Thank you for your replies! I appreciate you guys for helping me process through this.

Maria Mango: Regarding the people I try to connect with- I am fairly well into adulthood, so the majority of people my age are in romantic relationships and/or raising children. While I superficially know many lovely people, and do some light socializing with them after church, etc; none of them are ever available to get together due to family priorities, which I understand completely. I have been dis-invited from planned outings due to my romantically single status. I have been told “[Event] just sort of became a couples thing, and we wouldn’t want you to feel awkward” or “We thought you’d have someone by now for [husband] to talk to”. I think it is human nature to gravitate towards people in your own “stage” in life, and my stage just doesn’t match up with most others right now.

I do believe I gravitate towards people who take more than they give. I am a nurturer by nature, and my ex husband was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That is one of the main reasons I am choosing not to seek romantic involvement- I do not trust myself to choose a healthy partner yet, and I can not replay my marriage.

Harry, thank you for your words. Funny that you should mention academic or career advancement- I am finishing up a master’s program, and just accepted a promotion, so that is what I’ve been doing for the past three years. I worry, as it comes closer to graduation, that without the “crutch” of academics I will feel the lack of connection in my life more keenly, bringing about my desire to address this now.

Anita, regarding your questions: Several big events in life come to mind. The first was when I was 27, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I was unable to play the roles I was expected to play as a wife, mother, and daughter in law. I was honest about my fatigue, my fear of the big C, my inability to function. My ex (then my husband) called me crazy and lazy.

The second is during the divorce. My ex and I had been having problems for some time, which we hid from family and friends. When he stopped coming home to my son and I, instead practically living with a single woman in a nearby town, I left. The majority of our friends remained friends with him. I was a very difficult person for about a year- I cried most of the time, I was angry, I was struggling to raise our son alone and on welfare. Meanwhile, he was not experiencing these things- he was having parties and going out. Our friends said I needed to “get over it” and said they were tired of defending me. When he began driving intoxicated with my son in the car, and I called the police, they said I was going too far.

I suppose when I replay situations in my life, it is when I draw clear boundaries and allow my sadness/hurt/depression to be seen by others, it is then that I am rejected and left by people who say they love me. When I am doing well, when I am positive, encouraging, and nurturing people enjoy my presence. When I am hurt, ill, depressed, or putting boundaries in place, I am rejected by those people I need to lean on. So I have learned to lean only on myself, but this leaves me with the deep fear that people only love me at my best, so if they see anything less than my best they will abandon me.

Anita,

Thank you! I am cancer free. My thyroid was removed and I have been successfully supplemented and healthy for a number of years.

I appreciate the advice regarding dating! I would love to know more about effectively approaching online dating. The whole process scares me, frankly.

While I can accept that the people who once shared my life were not good for me, what concerns me most is that these are the people I invited into my life and felt safe sharing myself with. This, to me, indicates that I have some work to do to make better connections with people who will accept me on a deeper level- not just for the good I provide but will provide support for me when things are rough in my life. Struggling with major depression is not always an easy task, and though my mood is well controlled with medication and therapy, I am by no means happy and giving every second of every day. Sometimes I need the loving gesture, the friend that says “I’m here”. My current thought process is that I am only acceptable when I am giving, and that I am not worthy to ask or receive in kind. The -best- I can hope for is to be invisible- and that is not how I want my life to play out. But if I don’t learn to reroute this thinking, this is the cycle my life will be stuck in.

Have you had any success rerouting negative thought cycles into a more loving, positive frame of mind?

Anita,

Thank you for the ongoing assistance. I haven’t replied in a few days because I got ill- I certainly wasn’t positive or joyous then! haha. Regarding your questions- I feel I am like you, personally. I seek a more realistic view. I know that my view of the world and others tends to be positive and I see the good in everyone, but my view of myself is negative. So I definitely do focus more on trying to balance out the negative thinking with positive to hopefully ease into a more middle ground. It feels like a weird spot- I have a brain wired for the negative (the depression) and a spirit wired for the positive. So moderation for me is always the goal. After long years of practice, I am now able to sit through and experience the hard feelings, and know they will pass. So no, I do not expect continuous joy. I acknowledge it and enjoy it as it comes, but I know that all feelings come and go in their own time. I think my difficulty is that I struggle to find people that accept both the positive, giving parts of me and the down, needy parts. People enjoy me when I am loving, positive and giving, and then turn away or become angry when I need that encouragement or help. So really I’m looking for ways to grow myself so that I can find and embrace more reciprocal relationships and connections with others.

As a child, I definitely was defined by my accomplishments and successes. I truly believe my parents did as well as they could, and I don’t have a history of childhood trauma, but I was always the “smart” one, the “good” one. My sister was more of a wild child and was in trouble a lot, and my parent’s marriage wasn’t good most of my childhood. So in essence, in my youth invisibility was better. Attention meant you were in trouble, you did something wrong, or someone was mad at you. I was bullied a lot in school, so it was similar- no attention was a good thing. Back then, this attitude had a purpose and worked well for me. As an adult, however, it is not working well for me and I want to change my perceptions. Over the years I have grown a lot, but this is the attitude that I am stuck on. What do you do about childhood perceptions if you can’t let them go?