I became friends with a couple of people and I meet with them often. They like me as well but my brain tries to convince me they hate me. I was severly bullied, ostracized and neglected by my peers at school from elementary school to college and it caused me to have a hard time trusting anyone and gave me terrible self esteem. But I didn’t know that it would be this bad. It sucks having the time of your life and returning home just trying to shut off your brain because you don’t want to deal with the intrusive thoughts. But it doesn’t work, the next day the thoughts come back and make me feel terrible. I almost don’t want to announce that I’m coming for our next meeting because somehow I feel like a burden, even though I was literally personally invited by one of my friends.
Does anybody else deal with this? How do you deal with it?
I grew up in a regressive area. I would say I was treated shitty at home and felt terrible at school. The school I was very hostile in terms of all the bullying. I got bullied and shunned. But I was also a mean bully myself. As time went on I kind of gotten more reserved and less talkative. I got more bullied later on. But I don’t know, a bunch of different things had a cumulative effect on me. I became all sorts of broken at this point. I did manage to have friends.
For me I go through spells where I completely isolate myself and not talk to anyone for a long time. I would feel like I am a burden and that people will be feeling better If I don’t talk to them. I would call someone and feel that they avoiding me. But I’m blunt I will just message them to know. They will usually tell me and clear my anxiety.
Again I get out of that cycle and start calling people or meeting people.
I would feel great but suddenly I would get real angry and then be crying. For me I can tell you bunch of things as I myself go through these intrusive thoughts. First off don’t give credence to those thoughts. When you get em move fastly to do something else. If you can’t ward them off, then get clarification. For starters I call my friends and sometimes lose track of time. I would feel like they just wanna cut the call. I will just ask if I’m taking too much of their time. They will usually tell me no I’m not. If they do have work or something they will move on. Same with meeting up. I would feel uninvited. But someone affirming the invitation feels good. Just be frank and tell them how you feel.
I have low self esteem but also I don’t feel anything much about that. I’m ambivalent on it. But my friends or family try to be more nicer about that. But then I also don’t feel anything huge if someone thinks in one way or the other about me. I just shrug all that and occupy with something else. Sometimes I still would get very emotional at someone poking at my self esteem. Whatever I still roll through.
Music helps. I talk to myself a lot. I journal shit to air all the horrible shit I feel as an outlet.