I’ve had a bit of a rough go with it in terms of being raised in a bad environment, not properly socialised properly early in life, and to top it off my partner of 7 years just ended things because of some pretty nasty issues between us that I felt were perfectly fixable.
Everything as it is, I’ve started having issues with feelings of being disposable. Like I don’t matter, like I’m nothing and I can’t expect people to stick around, like they’re waiting for a reason to abandon me.
On a logical level that doesn’t hold much water, but at this point I’m starting to wonder how to fight these feelings if they come from very factual places. How can I justify the thought that I inheritly have worth, if the reality of the situation is that I keep being treated like garbage.
I’m doing all the right stuff, seeing a psych, prioritising recover, actually have a pretty decent inner voice going, but the feelings are still really strong and it’s hard to fight them. I’m not really sure how to handle this.
What helped me was roughly two beliefs:
- That “worth” is not necessary, life is/humans are entirely fine existing without any concept of it
- There are other people equally “unworthy” as me (or more) and I’d tell them it’s fine, so why wouldn’t I extend the same to me?
Could you be confusing the facts with your feelings? You thought the relationship issues were fixable but the partner did not. Were they just saying that as an excuse to abandon you? You could look at this differently. Everyone gets to decide if a relationship is where they want to invest their life. If you honor their right to do this, you could stop looking at it as if the entire enterprise was a great big abandonment of you. That really does sound like your take on it. We’ve all had relationships end. I’ve been on both ends of it. I didn’t see it through the lens of abandonment because I don’t have that upbringing.
But you seem to insist that the facts align with your feelings, therefore your feelings are pretty legitimate and so you don’t know what to do. It really sounds like your feelings are 100% in charge of you here. They don’t have to be.
Not to pry, but could you talk more about what actually led to your now previous relationship ending? Like what was the situation as objectively as you can describe it. Sounds like it might have been a last-straw kind of thing but it would be helpful to have a better picture
I’ll try to be objective, everything here is either the objective truth or something both of us came to a consensus on.
It was a large and complex issue, last straw was I attempted to communicate that we would need to talk out our issues before we started co-living again, she took it as she wouldn’t be allowed to come back to the house without that talk right now. I ran that message past a few people before I sent it because we’ve had some nasty communication issues in the past, they did not think it was a reasonable reading of said message. It certainly not my intention.
We’ve also had a lot of issues on and off. I’m the kind of person that doesn’t mind that and is happy to work on this stuff, she’s got some anxiety issues and tends to avoid grappling with things. It was going okay for the first couple of years, and I was a much more forgiving, go with the flow kind of person back then. I started to feel like my priorities and needs weren’t important to her, chiefly because when I tried to communicate them to her she would sort of treat it as unimportant as a first reaction, then if I pressed the issue she would concede the importance, but then never make actual progress.
The most recent batch of issues came last year when there was a construction crew basically rebuilding the entirety of next door. They did a significant amount of damage to our property, and the noise was extremely loud from 7-2:30. She got home at 3ish. I needed some time to relax after the figurative siege of noise, she has dyspraxia and won’t turn off the anxiety and will use the anxious energy for housework. I also have moderate to severe PTSD regarding noises like that from childhood. It wasn’t a good combination. She also wouldn’t even acknowledge the problem for the first maybe 5 months, and basically didn’t do any of the legal work regarding the issues.
I started to have a breakdown in maybe August last year, where I stopped being able to do housework so easily, her answer to that was to force herself to do the things I wasn’t capable of at the time. I still kick myself for allowing that to happen, because it built up more antipathy that she never communicated, and even at the time I knew things going this way was a possibility.
Even up to the end we cared for each other, but how we were interacting was bad for both of us. My main frustration isn’t that we had these issues, but that I didn’t think they were insurmountable at all. People and relationships need work, and we both agreed on that in general, but the work discussed never materialised.
For my part my faults in this were I was too forgiving at the start, and too frustrated at the end. I don’t blame myself for that, the issues next door basically made me regress into the abused child on some level, but it did definitely lead to a lack of communication skills, and patience. I did okay, but not great.
Breaking up with someone doesn’t require a well thought out argument, it can just be a deep feeling that the relationship can’t continue. You also will never get the full mindset of what the other person was thinking when they broke up with you.
And in the end, a breakup doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, but that the two of you may not be a good match. And that is fine.
I find it hard, but try some introspection to find what your mental and physical needs are (hobbies, bodily movement, experiencing nature, whatever it may be) and then see how you can meet those needs on your own.
Once you start to get a better grasp on yourself and your own needs without external validation, youll be closer to the zone of “happy on my own/loving yourself”.
Then you can start to fit someone else into the picture, be it a romantic partner or more friends.
If you do have any close friends you know you can trust, lean on them. Tell them where you are mentally, and let them know they don’t need to be there always, but when you’re in the shits they will be better prepared to support you
And always remember, baby steps are still steps forward. (Also, if you have access to therapy/counseling, please reach out to someone professional)
It is a process, but try to learn to be happy with having yourself and what you have for yourself, and nothing more. Then everything is good on your baseline living. Any addition to that is a bonus, and if that bonus disappears, the baseline is still something you are happy with.
Stop seeking the approval of crappy people. Let them go, and stop trying to think you can ‘win’ them over. You can’t. You never had them in the first place.
I’ve been here too. I just kept interacting with crappy people. Good people won’t abandon you.
You are disposable, and there is nothing wrong with that. Thinking that you can make yourself indispensable, is where you go wrong.
Are you me? Fuck.
The best I’ve got is to be more selfish and be okay with the idea that people and relationships are temporary. When a relationship feels like an event and not a forgone conclusion it doesn’t hurt as bad when it ends. It also helped me with grounding myself and reinforcing that my emotions are not always mirrored and are not factual.
I completely understand your logic there, but I’m not sure it’s something I can become accustomed to. I feel like I’ve got a similar viewpoint with the idea of death at least, the inevitability of things passing, but my issue seems more the idea of my own inadequacy, the fear I may not deserve connection with other people.
Flip the perspective. For example, you felt like the issues with your partner could be worked on and they didn’t work on them, they just left. So rather than wondering if you deserve a connection with them, consider if they deserve a connection with you. You’re putting work into the relationship, trying to figure things out, and they didn’t put in that effort. If they aren’t willing to put in the effort for you, then they don’t deserve a relationship with you. Surround yourself with people who value and work for a relationship with you. I don’t mean this in like a “test people to see how much they’ll put up with” way, but in a “find people who match the effort and care that you put into the relationship”
If you approach a relationship from the perspective of not being good enough and having to always earn their love and care then you’re always going to give too much and try to take something they can’t give you (self love)
Also, try to remember that you’re going through a rough time right now. The pain of the relationship ending is still raw, so of course everything else is going to feel more shit too. Keep moving forward, working on and caring for yourself. It will get better, so don’t give up
You are absolutely correct, I suppose it’s gotten a bit weird because the relationship was super odd regarding the intentions communicated vs the actual work put in. It was made things very muddy and it’s hard to understand my part in what went wrong, and reflect on if and what I need to change regarding my own behaviour. I don’t think I’ve experienced a situation where everything got this messy before.
Of course you deserve it. What happened with me is, I started noticing things that before I was too caught up in my feels to notice. For example, mean girls/boys are just another sort of “pick me.”
You absolutely deserve connection with others, we all do. There’s an expectation that you and I have that really hurts us and makes that hard to accept though. I wish I had more concrete or resonating advice to give. Honestly it was a lot of therapy and work just to get to where I am.
You deserve connection and you deserve love.
The abandonment issues are a huge challenge. Empathy by way of anecdote: my abandonment issues as a child were so bad that I couldn’t tolerate the idea of limited edition breakfast cereals. “What if I really like this cereal and they stop making it?!”
It took me a lot of time, professional help, and mindfulness. Understanding my attachment style helped a lot. The super short, abstract spiel: attachment style is mostly set in stone; we can only work on our reactions. A positive inner voice is a huge step.
Everything as it is, I’ve started having issues with feelings of being disposable… I can’t expect people to stick around, like they’re waiting for a reason to abandon me.
That shit is going to happen. Stick with me here, because this is going to take a dark turn, but I found what works for me. You are disposable to most of the world. And you absolutely cannot expect people to stick around. To wish otherwise invites disaster. Graveyards are full of irreplaceable people.
You can, however, be such a positive addition to your physical circle (with enough self-awareness and boundaries to prevent getting exploited) such that your circle regard it as unthinkable to be without you. That positive inner voice you’re working on… great! But it’s not going to be one big thing that makes everything work better. It’s going to be lots of little (and a few big) changes that turn the ship around. Give the self-work a couple years. You may not even notice the changes, but they all add up.
In understanding your attachment style, you can more easily find people who are compatible. Spoiler alert: avoidant attachment tends to trigger people with abandonment issues; anxious-avoidant attachment styles tend to burn everything down around them.
Calm your reactivity, improve your communication and self-awareness, grow your mindfulness and acting with intention. Non-violent communication (NVC) is the kind of thing that pays dividends everywhere in life. As is mindfulness. Develop a consistent meditation routine.
In my experience, very few people are looking for the relationship exit. Those that are, you didn’t need them around.
Edit: forgot a word
Love yourself. It’s pretty easy to love yourself enough to say yes, not easy to say no to things we should. It starts with boring, mundane things. Love yourself enough to say no to the large piece of cake and yes to the banana. Love yourself enough to make yourself brush your teeth when you’re really tired and it’s just once. Enough to choose water over soda, a salad over a burger. Enough to look in the mirror and say, “I’m enough.” “I’ve got this.” “Thank you for loving me.” “Seems like you’ve got complex feelings, let’s sit with those and work through them.”
In your experience, does fighting the feelings help? Answer not using your logic, but your felt experience.
Odds are, fighting doesn’t help. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here asking for help.
You hurt because you care. You care about belonging, about contributing, about being open to others. And, since you care about this and you’ve experienced their opposites, you hurt.
We can’t get rid of this kind of hurt. Would you even want to? Would you want to be indifferent to other people?
I’m not trying to be mean or brutal. I’m just trying to get to a place where this hurt is a meaningful part of your life and not something you keep fighting (and failing to defeat).
So what can you do? You could notice your thoughts as thoughts. You can try giving your brain a name and thanking it for informing you about the things it informs you throughout the day. This doesn’t make thoughts disappear, but it helps seeing them as thoughts and not reality.
You can also imagine that you carry your sensations, memories, moods, thoughts, images, etc. in your hands, as if you were carrying a delicate flower. This is a way to honor your life without running a way from it and also without being entirely determined by it.
Finally, you can ask yourself what kind of person you want to be, what you stand for. What are the qualities of being that you would like to adopt in your life? You can discover this intuitively by wondering what you care for. If rejection hurts, you likely value inclusion. If abandonment hurts, you likely value consistency and kindness.
The task the becomes accepting our current reality (thanking our brain for its suggestions and holding our whole life experience preciously) and taking our next step with the qualities of being that we value.
If you’re curious about this perspective, let me know and I can tell you more about it :)
People will tell you what they’d do or what works for them. You can get ideas that way but nobody but you can tell you what works for you.
For sure, but I’ll take potential avenues of investigation over nothing right now. Appreciate you making sure I’m not going into this with the wrong mindset though
I don’t know if my comment is going to help or not I just want you to know you’re heard.
I appreciate it mate
“Hey Doctor, everybody ignores me all the time! What can I do?”
“Next one, please”
Why do you need them to stay?
Because I loved them haha
But in general it’s less about that particular relationship and trying to convince myself that going forward the results of a relationship aren’t just going to be the same disregard as I’ve experienced in the past.
I don’t think you can fight it. I made peace with my loneliness and got closer to myself. I went inward.
