Conflicting needs.

[AgandFe]

I'm at a stage in my recovery where I am deeply conflicted about how close I want to get to people.

For years, over fifteen years, I never felt lonely no matter how alone I was. The relief of not having to interact with another human being was profound. I felt like I lost my ability to connect to human beings, like that had been burned out of me. I was able to connect to animals much more easily, and my pets were literal life-savers for me, and still are. I feel understood by them.

I've been in therapy for a while, and I've begun to feel lonely. I know it sounds strange, but that is a sign of improvement for me. I feel the urge to be close to someone, maybe to lean against them while sitting at their side... Nothing more than that.

I now have competing needs: the need to connect to people, and the need to keep myself safe and alone.

How do the rest of you manage this balancing act, especially in terms of a romantic relationship? After the sadistic abuse I've been through in romantic relationships, I'm terrified of them, but I'm starting to feel like thinking about dating again, and yet I feel stupid and crazy for wanting to be that close to someone, it seems about as smart as putting my hand directly into a fire.

[Laynelove]

How do the rest of you manage this balancing act, especially in terms of a romantic relationship? After the sadistic abuse I've been through in romantic relationships, I'm terrified of them, but I'm starting to feel like thinking about dating again, and yet I feel stupid and crazy for wanting to be that close to someone, it seems about as smart as putting my hand directly into a fire.

It's great that you have recovered to the point where you DO want to connect with people. It doesn't have to be a balancing act forever! As you recover more, your anxiety will reduce and you will learn to trust again more easily.

Those of us that struggle with intimacy are making the assumption from past experiences that ALL relationships wil result in pain, so we make the rule that we should not even try and get close to anyone.

If you work really closely with your therapist to start challenging these assumptions and make really slow and subtle behavioural changes that prove your assumption wrong, you will slowly with time increase your ability to trust and be open with others. This will take a long time, maybe a year...maybe 5...but if you work hard and use repitition you can absolutely change.

If you jump in straight away though and expect that your attitude will all of a sudden change overnight, then that is where you will get burnt.

Good luck, you can be more open to love and you do deserve it!

[AgandFe]

Thank you! It's nice to hear encouraging words about this, and really hard to explain it to someone who doesn't understand the dilemma.

I'm still in therapy, and I'm seeing my T again this week. I've taken a few steps toward being less isolated, maybe baby steps is the way to go.

[arpy1]

i know what you mean, AgandFe, i am similar i think; except for my kids,  i have totally self-isolated over the last four or five months, almost totally for the year before.  i don't exactly feel lonely, but sometimes i wish that someone was with me, yeah, just to lean on or have the odd hug, to talk to a bit.

that's why i like this forum, becos i can have a measure of human contact but with anonymity, which feels safer.   but that no way means i want to do any real life relationships yet; i'm not as far on as you in that.  and even the thought of a 'romantic' relationship is a cause of horror for me, for all the reasons described - just too dangerous. 

weird, how our human needs/wants conflict with our crisis-learned self-protective strategies.  it's as if there's a part of being a human that doesn't apply to me now becos it caused such problems i have had to cut it out of me. for the time being, perhaps. ?

[AgandFe]

That's exactly it. I have a lot of moments in every single day where I feel "not human". I feel like an alien, dropped here among people who chit chat about their lawns for 20 minutes, and trust each other. 

The feeling of "otherness" is way more isolating than just being by myself. I can't relate to people and the sort of things they talk about. I don't really care about the weather outside. Chances are, I didn't even notice it, I was busy having an EF, or trying to make sure I was aware of everyone around me.

If I made /honest/ small talk, it would horrify normal people. My response to: so what's new with you? Would be: well, I rode in an elevator with a man for five floors, and I didn't plan out exactly where and how hard I'd have to hit him to take him down if he tried to grab me, so that's an improvement!

[edited for typos]

Conversation stopper right there...

[arpy1]

yeah, like, 'Hi, Arpy, how are you? i got a promotion at work today, and i am going to spain for my hols and....  ....what did you do?' 'Oh, i'm ok, thanks, i managed to get up and dressed today, and i even did some washing.... yay me!!'   kind of doesn't cut it in the social interaction stakes does it??!!   

i am also like you in the feeling like an alien thing... i never fitted in to normal peoplehood and i am not really that interested in the stuff that seems to interest most folks...   maybe it is simply a case of having had to spend most of our brain power on survival one way or another? there's not a lot left for the day to day.

ho hum...   i wonder what being normal would be for me? perhaps it would be to be able to do more than just survive one day to the next?

[Mendelevium]

At the risk of grating on the ears and eyes of those who prefer traditional grammar, I use singular "they" because it's the most inclusive option I know at this point. If this violates the Posting Style Guide, please let me know the preferred inclusive pronoun to use.


Hi AgandFe (love your username btw),

Honoring my need for independent safety is the key, for me, to authentic connecting with others. In an intimate relationship, well, what Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: "...a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude."

Today I'm enjoying a Sunday alone, because yesterday my partner of 3 years rightly pointed out that I was almost certainly very low on space but just too tired after a long week to feel it. Before meeting me, they'd never been on a vacation alone while in a relationship; last month, they did this on my suggestion and had a very good time. Need for space is something both of us proactively check in about on an ongoing basis. Maybe "normal" couples just work it out somehow, but I don't want what their relationships look like from the outside, so I'm not interested in how they got there.

Varied methods have helped me along the path to this relationship; it's not like I happened upon a line of Rilke then promptly leapt from extreme isolation to where I am now. In some ways, such as with casual but meaningful acquaintanceships, I've really re-wired myself. In others, I'm a proud and unabashed mole-person with a toolbox of practical hacks to meet functional goals. (For instance for meeting the incessant small-talk requirements of the world's rampant lawn connoisseurs, when I deem doing so expedient.)

If my thoughts about specific building blocks of this relationship are of interest to you, let me know. This post is too long already!
(I also deleted reminiscences about being saved by an animal I didn't like after escaping several soul-eviscerating enmeshments simultaneously, because oh my, that animal's role in turning my life around could take up entire screens of unbroken text in tiny font.)