Does anyone else get this?

[applestopears]

I survived many years of my father's verbal mental physical emotional abuse of me and sexual abuse from others. Also badly bullied at my primary school and faced some milder bullying when starting secondary school. I am not confident with people and feel a great deal of shame and a sense of "if people get too close they will find out how rubbish I am." When I make a mistake around people, (eg inadevertantley offending a friend) I start feeling "I'm bad, dirty, horrible etc."

Now this is the odd bit- when people are kind to me, I find it really hard to take. I feel a sense of shame and like I just want to get away from that person as soon as possible. I actually feel physically unclean. Don't get me wrong- it isn't that I desire people to be horrid to me, and in fact I am very sensitive to when people are unkind to me and have trouble regulating my emotions not to freak out or get very angry. But when people are kind I just feel flooded with shame and self hatred.

I can be shy and struggle to make eye contact- I always have and yet if I ever admit to shyness, people are very surprised- maybe because I ma not quiet or "Mousy" with it- I can speak my mind. and I used to sing, had classical voice training etc and entered competitions and recitals. But I am constantly uneasy with people. I have many days when even people I would consider friends, those I sort of enjoy being around (sometimes when am ok-ish), feel frightening to me and I avoid them- avoid phone calls, messages etc I am very fearful of strangers, people I don't know well- my father used to get cross with me and say cutting things about it. But because am very confident seeming in other ways, I would get told am being aloof or difficult or anti social.

am scared of my friends leaving me but at same time I feel afraid to talk to them most days. This is 90% of the time how I feel but some days I am more aware of it than others or it can get worse at some times than others.

[Lorelai]

Hi applestopears,

I can completely understand what you are talking about. I deal with similar issues when people say something positive about me, yet I also fear losing the relationship I have with that person. I too keep myself very closed off and do not talk to people very often. I think it is just something that is engrained due to the abuse that has been endured.

Please know that you are not alone!

[there]

Hi, applestopears,
I agree with Lorelai.

I’ve been trying to learn that the abusers wanted me to feel uneasy. To lack confidence , esteem in myself. Most likely because that’s what they are like inside. IMO.

I experience the fear in ways that aren’t that reasonable, considering my personality. I have a little breakthrough when I look up a phone number, then actually call the person I’ve been missing. I pushed myself to phone in a takeout order today.

For me, there’s withdrawal and retreat in pulling back from people. I’m doing my best to speak up more, with mixed results, but that’s progress, I guess.

For me, the hardships from abuse and illness made me untrusting of happiness or joy. Maybe your difficulties left you untrusting of and uncomfortable with kindness.

The truth is we deserve happiness and kindness.

Hope anything I said helps.

[Geckoking]

I get that. Less so now than when I was younger. But I definitely understand what you mean and still have that feeling. Almost like I know if they see the real me they realise their mistake and what a worthless failure I am. Obviously this isn't true about me or anyone. But that's how I feel...

[dancingfish]

Yes, it makes sense to me. Find it very hard to trust people and accept kindness, too.

In my own context I understand this is likely from a mix of things. One of the ones that stands out is that there were people who said they loved us, albeit never in a loving manner, and they were meant to take care of us (I'm talking about parents/guardians). Instead they were one of the most frightening things in our lives, which was also isolated from other people. It's very confusing for a young mind, which tends to deal with it in various ways. (Blanking out some memories, or perhaps thinking of that person as two or more people in order to make sense of their very contradictory behaviour.)

I had one abuser who taught me that the world and everyone in it was very dangerous, and to show in any way that I didn't believe this angry ranting was dangerous for me, from them. They were dangerous in other ways too. Then bullying in school and perhaps you learn you can't trust friends nor necessarily the teachers who are meant to protect you from this.

It provides a whole lot of reasons for our mind to instinctively distrust other people. And when we experience kindness, I think we distrust that too. What trick is this? It is something that makes us more vulnerable, and vulnerability can be thought of by our looking-out-for-danger brains as more danger. In addition if someone is being kind, in a way they're also saying we're valued and worthy human beings. But to think or feel this was also once dangerous - it went against what our abusers liked to tell us, and insisted we believe. Kindness is in defiance of what they would say, and in defiance was danger too.

So I guess I'm trying to say that what happens to you makes perfect sense to me. :) That also there is a way through it though, with enough time (and happy times with actual kind people, from a counsellor to new friends/family, which is so important I think to create new experiences over the old patterns) and self-awareness and questioning. That's one part of the healing process.

Still on my way there, myself. ;) It helped me to be aware of why and how it happens, and I still find myself having new epiphanies as more connections are made. Lifelong distrust kept us safe, once, and to let that slowly go can be hard.

A note on shyness - although it's called this, I think that word is used to cover so many types of emotion. Really it's a reticence from being open and social around other people, which can be simply from being slightly unsure of oneself/a new situation, to full on social anxiety for various reasons. Again it makes sense, to me.

[coconuts]

What dancingfish said. I agree with so much. We had to work so hard to protect ourselves from a very different set of rules. Its okay if we are still adjusting to this new understanding and learning to trust in a world which has seldom given us reason to.

Coconuts

[Josco]

I too find accepting kindness and help very difficult. I don’t know why. I lack self confidence. Dancingfish’s comments have a truth for me. I grew up with a single mother who had a very authoritarian style. She could be very boastful to others about the good things I did. Her friends would compliment me on how well I was doing. At home behind the closed doors she was a strict disciplinarian who punished for minor misdemeanours.

(name removed)