that is coming from a desire to never be alone again.
I guess what I'm really asking myself is, how do you build healthy relationships with others when you're coming from a place of such loneliness? As much as I try to "love myself" first, it feels like I'm always going to be lonely unless I have other people in my life.
I don't really have friends, so whenever I have tried to let someone into my life, I depend on them far too much and come across as needy and desperate, which I suppose I am. I didn't have a girlfriend until I was 21, and I broke up with her because I was convinced she was going to break up with me. I am easily offended by other people's actions and I feel betrayed by what most people seem to consider normal interpersonal behavior.
After my first girlfriend, I literally went another 12 years without dating. I lived in a state of numbness to cope. Then I had a severe panic attack and decided to give life another shot. I felt I needed a change of scenery so I decided to move out of state (which hasn't happened yet) and to start dating again. I met a nice girl, but she told me she loved me after six weeks and I didn't feel that way at all about her, so I broke up with her. We made the mistake of trying to be friends, and we were pretty good friends for about another six weeks after that. We both started dating other people, but she started to develop strong feelings for the new guy she was seeing. This made me jealous, and whether or not I really did love her (or was just jealous), I believed that I did and I told her. Long story short, she said she still loved me too, but that it was too late for us (it's complicated) and we haven't contacted each other in months.
The details of the love story aren't really important. The whole affair shocked me out of the numbness I had been living in for a decade and I went through a few weeks where I was barely able to sleep or eat and I wondered if I would ever be functional again. Having emerged from that state, I realize that almost everybody has a story like this. The reason I've come to this message board is that I want to explore the feelings of intense need and desire I had when I felt rejected by the woman I loved. I am such a needy person that I'm not sure whether I felt a desire for her (as an actual person) or a desire for a fantasy that if she loved me back I would never have to be alone again. And when I follow that feeling further down the road, I think the real feeling that I'm wrestling with is my fear of death.
I'm finally going to move out of state in another 2 months and I have something very preliminary started up with another woman there. I've done a decent job of reigning in my neediness with her so far, but I can already feel myself starting to become too emotionally dependent on her, like I've just kicked the neediness can down the road from the last woman to the new woman. I've resolved to devote myself to building a network of friends when I move, but I worry about how much of that is coming from a desire to never be alone again.
I guess what I'm really asking myself is, how do you build healthy relationships with others when you're coming from a place of such loneliness? As much as I try to "love myself" first, it feels like I'm always going to be lonely unless I have other people in my life.