Alone alone

[j i m]

Does anyone else here navigate life really alone alone?

I live by myself with no pets or room mates. Everyone I know, I keep at at least so much distance. As soon as I start to feel really close to someone, I get triggered and I can't get out without cutting ties from them completely. Once I have some breathing room, I can start to understand that I was triggered and what triggered me. I've made a little progress with EFT and EMDR when I can figure out a memory or an issue I'm having. But they keep coming. Even if I can figure something out, there's just more and more and more pooled up.

I can't be around others. Not really. I got to see my younger brother a few weekends ago, and it was nice. His wife and child and family just felt so comfortable around one another. They could tease and joke and hold one another so freely. You could sense that they really knew one another and drew comfort in each other. I have no idea how to be like that. I wish that I could. I have spent a long time surviving by convincing myself that I didn't need it or didn't want it. Now, I see that I want it, but I can't seem to reach it. I've pushed so hard but now I don't know how to draw it in to me.

Logically, I'm sure there have to be others like me out there, but how do I find someone who is lost? Even the few that I know who understand cptsd and trauma, they typically have someone in their life. I feel alone in that no one I know seems to fully grasp what this is like. Everyone asks if I ever consider having a room mate or getting a pet. I can't do it. I have a deep need to be alone. Even building and maintaining genuine friendships just doesn't seem feasible.

Eventually, everything seems so transactional. Even if I feel good helping people and I know others out there must want that feeling too, I become afraid of what someone might be implying they expect me to be able to do for them when they offer the smallest things. I guess maybe even if others around me lean into some subconscious manipulative tactics, even if it's not intentional or malignant on their part, I want to be able to trust myself to see what's going on, to set boundaries and handle them. 

I don't know what I want or what I need. It seems to help sometimes when I can feel that sense of reciprocity with others. I wondered if this might be the same. I don't know what to do right now, but I appreciate the space here to vent. It does seem when I'm alone and have hit another hard place, I take some comfort that this place exists. So thank you to those that keep up this forum. I feel you do more good than you probably realize.

[Hope67]

Hi Jim,
I am glad that you have been able to express your thoughts and feeling about this here - you mentioned appreciating the space to vent.  I also take comfort in knowing this forum exists too. 

I very much hope that one day you'll find the company that meets the needs you have - you spoke of wanting to, and I really hope that you will find that.

I think it's lovely that you enjoyed spending some time with your younger brother and his family.  That sounds like a special time.

Hope 

[Beijaflor57]

J i m...you've described me in many ways. I can relate so much to what you shared, and, as a fellow lonely traveler, my heart goes out to you. My primary response to being triggered is isolating myself. If I could describe, in one word, the major theme of my life, it would be loneliness.

I currently live alone, no pets, no roommates, and I'm single. I only have a couple close friends in my life, who don't live near me, and who I only see occasionally. I do have a large family, but I've had to go low-contact with over half of them, due to psychological and emotional abuse (I'm the scapegoat in the family).

I've struggled since childhood with making friends. Huge trust issues (I was bullied, abused, and ostracized, both in, and outside, my family). Like you, I frequently cut ties with people, or ghost them, when they start getting too close to me. I've since discovered this response is associated with disorganized attachment issues.

I don't know what the answer is for those like you and me. It's such a shame that those of us that need connection the most find it so difficult. But this forum is a help, and, like you, I'm grateful for a place like this to vent, if nothing else, when things get hard.

You are definitely not alone in being alone, if that makes sense. 

[Papa Coco]

I know that I have a way of perpetuating my own loneliness. When I feel like I'm not alone, I fantasize about being alone. I go to sleep every night imagining myself leaving earth for a better planet. I'm alone. I'm safe from the ugliness of humanity. Then I wake up and yearn for friendships. It's crazy. But it's part and parcel of CPTSD.

A sense of loneliness on an overcrowded planet is a sign of chronic depression. I own it. I've been chronically depressed ever since I can remember. That's 6 decades of feeling alone. I still remember, as a tiny child, feeling terrified that I'm not wanted in my own home and family. At age 6 I told my family that I hated myself and wanted to die. They scolded me, "That's a SIN! God will send you to * for saying that!"  Okay...so...when I air my truest feelings, then even GOD HIMSELF hates me.

So....That's where my loneliness began.





Part of it for me, also, is that as a Fawning people-pleaser, when I'm with people I am working so hard to be what I think they want me to be that I wear myself out. I choose to people-please and then I resent that I have to do it. It's crazy, but it's part and parcel of CPTSD.

I feel like I'm an actor playing a part for the world to see. It's exhausting to be an actor who is on stage for days on end without a break. It certainly wears me out when I am being what everyone wants me to be until I collapse.

My dream now is to find and embody my authentic self. I was only about 6 years old when I lost sight of who I am. I became what my teachers, churches, and FOO told me to be, and I somehow erased my own programming. I want to be my authentic self, but I have NO IDEA what that is supposed to be. When my FOO and church and school taught me I was to be their servant and their scape-goat, I lost all sense of who I am. So I feel lonely. Like nobody knows my true self, not even me.

It's exhausting to be people pleasing when I'm with people and lonely when I'm not. Trauma does this to us: It gives us pendulum swings from one reality to the other, back and forth, without stopping in the middle to balance ourselves out. I'm either exhausted from people pleasing or I'm alone and lonely. No in between. That's what trauma does to me.  It doesn't allow me to blend my parts back together for a balanced view of life and love.

Beijaflor, I agree: We are not alone in being alone here on the forum, and it actually does make sense when under the microscope of CPTSD and Chronic Depression.

The fellowship and understanding that I find within the pages of posts on this forum give me a lot of comfort. Knowing I'm not alone feeling alone really does help.

We're strong together.

[Little2Nothing]

Just wanted to say, Papa Coco, that it is only those people's perception of God that makes them think he hates you.

I take solace in the stories of Elijah, Job and Jerimiah because they longed for death as I have done and God still loved them even though they were severly depressed.

I don't mean to be preachy.

There is no lonlier feeling than when I'm wallowing in the depths of depression. No words, or gestures from others can really make a difference. When I am in that pit I long for some connection, then when somwone really tries to be there for me then I reject it.

[Chart]

Being alone is the only safe place with Cptsd... This is what was done to us: Developmental trauma... "Normal" conditioning of the amygdala to terrifying experiences. Alone=safe. But alone also equals... alone... and being alone is just as terrifying.
Cptsd, Developmental Trauma... Its a million times easier to construct something correctly the first time, then spending a lifetime repairing something all messed up and falling apart on a regular basis.
But that's exactly what we have to do.

[Kizzie]

Jim, can I just suggest that by being here and posting and responding to posts you have taken a step out of being completely alone?

The "magic" of coming here is that for those of us who need to be alone, we can try out reaching out to others in a really safe way. That is one of the main reasons for anonymity at OOTS, that feeling of being safe with people who get it while trying out relating to others. (The other reason of course is to try and keep members safe from abusers who may be stalking them.)

So perhaps being here is a small foray out of being alone and a small part of you may want feel what it's like to be less alone?

[Merl]

There was a quote that I once saw "Lonely is not being alone, it's the feeling that no one cares". 

Supports for CPTSD has given me, personally, a sense of belonging.  Particularly as I find others whom I can relate to and there can be a mutual understanding and a way to comfort one another.

 

[Papa Coco]

So many good thoughts here.

The comment above the brings the deepest sadness to my soul is "Loneliness is not being alone, it's the feeling that no one cares."

I could cry when I read those words.

[Papa Coco]

Funny coincidence.  I have the TV news on right now. They are reporting that the US Surgeon General has identified loneliness as a medical epidemic.

As I write this, the news on my TV is interviewing a doctor who says that loneliness is as hard on our health as is smoking cigarettes, and he considers asking about loneliness to be a part of his routine medical exams. Along with vital signs, he always asks if the patient is dealing with loneliness.

[Cascade]

I'm so grateful for this forum!  It really gives me the only sense of belonging in a community that I've ever really had.  I need this space and am so glad for everyone being here.  I wish it were under different circumstances, but would we have ever taken the leap with something like this otherwise?! 
   -Cascade

[Papa Coco]

Cascade,

I couldn't agree with you more.


I too love this community. I need the people here.

[j i m]

It's exhausting to be people pleasing when I'm with people and lonely when I'm not. Trauma does this to us: It gives us pendulum swings from one reality to the other, back and forth, without stopping in the middle to balance ourselves out. I'm either exhausted from people pleasing or I'm alone and lonely. No in between. That's what trauma does to me.  It doesn't allow me to blend my parts back together for a balanced view of life and love.

Papa Coco, your words always hit me hard, in a good way. There have been a number of times that your ability to write what I am feeling has really reached out and made me feel seen. Thank you and I hope that in our journeys you can feel the same sense from others now and again too.


Ironically, the number of people here responding that they feel the same way is a comfort. Thank you for your support. You all have really brought my day up.
 

[Phoebes]

Hi, Jim, I can assure you that I know exactly. It's been complicated by the awareness of boundaries, and that the ones I instinctually have had are valid. It's complex. I'm like you with a deep need to be alone, but want connection and love. I think I sent this can only be worked through and solved through relationship. But there are so few who get this in the first place. It's very overwhelming and obliterating for those triggers to come. I'm sure most of us get it here.

[AphoticAtramentous]

Everyone I know, I keep at at least so much distance. As soon as I start to feel really close to someone, I get triggered and I can't get out without cutting ties from them completely. Once I have some breathing room, I can start to understand that I was triggered and what triggered me.

I absolutely understand this. Heck, I can't even seem to be AROUND people, let alone talk directly - because overhearing the conversations they have with each other seems to also trigger me. And then yes as you say, in the moment it's almost impossible to figure out what caused us to be so knee-deep in an emotional flashback, and without knowing the source of the flashback, the safest option is to just... leave.
I'm sorry you're struggling with this loneliness, it's a pain so raw and hard to describe, one that I literally feel in my own heart as a volatile ache. To add on to PapaCoco's quote, it's not just the feeling that nobody cares, but also the feeling that nobody understands.

Regards,
Aphotic.