Screwed up again

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I lost some friends over the past few weeks or who I thought were friends. I have family that want nothing to do with me. I have a family member that I had never met and been talking to daily for a little while. Met them last week. Now, they want nothing to do with me. I can't figure out what I said or did. This just makes me hate myself more.

I'm sorry you are losing friends. I know how painful that is, I have lost some very close ones recently. They just stopped being my friend. It's very painful, it hurt me to the core. But don't hate yourself for it. It's easy to do that but try not to. That just makes it feel worse.

Last edited by skibum on 08 May 2014, 6:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Aw, I'm sorry you are feeling pain right now! Many of us here have been though rejection like that. I hope you feel better soon.

Don't hate yourself; them rejecting you doesn't mean you are a bad person.

How do you know they want nothing to do with you? Could it be that they are just busier than they have been lately?

If you are sure, it won't hurt to ask them what you did, for future reference if nothing else. If they already don't want anything to do with you, the worst that could happen is that they won't tell you, which leaves you exactly where you are now anyway. The best thing that could happen is that you can explain to them that you didn't know that was a bad thing to do, and they will want something to do with you again. So definitely worth a shot!

The trick is to get useful information. The problem is that the only person that can give it to you seems to be wanting to avoid you.

You can leave a message, write a letter, or send an email and ask;

I was wondering if you could do me a big favor. You may know that I am a little deficient in the area of social skills. To me it seems if the friendship we had is moving on to other areas. I was wondering if this was a natural change that results from new interests and activities or if it was the result of something I did or said. I have no problem if things move along, I just don't want to miss an opportunity to learn if I am inadvertently hurting people.

I would really appreciate your honest and candid feedback.

That's actually a good idea.

I'm also sorry for your loss. Please don't hate yourself. You deserve better.

Sorry to hear it.

- the story of my life.

At least you among people with the same traits here.

I also struggle with self-hatred but I have started fighting it lately.

You may not have said or done anything wrong - that family member may be out of the picture for the same reason s/he was never in the picture in the first place. I find parsing out peoples' reasons to be exhausting and unproductive.

I used to make AND lose friends very easily. Now, I still lose friends easily but my social anxiety and agoraphobia make meeting new people really hard for me. I never know why people leave me, but nowadays when that happens I feel my mind cutting them out of my thoughts completely. I no longer want anything to do with people who are uninterested in me. I have learned that I actually would rather be lonely.

Try to direct your anger at the people who dropped you. Try writing about your anger in a journal or something. The truth is, if you have done anything wrong, you either didn't know you were doing it or you didn't know it was wrong b/c of your condition that you were born with and which you should not be judged for (not even by yourself). If you did something wrong, someone should have told you, not simply dropped you, and the anger you feel belongs to them. It really helps to recognize that the way you have been treated is wrong.

Hating ourselves can be a way for us to vent our anger without incurring further negative attention from those who mistreat us. But all we end up doing is bullying ourselves so others don't have to. And that's unhealthy and it hurts. You can be angry at a person without telling that person directly, that's what I use a journal for.

Try to forgive yourself for things you can't control and be your own best friend. Think of all the good times you've had by yourself. Tell yourself things that you like about yourself and things that you know you are good at (drawing? math? imitating sounds? running? anything at all), and try to remember that we all have a right to exist, simply because we DO exist, and we don't owe the world anything in exchange. We don't ask to be born, after all, and we all deserve all the same rights and respect as everyone else.

It’s hard to go through the separation of loosing friends. The most common reason for blaming ourselves is an attempt to establish control. It makes us think if we change something the objective can be achieved. But there are a lot of reasons why people stop being friends maybe they’re really busy, other problems in different areas of their lives, maybe they just don’t have a place for you anymore in theirs. Friendship is complex so naturally there are a lot of reasons why it fails or doesn’t work well beyond the two people involved. If you are unable to identify what you did wrong then the fault most likely lies with one of the other reasons a friendship can fail rather than your own actions.

Alternatively if analysis isn't your strong suit you can note down all the actions you take, the effects and reactions in relationships. It's provides a helpful template of what actions to use to get the reaction you want. For example in school I critiqued someone's work it was horrible and I said this bluntly along with noting all the errors. I was expecting a 'thank you that's helpful' but it wasn't the reaction I got.