Hi Anita,

It’s interesting you bring up volunteering with elderly individuals, as I recently started helping some elderly people at my church with various things!  It started with one lady who needed raking done when she had COVID.  I’m always trying to find opportunities for my teenager to help in the community so we loaded up and went out to help, and we keep running into these types of needs.

I am proud of the internal work I’ve done, but right now it doesn’t feel like it’s enough if I’m continuing to lose people I care about and I don’t know why.  I feel like in adult relationships people should be able to tell one another things or have requests and that be okay, it shouldn’t be friendship-ending.  But in my case, it usually is.  Do other people have this experience or is it just me?  I feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells, and it makes me very hesitant to even want to befriend others ( and that’s an internal negative self thought type situation that I continue to work on).   I recognize that to give in to that mindset would be self-defeating and also wouldn’t build the life I’m looking to build.  I guess I currently have an “Instagram life”-  people tell me how  much they respect me for the things I do (like traveling solo, for example), but if I had a really sad day I’d have nobody to call.  Hence me seeking feedback from an internet forum.  Is this a common issue for all adults at this point, this lack of actual connection?  Are relationships as a whole more superficial these days?  I didn’t think so, people share these things with me without issue, but I don’t really know anymore.  I wonder if I’m inadvertently teaching people they can expect support from me, to the point where if I’m not available when called upon that’s offensive.  I do feel that could have been a factor in my most recent friend leaving.  But that’s not a dynamic I want to feed- I want relationships where I can attend to my own self and that be okay as well, that my health is supported.

Me asking about the possibility of connection earlier is quite a silly question to ask, looking back- how could somebody say “nope! Hopeless!”  🙂  but I have observed close knit families and other people with successful relationships and I have wondered how much my early experiences may be affecting my current ability to healthily connect, and I’m not sure if others have been through that same kind of thought process.