Feeling loved a little bit

[greendreamdays]

I've been feeling loved a little bit lately. It's not a full feeling, but I've just noticed that instead of the constant gnawing pain of loneliness and disconnectedness even when I'm around other people, I notice it has started to feel neutral, then I started feeling a little bit loved. I assume the love was always there. I'm fortunate to have people in my life who show me that they care about me except I can almost never feel it, so there's a part of me that feels like no one sees me and no one cares except I know rationally that is not true.

Lately, a combination of connecting with other students in class, this forum, and some conversations with family have brought me just a little bit closer to feeling connected with some people sometimes. I don't struggle with social skills, but most of the time I feel like a block of ice or a slab of metal when I'm around others. I can't smile at people when I see them, I don't know why, it just doesn't come to me. I care about people a lot but I almost never have warm feelings toward anyone. I almost never feel connect to, or understood by, anyone. It's a big deal when it happens because it's extremely rare.

My GP is retiring so I requested my medical records. I love looking at my medical records and looking through the summary notes because it feels like someone cares about me. I often have fantasized about going to medical hospitals (not psych hospitals) because I would feel taken care of. I used to compulsively donate blood so I could feel vulnerable and be touched while also emotionally and physically purging without actually bloodletting myself into a drain.

I have a note from one of my doctors, it's handwritten and it just has a summarized list of things to do that we talked about during the appointment. I have kept it on my wall and it was one of the first things in a long time that actually made me feel a little bit loved. I like looking at my medical records because it makes me feel like people care. I love hearing what people say about me, how I looked, how I acted, what I said, and their evaluation of my health so I can feel like my life is not completely made up and it's not all in my head. I have a lot of health anxiety.

I fantasize about crashing my car on the way to class because class is often stressful. I need to use my hands for lab so I fantasize about breaking my wrists so I could have medical leave. Except I know it would only put me behind and make me feel worse. And I feel like if I died by suicide my friends and family would never forgive me and it would only be something I would regret. I'm afraid if I attempted and was unsuccessful that they would be very mad at me too except I would be alive to hear it and I would have to face the fact that I hurt them again.

I have been having extremely low points in the day where I have no energy to work on school and I will panic and feel extremely stressed because I'm not studying. Then I will talk myself down, and in a hour or less I'll feel completely fine and I will study and it will feel good and interesting. Then I will be on my way to class and I'll start to panic again and think maybe I'll crash the car. Except it's not my car, and there is nowhere I can crash it where it doesn't also likely put someone else in danger. I could never do that.

Then I will be in class and rediscover that I am actually a very good student and I understand the material very well and perform well. And I wonder why I ever doubted myself. Then I go home and progressively get sadder and sadder in the evening. I'm trying to process my emotions more fluidly, feeling them as they arise instead of pushing them away. But when I'm around other people I just shut them off and I can't usually turn it back on again because it never feels safe. I only show what is most appropriate for the situation. I find it's easier than explaining my rapidly changing moods often caused by thought distortions. I think I appear much more stable than I really am because it doesn't scare people away as easily. But being completely closed off doesn't make me friends either. I have almost no emotional permanence. I've just had a lot of therapy and over rationalized things.

I have a few friends at school who are really affectionate toward me and very supportive. I feel like whenever I go I often have people who really adore me, almost obsessively. I never really understood it, it kind of feels like love-bombing sometimes, but without the abuse. Which maybe is just love? Or maybe another unhealthy dynamic I haven't learned to navigate fully yet. I have a lot of support from the other students at school. I have no idea why other than that I know the material well and I'm nice to others and like to help where I can. There are other helpful students, but I feel like I'm a class favorite for no reason. But I don't feel like they know me or really like me for who I am, just what I know and what I can do. I definitely have a history of being the "golden child" in the family. But it definitely did not save me from abuse or make me feel like I belonged. I just felt lost in plain sight.

I don't know what my point is saying all of this. I just hope that someone might read this and understand. It's a big deal to feel a little bit loved, probably the first time it was more than a flicker since I was in eating disorder treatment. I was there for a long time and I frequently fantasized about going back because it was the only place I could feel that people cared. I know people care outside treatment or hospitals, but that was the last place I could feel it. But now I'm starting to feel it a little bit again. I've been so starved for it. I don't expect it to stick around but I hope it does. I'm just trying to bask in this little tiny stream of love that I can finally feel after being in the dark for so long.

[Scars]

[[[(((greendreamdays)))]]]
absolutely hold on to this feeling of being loved as long as you can
there is a big difference in knowing it and feeling it
the most important love is self-love
work on strengthening that

sending hugs and warm wishes for healing and peace,
scars

[greendreamdays]

Hi, Scars. Thank you.

As a little update... the person who was love-bombing me kind of was an unhealthy dynamic and she has kind of disappeared when I told herI was uncomfortable with her sexual comments toward me. She apologized and ghosted me. And honestly I'm glad. She was not sober and making a bunch of sexual comments to me during class. I didn't mind at the time, I kind of liked it. I didn't want to sleep with her and I didn't say anything to encourage her behavior but she kept going. It made me feel good in the moment, desirable. But the next day I felt violated. I remembered that the comments she was making was inappropriate and she should not have done that. I'm uncomfortable being around her and now I am anxious wondering if she will be in class but she hasn't been.

The night after she made those comments I felt really close to her. I told her a bunch of things I haven't told many people. I don't get close to people, I don't let them in. But we have a lot of the same mental health struggles and I felt like we bonded. It make me a little anxious opening up but it seemed like the right thing to do in the moment. Then the next day I felt really uncomfortable about the whole situation, told her I was uncomfortable with her comments and I haven't heard from her since. I realized I probably overshared with her too but there's no point in regretting it. I can't take it back and since we probably won't be seeing much of each other it doesn't really matter to me.

I have noticed a pattern in my life, people will make sexual jokes about me, sexually/verbally harass me and I won't necessarily think much of it in the moment, maybe I like it, maybe it makes me uncomfortable. Then I feel really close and want to share everything with them, I'll feel like we're connected. Then I feel violated, remember/realize it was harassment and I stop communication and/or leave the situation.

It happened with a coworker at one of my last jobs. He made a joke alluding to raping/ physically assaulting me and everyone laughed. I was mortified. I thought I must be overreacting. He was the one in charge, I was supposed to trust him. Then I weirdly fell in love with him and I fantasized about our life together. I never do that. I experience romantic attraction very rarely. I left the job because I was so anxious for my shift knowing that he would be there that I was vomiting and my boss told me to go home. I left the job, eventually contacted HR and reported him for sexual harassment. I don't know what happened to him or any of them after that, I was long gone. But there was a long while afterward where I would feel like I was intensely in love with him. I feel like trauma bonding is one of the only bridges I have found to emotional intimacy. That guy was such a master manipulator. I don't have much trouble shutting people down who are behaving outright inappropriately, but when people sneak into the grey area, then slowly turn up the heat, its like it's impossible to get away from. Like that metaphor of a frog being slowly boiled in water. Put a frog in hot water and it will jump out immediately. But turn up the heat slowly and you can boil it alive. It's a horrible metaphor, I love frogs, but it's the easiest way to explain how it feels.

Maybe there's a part of me that want's to be harassed because then I will feel wanted. I know it's not a good thing but I'm so emotionally isolative, sometimes it's the only thing that penetrates my armor. And at first it feels like a warm light after a period of darkness, but then the things settle and what is revealed is very ugly. I'm getting much quicker at recognizing it now which I feel is a good sign. I didn't realize how often this has happened to me. We have a small class, and that's 2 students now, who have made unwelcome advances toward me that were clearly inappropriate and unprofessional, they both did that on their last day of class and they haven't shown up since. Both women. I have to admit that even recounting it makes me feel desirable and attractive and it feels good even if I know it's wrong. I know there is nothing wrong with being ugly but I feel so overburdened with shame and disgust with myself that I feel like darkness is leaking out of my pores all the time I am frequently amazed that people are not immediately disgusted just by being around me, by my physicality, and my energy. I am very clean all the time, I have good hygiene and I am constantly worried that other people think I smell disgusting. It took me a while to realize that many people were actually comfortable being around me and maybe even enjoy my presence and are not just being polite and fighting the urge to vomit.

Not having those people in the class I feel much more comfortable much safer, and am working on building healthier relationships with people who do not harass me. So yes I do feel like I'm able to let love in, but what constitutes as love changes. I wish I could just trust what I feel without feeling like I'm walking into a minefield of undiscovered or unresolved relational trauma.

[Scars]

[[[(((greendreamdays)))]]]
thank you for the update

if i ever tell someone about the internal family in my head i panic afterwards and feel unsafe.
i want so desperately to find a deep connection, someone who understands, but i keep sabataging the relationship and feeling more alone.
my inner critic reprimands me and i spiral into self-hate.

i don't know what the answer is
maybe the children in me will have to grow up and find someone worthy of trust
i'm just not there yet

scars

[greendreamdays]

Well I don't exactly remember writing that last response but as another update I reported her and both she and the instructor were expelled/fired. I quit the class but plan on resuming classes in a different subject at the same school when the next semester starts. I feel like such a failure for quitting another thing for the millionth time. But this time it was for different reasons than most. I didn't lose passion for the subject, I was being harassed. And now that I've had time away from classes to think about it my priorities have changed anyway and maybe this new subject will fit me better anyway.

I often try to hide when bad things happen after I make initially positive posts because I don't want to bring others down who might have been able to find something uplifting in it, but I also owe it so myself to be honest with how things are really going, and not try to maintain a more "perfect" facade just to try to make others happy.

At one point I almost deleted the original post because I was so embarrassed at just how bad things had gotten and felt silly for believing I was feeling loved. But maybe it wasn't silly and I was supported by a class that wanted to see me succeed in something I was not actually burnt out in pursuing for once. I tried something new and it turned out differently than it had other times. And now I'm taking another step forward even though it feels like it will be a lifetime before I start classes and even longer before I finish them. I elected to pursue a longer program so I'll be in school longer than I would be if I stuck with the last class. I keep on trying to tell myself that I can succeed instead of tearing myself apart for wanting something better for myself.