New friendship breakdown

[Debora]

Hi all,

I'm feeling pretty upset and hope I can come here to talk about it in a safe place.

I have a neighbour I've been making friends with and it's broken down over the aggressive and frightening behaviour of another neighbour. I'm fairly confident in my decision to back off but it's still upsetting. I need to talk about it but don't feel I can go into the details here. I'm upset. My abdomen is crampy....from stress. I automatically start blaming myself and that's the scariest thing. Does anyone else have experiences of lots of relationships failing? I'm not saying it's a bad thing. People are so mean and judgemental!

[Kizzie]

Hi Debora -  I'm so sorry to hear about your friendship breaking down. Most of us struggle with relationship difficulties as it is one of the symptoms of Complex PTSD unfortunately. That's why relational therapy is recommended by many T's as a way of learning to trust others in a safe situation first and then taking that out into the world. 

That said, there are people out there who do treat us badly so our task becomes trying to figure out if that's the case (i.e., Was this person worthy of my friendship or am I better off looking for healthier relationships?).     

[ah]

Hi Debora,

Kizzie asked:

Was this person worthy of my friendship or am I better off looking for healthier relationships?

That's a really good perspective!

I couldn't agree more.
The way I view people has been slowly changing as I learn more about cptsd. Maybe you're changing?

[radical]

Also agreed.

It is essential to have and enforce boundaries.  Good for you.!   But these are often not popular, particularly in the short-term.

What I find is that I need to be learn to handle people not being happy with me.  Fawning and appeasing for so long meant I had little experience of dealing with people not liking what I did and said in the short term, but plenty of experience of not being respected and treated as a doormat long-term.  I think people who are well-used to having boundaries are also well-used to how other people respond to boundaries and disliking things they do and say generally.

Friends, neighbours, people disagree, get snarky.  Ususally they get over it.

I'm sorry you are feeling so awful and I relate to the feeling.  If your friend doesn't, come round with a bit of time and space it is a good indication about them, it may have saved you some grief in the future.

Making friends is hard and it is a bit of a numbers game in the sense that most people we get to know don't become close friends, and that goes for everyone