When people care

Hey @The-red-centaur I totally acknowledge the frustration. It is something I've witnessed in quite a few people, myself included once upon a time. Best explanation I've ever found is this:

So pls don't think that there's something inherently wrong with you. In fact I think it's a super common experience for us when we're healing to come across things like this, where goodness or joy then triggers shame and self-loathing... Best way I've found to conceptualise it is in terms of the fact that we're creatures of habit, and our survival systems run on habit too. And so sometimes we're not in the habit of accepting compliments, and maybe have had to build a habit of ignoring compliments or ignoring insults disguised as compliments, or something like that. For example, for the experience you shared above, I'd guess that maybe in the past someone important to you would only show you positive affect if they wanted something? Or maybe would give back-handed compliments or immediately undermine them perhaps? Absolute guesswork but yeah - totally normal, but toally sucky thing for you to be experiencing.

One thing I tried to do when I was working on this in myself was to try to remind myself that I can trust my friends, I can try to see myself through their eyes cos they're my friends for a reason... and that thinking that they're saying those things but don't actually mean them was actually not a nice way of thinking of them. That's me though, your mileage may vary! I hope it gives you a lil insight at least, and happy to unpack it further with you if you think it could help!

Hugs to you hun 💜🫂

@Jynx it's not necessarily the compliments. It's the fact that people care.

I think my internal system believes I don't deserve love or support. And that I'm unworthy of such.

And also all the people that have "showed" or pretended they cared have severely hurt me in the past. So trusting people that do so is so hard.

Aye gotcha @The-red-centaur and makes sense, I think it's along the same lines though right? The idea that they care is discordant with your sense of feeling worthless. It's really, really hard to trust people when we've been betrayed, ostracised, or let down by significant relationships. We're experiential learners, and our survival systems doubly so - so getting close to people or having them care about us can feel like a threat. I think this is where stuff like exposure and response prevention therapy can work wonders, it's basically re-teaching our survival systems that it's okay to be vulnerable, trust people, etc.... Maybe next time this happens, it'll hurt a little less, and there'll be a little piece of you that can be receptive to it - all a matter of us taking little steps forward at a time.

I'm gonna be logging off soon so I will say goodnight, but not before I send you a big squishy hug!🫂💜

(And just so you know, I'm sending it cos I think you deserve it, regardless of what your brain might say otherwise!)

@The-red-centaur I wouldn't say it triggers me, but I really find it hard to believe when people compliment me, not that that happens very often. People showing the care is even rarer. One of the reasons I'm struggling so much at the moment is that 2 years ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and still... 2 years later... no one checks in to see how I'm going or ever asks me how I'm doing with it. It brough back a lifetime of finding it very difficult to trust that anyone cares about me back big time! I honestly don't know how I would have got through this far without the support from my partner. Even then, all I think about is how much its put her through because of me and I f

So I dont think people make an effort to show the care if they don't. Even a small effort means at least the care enough to make that small effort. I dont know if this helps you at all. Its so hard to believe people care when you haven't experienced it too often in the past, but as I said, if they really didn't care at all, they wouldnt try at all.

Hopefully its a lot more than discomfort with you to find it so triggering. Hopefully by talking about it with others you can work out exactly why it is so triggering for you. We all deserve to feel like we are worthy of some care and attention from other people. Sometimes we just need to work so hard to keep believing that, but it is definitely true.