*Rejection* causing feelings that i don't understand!

[Sienna]

Ok, so im not really sure where to start, but ill try to keep it short (as i know my posts are quite rambley and long)
I was gonna talk to T about this, and I will, but I'm struggling.
If anyone has any information about this sort of stuff, about how those with CPTSD may feel when rejected, i would really appreciate it.
I may be trying to intellectualise but i need to understand these feelings I'm having.

i never thought i felt this way about rejection, but the last rejection i had years ago, i never dealt with, and i was still friends with benefits with my Narc boyfriend of the time.

After narc X left, i started to have feelings for this other man.
They weren't there for a while, only, now looking back, I think i always liked him to some degree.
I finally told this person who has become a good friend (or so i hope!, I'm still distrustful), about these feelings, as she told me that she thought i liked another guy and i told her i liked someone else and she guessed who.
Then it became more real as it was out there.

My feelings grew, and so did my fantasies of this guy, and i let myself fantasise and think about him, and i let myself enjoy having these feelings again for someone, that i never thought i would feel again.
This was in part because this woman friend said that she thinks that, despite the age difference, if he realised he sub consciously liked me (as she thought he did), he would probably go out with me, despite the age gap, and she said I'm wise beyond my years and very mature. (which was an amazing compliment)

I thought i was not letting him know that i liked him through body lang etc. because my body language doesnt show how I'm feeling inside- there is a dissconnect and i just don't know how to flirt or use body language to let someone know I'm interested in them.
Turned out, he did know (and i was worried that this friend of mine betrayed my trust and told him)

Anyway...he told me over face book chat that he likes being friends.
And i knew i would dread it if i found out that he didnt like me back, and i have cried about it before, when i thought that he didnt like me, only, i didnt know just how much i would be upset.
I was so upset, and so scared waiting for him to tell me what he was trying to tell me via Facebook chat.

I asked my inner child what she was scared of but i still didnt know. I was scared of the answer no though for sure. Now i think my inner child is showing me her fear, the fear that she couldnt show me that night or that i couldnt hear even though i tried to listen. Im sure there was a part of me that blocked unintentionally what she was feeling.
I sat on my bedroom floor and cried for ages.
I smoked a lot. And i stopped smoking as much lately, and now I'm even smoking again in the mornings. I think I'm self destructing and i had the urge to drink the other day.

I know like Dutch Uncle said, i need to grieve current losses, and they will open the door for past losses.
i think its my pattern to intellectualise everything and relate it back to the past to disassociate me from the present time hurt. Its a distraction so that i don't feel the hurt of the current loss- which feels so frightening.

I felt so great after session with T. We really bonded and she shared some stuff with me.
She gave me some great compliments and i believed they were genuine.
I felt so good about myself, and i wish i could return to feeling that way.
I wish this guy could also see those things about me, things that aren't apparent from the way i present myself in the world.
Maybe i want him to see them like T did, for validation? Because i don't believe those things about myself-they do seem to good to be true.
And people ive been with, take compliments away (narcs) so I'm worried she will do that.

It hurts that i want him, but I cant have him.
Im sick and tired of always wanting something that i cant have.
Just like with the narc lady, who i wanted to be my mum so bad.
It was painful seeing her every day and not being able to *have her*.
And i wonder if i felt this way about my own parents and that maybe thats why it hurts so much.
But when i try to tap into grief about my parents, i feel nothing about them, or about that.

I have been, since this *rejection* feeling miserable, just not right in myself, depressed almost...greiving,- it feels like someone has died. (and what might have died, is knowing that i can't keep on thinking of him in that way and the hope that he would like me too has gone.
I cant feel those crush feelings anymore- they feel addictive. I felt energetic and high and like life was more worth living apart from this trauma stuff and the refuge- all the hard stuff.)
I just wanted to have more to life than just the hard stuff.

I feel that this dude just thinks I'm a silly little girl, and i feel that my inner critic has amped up big time.
My mother is in my head telling me that i need to snap out of my silly fantasies,
i always like guys who don't like me back (its my pattern- whats the pattern called here???)
I think that this guy is freaked out that *I* liked him, its not a compliment to him as it was *me* who had feelings for him!!
I feel worthless and as though know one wants me.
And i have suddenly started feeling really ugly and i hate the way i look, and i hate my body.
I don't know what is happening to me.
I thought i had lost weight due to the stress, and i think i have, but on photos taken of volunteering with me on them, i can see the weight on my face and I'm disgusted.
I don't know if i has been there since i lost weight recently, and i just never noticed, or if the weight is coming back on even though I'm still not eating enough.
Maybe I'm just noticing the weight that was always there, because this guy doesnt like me and feel ugly.
Why would i suddenly feel so terrible and self loathing about my own body, when ive never felt this hatred for my own body before??

If it was a flashback that i could sit with and cry and it would be over and id feel better, then id rather that and i never though that id ever hear myself say that.
This is hard. And we never even went out so I'm thinking , is my reaction to a *no*, no matter how nicely put, extreme?
I know its harder for us - this stuff- when we have an inner critic jabbering away in our heads.
Its hard for me as i believe the inner critic.

i don't know if i want this guy to like me and to see al the things that T says she sees in me, because i don't see them. Am i saddened that he doesnt see them, or like them if the sees them, because my parents never saw anything good about me?

Its crazy too because, when Im with my T, i don't want him. I down care for him as much its as though he has fallen out of my head and all my wants are placed on T in my mind.
I know i couldn't have both parents at the same time as a child, so thats why i split like this, so do you guys think that liking this guy is not only filling loneliness and emptiness i feel in my life, but that i may want him to meet childhood needs?

I know there will always be a part of me (inner child) who wants people to meet her unmet needs, and in part, thats healthy if not gone overboard...but I'm wondering if my feelings about him, then alternatively only about T and he is shut out in my mind, are to do with my inner child?
(i know i can survive flashbacks now, so i don't want this guy to fix or even help me, in the way that i wanted my X to help me)

At volunteering the other day, i nearly had a panic attack, i felt like i couldnt breathe because he was there. Whats going on?

[Three Roses]

 

Sometimes my mind searches for connections as a way to escape reality thru fantasizing. It keeps me from having to deal with the reality that's in my face. I think it's something we all do, to one extent or another.

[Sienna]

Thanks Three Roses. I agree that its probably something we all do.
This is what scares me. That i need to face the present rejection.
I do think i have been flashing back:
1. to..i don't know what...
2. To the words of my mother via the inner critic.

I knew that, but i didnt *really know that*until i researched a lot last night.
I think pieces of *this* puzzle are coming together...and I'm sure my T will verify it / help me figure it out.
I couldnt validate my own emotions, for fear, and habbit of not doing so...
and not really knowing how to,
and shame for feeling how i felt, for being me, for feeling sad,
and all this caused self abandonment.
I don't think I'm over the self abandonment for this event.
But yes, i feel a bit better now that i have worked it out...but reading about the inner critic and an article really hit home, i was able to cry as it rang so true.
So, that seems a bit healing to me.

ThreeRoses, i really relate to what you are saying, and thank you for sharing.

[Sceadu]

I think that this guy is freaked out that *I* liked him, its not a compliment to him as it was *me* who had feelings for him!!
I feel worthless and as though know one wants me.
And i have suddenly started feeling really ugly and i hate the way i look, and i hate my body.

This really, really resonated with me.  I'm new here and still trying to figure out if I have cPTSD, but this part of your post completely hit home.  Most of my anxiety is about trauma like this.  When I was 15, I had a crush on my best friend, and when someone told him, he stopped speaking to me (and didn't contact me again until well into adulthood).  I know now that he did it because of some of his own issues, but it made a huge impact on me at a formative age.  I don't think it had really occurred to me up until that point that someone could react to my interest with such disgust.  I began to hide crushes and not talk about them because I began to realize that just being around people was better than being outright hated by them.  Unfortunately, this has happened to me several times since, twice in adulthood.  It makes me believe that I must really actually be disgusting if men keep reacting to me like this.  Sometimes they seem to actually consider it an insult that I am interested in them, like they can't believe that someone so low sees them as being on her level.

I always wondered what it felt like to have a man flattered that I was interested.  That never happened to me until recently.

People describe me as "quirky" and it's not endearing.  What I really want is for someone to see all my quirkiness and love it all for what it is, but the people I've met in my life who have felt that way about me are few and far between.  I don't fit most people's ideals of physical appearance and female personality, and like you, I start wondering what I would need to change about myself or my body in order to finally be acceptable.

To address your question, I am not sure that for me the people I am interested in represent any sort of missing childhood affirmation.  For me, I spent my teen years finding out that my sexual interest was repulsive to people.  I think it is very traumatizing to see yourself as someone's equal, like you saw yourself as the equal of this man you were interested in, and then find out that that person sees you as far beneath them.  I carry a hope that I will not end up with a guy who sees me as a desperation move, and it hurts my heart terribly to think that my age, my weight, my intellect, and my personality make me someone that a man would only choose if he couldn't get anything better.  I want someone to feel lucky that he has me, and I want that person to be someone who is also desirable himself, not someone desperate.  I think there's also the idea that you can pick and choose your mate, not just have to settle for whomever is interested in you.  You tried to exercise some control over your future, and found out that the future you wanted was not available to you because you didn't pass some arbitrary test of desirability.  Having my dreams halted by someone else's judgment of me is definitely a trigger, because it puts me back into those childhood situations where I was so harshly judged by authority figures and peers and needed to be perfect in order to have any future at all.

So to sum up, I think for me it is really a matter of agency, and it sounds like that might be the case for you too.  It creates a real sense of helplessness in me when I am trying to attain a goal and I don't even know what the parameters are, because I am back in my childhood trying desperately to figure out what arbitrary rules an authority figure will use to judge me, or what social test I need to pass to avoid people thinking I'm some kind of freak.

[Sesame]

Sienna, I can relate to this a lot.

In a similar vein to Sceadu, I had a huge crush on this one guy when I was a teenager. He was everything I was looking for in a boyfriend. He went out of his way to spend time with me. He held my hand. He bought me food when I couldn't afford it (we were on a school trip and I grew up poor). He let me use his phone to ring home when we were on the way back from a trip to London and there were huge delays. Basically, I was convinced he felt the same way and it urged me to step far outside my comfort zone and ask him on a date. It wasn't a nasty rejection, by any means, but he said he already had someone. I felt I was led on.

It was the fact I had taken this risk and been slapped down that triggered the inner critic to rear its head and begin tearing me apart. Doing it was scary because there's the chance that all the negative things the inner critic tells you are true and, in that instant of rejection, I felt like it has been confirmed that I am a failure as a human being. That of course this person would be taken because I do not deserve good things in life. All those sorts of negative, self-hating messages. It wasn't until my friend comforted me and the outer critic started raging at him for hiding the fact he had someone and leading me on that I began to recover from those feelings.

For me, it wasn't about childhood needs. I think I desperately needed to feel loved and accepted by someone outside my toxic family dynamic. I needed to know that it wasn't the whole world against me (which I felt it was, given how many people bullied me, whether students, teachers or even complete strangers). His attention and kind gestures began to convince me otherwise, but it all came crashing down when he said there was already someone. Was I only treated this way because I was seen as a toy to be played with? It does make you feel very worthless.

[Sienna]

Sesame, Im so sorry that happened to you and that you had to deal with your inner critic.
You have been way more helpful than my own therapist.
Thank you for sharing your story.

I think i was lead on too. This guy touched me too which made me think that he liked me- but only because i thought he was the type of man to never touch anyone if he didnt mean it in an *i like you* and not in a sexual way only kind of way.



It was the fact I had taken this risk and been slapped down that triggered the inner critic to rear its head and begin tearing me apart. Doing it was scary because there's the chance that all the negative things the inner critic tells you are true and, in that instant of rejection, I felt like it has been confirmed that I am a failure as a human being.
* yes. Its so great to have this validated, but I'm so sorry you felt this way. This is really hard stuff to feel and what makes it difficult too, is that it feels like fact- not just feelings that may pass.

My outer critic is, well...out. It is mostly the outer critic i deal with. The inner part is there i guess, telling me that i don't deserve to feel angry.

His attention and kind gestures began to convince me otherwise, but it all came crashing down when he said there was already someone. Was I only treated this way because I was seen as a toy to be played with? It does make you feel very worthless.
Yes. I relate. I have never had a normal healthy relationship.
I have felt like a toy, like their play thing for a long time. Everyones play thing.
I understand completely how worthless this makes a person feel.
Im so sorry you were treated this way.
I want to tell you that your inner critic is wrong, but all i can do is empathise. Im sure it is wrong. I just don't have the strength to tell my own inner critic that at the moment, so i don't know how to tell you that,..i mean, i cant make you believe that it is wrong. But i believe that it is. Hugs. 

[sanmagic7]

ok, sienna, then i have enough energy to tell your inner critic it is wrong!  and, sesame, same for you.  as far as i'm concerned, worthless people don't come to forums like this to find answers and support.  mainly because worthless people would not be interested in the truth, in how to do things differently, and certainly not to respond to someone else who is in pain.  maybe i'm being judgmental when i say 'worthless' people.  i do mean people who are not worth my time and energy.  both of you are worth both, which is why i'm writing this.  and, as i say this, it also bolsters up my own belief in myself, that i am worth this good stuff, too.  inner critics can take a hike!  as the comedian once said 'we don't need no stinkin' inner critics!'  lol! 

unfortunately, rejection is a part of life.  but, when people lead us on, then reject us, it seems to hurt just that little (or lot) bit more.  i am in the process of grieving past hurts and losses, and i have to admit that they do open doors to more.  at my age, tho, there have been a lot that i haven't admitted to along the way, and they have come crashing down on me lately.   i've been so very numb for so very long that i didn't even allow things like inner critics to wiggle their way into my being at times of rejection.   

i think the idea that you can feel/hear these inner critics at this point in your lives, if i might put a different spin on it, is a good thing.  i believe that it's only when we're aware of something that we can do something about it.  i was unaware for most of my life, subconsciously stuffing everything negative into my body so that i could continue on with the situation(s) at hand. 

because of this, i am now suffering physically (as well as emotionally and mentally) where all my neg. emotions, feelings, thoughts, and  messages had been stored.  i applaud you both for being so in touch with yourselves.  when you can see the dragon, you can slay it.  keep up the good work - and it is good work, because it's constructive, forward-moving, and ultimately beneficial to you and those around you.

[Sesame]

Sienna and sanmagic7, thank you both for your kind and heartfelt messages! It's one of the reasons it is so wonderful to be a member of a place like this: I am reminded there are good and kind people in the world.

You have been way more helpful than my own therapist.
Thank you for sharing your story.

Wow, that's quite the compliment! I'm glad it was this helpful. I share things despite the pain because I feel like I have taken many great strides in my journey to recovery and want to help others do the same. If I relate to something and think my own story will help that person, that there's a small chance the explanation for them is the same as it was for me, I'll share.

I'm sorry to hear that you feel this man has done the same to you, Sienna. It's a cruel form of rejection to do things that convey interest only to reject you when you've worked up the courage to ask them out.

* yes. Its so great to have this validated, but I'm so sorry you felt this way. This is really hard stuff to feel and what makes it difficult too, is that it feels like fact- not just feelings that may pass.

The important thing to remember is that, even if it feels like a fact in the moment, it really isn't. It is just your negative emotions and inner critic going into overdrive to explain the rejection when it can be explained in a far simpler, less self-hating manner. Such as, he has different taste. Or, in my case, he was not as nice as I thought he was and may have been doing all of that to take advantage of a vulnerable girl. In other words, it's not my fault at all and nothing is wrong with me.

Yes. I relate. I have never had a normal healthy relationship.
I have felt like a toy, like their play thing for a long time. Everyones play thing.
I understand completely how worthless this makes a person feel.
Im so sorry you were treated this way.
I want to tell you that your inner critic is wrong, but all i can do is empathise. Im sure it is wrong. I just don't have the strength to tell my own inner critic that at the moment, so i don't know how to tell you that,..i mean, i cant make you believe that it is wrong. But i believe that it is. Hugs. 

I'm really sorry you have had so many bad relationships that made you feel this way. Though from what I've seen of you on this forum, I can tell you your inner critic is wrong! You seem like a perfectly warm and friendly person who deserves a relationship with someone who will treat her as an equal.

sanmagic7, indeed rejection is a part of life and something we all have to get used to. I've definitely grown a thicker skin over the years, but I still feel certain things pierce too deep when they shouldn't. I'm sorry to hear old grievances have come back to haunt you. I hope you have the strength to work your way through the feelings and deflect the inner critic.

You're absolutely right in that awareness of the inner critic is the first step towards defeating it. You can't beat something you don't realise is there!

Thank you for the praise and encouragement. I really hope that you can find a way to release the grip all those negative emotions had on you.

[Sienna]

Sceadu, welcome!

That is awful that that guy stopped speaking to you.
This guy isn't the same with me. I wonder if its his own issue, like it may be with that guy who stopped speaking to you, but that doesn't stop us feeling how we feel, and they shouldnt be doing that.
Oh yes, you just said as i read on that it was because of his issues. Of course, that doesnt make it ok though.

Im sorry this happened over and over for you.
I understand wanting to hide crushes. The friend that i told...i wish i didnt. Im paranoid that she is like all the unhealthy others in my life...and I'm paranoid that she knows but isn't being supportive.

Im glad that the guy was flattered that you were interested in him.

People describe me as quirky too. (My rising if you believe in that and know what i mean, is Aquarius.)
I shocked myself as i found myself thinking *why cant he see what is good about me?!*- as i had that afternoon, a session with my T who said some really nice things to me.
Now i don't know if they are true but thats another story.
I think it may come from my father and mother rejecting those things about me. T said they don't accept those things as i told her what my dad said to me one time, and the message was *dont be those things- don't be who you are*.
Maybe thats why i felt indignant that this guy couldnt see what my T could, but maybe it goes back to my parents.
I felt like i must be a narc for thinking that. Then i did some reading about thought that it might be the outer critic.

I hope that you wont end up with a guy who sees you as a desperation move
it hurts my heart terribly to think that my age, my weight, my intellect, and my personality make me someone that a man would only choose if he couldn't get anything better.
Absolutely.

I don't think your wants are at all unreasonable.

I think that - feeling those feelings for a guy or woman- whatever your preference...
it feels good to have those feelings -but they are also beyond your control and i squashed them and disassociated them away a lot when i felt he didnt like me back.
I eventually stated feeling them because he was being so friendly.

I think that being judged yes in childhood and also, for me, my sister was always the favourite (the golden child but that doesnt mean she wasnt loved or abused or that there wasnt any pressure for her)..
i just knew that she was the favourite.
I always go for others who like someone else or who exchange me for some one else, like my narc friend and my narc X.

Im fed up of wanting things i cant have, and i feel as though i have turned my wants off and i have turned them off for this guy- he is obviously interested in this other person and only really talks to her in a group conversation- which is annoying for me to watch.
This alone has blocked my feelings for him, as well as the fact that he isnt that friendly anymore, despite saying that he wants to be friends, and that he thinks we will be friends for life.

I don't know if ive rambled too much in this message. Im not thinking clearly of late..so I'm sorry if so.
Basically, thank you for your reply and i understand totally what you are saying.
I feel less alone in this - so thank you. You deserve someone who appreciates all the wonderful, original things about you. 

[Sienna]

Thanks Sanmagic7.

Like you, i am very surprised at the inner critic. I thought when i read Pete Walkers description of the inner critic, that i didnt have one. I didnt feel this way due to any past rejections.
I think that since i have been more conscious just out of curiosity when learned about the inner critic- to see if i have one..maybe thats why its come up, i don't know.
But its new for me.
And I'm more aware of the outer critic, now that i know it exists- but that is more dominant.

Basically, thank you for your kind words. 

[AncientSoul]

Hello Sienna:

I stopped and read your post and every response. It is something that I can relate to in so many ways. I don't know the answer, as I'm learning and hoping to find the answer for myself. Rejection has been part of my life since I can remember, but it was forced upon me by my sister who groomed me. She was eleven years older than me. Still, being told I'm worthless and no good since a child still has lasting effects.

I recently made a post on this site, which I have taken down. The post "triggered" responses in a person, and their response triggered something in myself. I have been battling rejection all my life, and am working to accept myself and fend off the attackers. I WILL win my true self back. I have no doubts.

I have found for myself, that if you love someone, search yourself to see if that love is real in yourself towards them. Then I have let the woman know through my actions, kindness and thoughts. We all are subject to rejection, I've certainly had my share. But what is worse is not having the opportunity to know for sure if your love will be returned. In my case, my love has only been returned by women who end up using me for what they can get, not for who I am inside. My last relationship was like that, and I didn't see it coming.

I'm the guy who expresses love for a woman, shows them with little things and big things what love means to me. I see things that need to be done, and I do them for her. Dishes need washing, I wash them. Clothes need folding, I fold them. Food running low in her apartment, I go to the store and buy them and stock up the fridge. Leave notes on her pillow saying that I love her. Things like that. My last relationship I really went all out. She lost her business because of the Great Recession, she moved to follow her son. He lost his job, so I helped with her being able to live in her apartment, helped her pay for two of her kids weddings that came up, took care of things to make her life easier. But I got sick, deathly sick. During that time she maybe cooked for me twice. We went out for three years. She paid for a restaurant bill twice. I didn't care, as she said she loved me and I definitely loved her.

Then one weekend, she told me she got a big promotion are her work. More money for her and responsibility. That weekend her son got a big job with Amazon and a corner office. She sat on her sofa, looked at me, said that she thinks "We should break up", then added, "I don't love you." I was in shock. No one has ever told me they didn't love me. I was told by my sister all my life that I'm not worthy of love, but my sister is nuts and I know it.

I didn't say a word, gave her the key to her apartment back, and I turned and left. That was four years ago.

How am I taking it? It was hard. I was left alone, very ill, doctors calling me twice a day, no one else to help me. It was suffering to the extreme. Then I was at the club one day, talking to a Navy fighter pilot friend of mine. He looked at me wondering what happened. I told him, as he knew my ex-girlfriend. He said to me, "Wow, you are a lucky man! At least you know. You were so lucky she told you that. Let's celebrate." He bought me a round, and patted me on my back. I was stunned, but eventually learned his lesson to me. I'd rather be alone, than with someone who didn't love me.

I'm learning to take rejection as a gift. Right or wrong, I live with it as best as I can. I recently admitted to a woman I have known for many years, that I love her. I really do. She told me she doesn't feel a "spark" with me, but then, she didn't say it would never be possible. That woman treats me better than all the women I've even been in a relationship with. But I realize I may not be her cup of tea. If that's the case, at least I told her, and if she doesn't snap me up, it is her loss. That's how I feel about it.

I hate the feeling of rejection. I've felt it all my life. Yet, I'm a winner and I've proven that time and time again. Championships, awards, friends, goals achieved, things like that. I have yet to win in love, but I have great hope for that. And I am well again, despite having to go through it all on my own.

Rejection for people like us seems to hurt more, in my opinion. There is only the answer to dealing with it that works for us. We're all different it seems. I left my ex back in the dust of time. She has to deal with what she did to me by using me. And she did use me. But I allowed it.

It may be difficult, but try to love yourself. Be kind to yourself, go out on a date with yourself and have fun. Be kind and generous to yourself because you deserve it!

Yes, rejection hurts, but it is proof that we feel and are alive. Just think what the future will bring. Someone who truly loves you is out there, just have to find them, or let them find you. Remember, you're worth it!

AncientSoul

[Sienna]

Hey Ancient Soul,
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to what i wrote and for reading it- it was a lot and I'm a little embarrassed at how i praised things.
And thank you for sharing your experience and letting me know I'm not alone.

Spelling errors and Trigger warning...

Rejection has been a part of life for me too, from my FOO and my X.
Im sorry this was the case for you too.

I recently made a post on this site, which I have taken down. The post "triggered" responses in a person, and their response triggered something in myself. I have been battling rejection all my life, and am working to accept myself and fend off the attackers. I WILL win my true self back. I have no doubts.
Thats a shame about the post. May have been transference and counter transference?
I do hope you win your true self back and i wish you all the luck in the world.

And thank you for your advice.
I guess, that like with emotional flashbacks at the moment, its hard for me to know if I'm one and or, if its the present I'm mad / upset with.
I dont trust myself. I don't know how to. I cant trust my intuition.
I hope to learn to trust how i feel.
So im not sure i will be able to tell at the stage I'm at, if i love a person in my own way that is actually to do with the past and trying to fix some childhood wounds...
or if i actually love them.
I guess i don't know what it is like to properly love someone.

Im sorry that you have always been used.
This is the case for me too. But I'm realising that i also push others away, so i might have sub consciously pushed this guy away as my T says.
But he is also emotionally closed off it seems...like me...so i guess it wouldnt work.
I tend to attract people who use and abuse, but also people who have tendencies in which they need to please me...
I hope that makes sense.
So i could attract a narcissist, and have a relationship, but they will be more... codependent...where as I'm like my mother and I'm counter dependant.
so if this guy is like me, then of course we wouldnt fit.
Or maybe the universe is saving me because he might be just like everyone else...
or maybe he's a good guy...and my vibration or something isn't tuned up for those kinds of people yet.


How painful to be told that you are not loved.
And what a sock that must of been.
Im so sorry she used you and took advantage.
It sounds like you gave way more than she gave you back, and i hope that you will be able to find ways to look after yourself more, instead of giving *too much* of yourself to another person.
Or maybe you find someone who gives as much as you do...
but, I'm wondering if you were perhaps maybe trying to get her to love you back...holding onto the illusion that she might...
trying to win the unattainable...maybe her validation?

I was told by my sister all my life that I'm not worthy of love
Ugh. Im sorry. Thats just horrible. And probably a reflection of the way your sister felt about her self. I think that you are worthy of love, and i guess, maybe you repeated a pattern, and unintentionally ended up with a partner who re-afirmed that belief you had in yourself that you weren't worthy of love.

Im so sorry you have been suffering. I know what thats like. Kudos to you for walking out and not trying to change her mind or get her to love you.
That must of been a very hard thing to do.

I personally don't find your friends response to what you told him about what happened with you and your X, very empathetic.
Even though she told you, it doesnt take away the hurt of the moment, or the hurt you were going through (and maybe still going through?)  for a long time.

To me, thats not the point. Sure its great that she told you, but she should have told you sooner, if she knew herself, - but whatever- she shouldn't have used you.
And how you feel is valid about all of it.

I kept trying to tell myself that this guy doesn't like me for a reason. I don't believe in god, but i said to god / the universe, that i only want to go out with this dude, if its right.
I can't have another bad relationship. I know they might come as i recover and learn.
But yes. So maybe there is a reason it didnt happen.
Rejection can be a gift.

Im glad you feel that its her loss if she doesnt snap you up.
I thought that this is how most people with out Cptsd / traumatic lives, respond to rejection.
My T said that people normally say, oh well, ill be ok, there must be something wrong with them if they don't like me.
I felt so bad about myself.
But then one day, i caught myself saying to myself-
why doesnt he like me? whats wrong with him??
I suddenly thought it sounded very grandiose and it scared me.
I think i wrote about it on this thread.
Then i thought that it was the outer critic taking over and drowning out the inner critic.
Now, after recently reading about counter dependancey, i think that that thought might have been a grandiose thought- as i found out that counter dependant people have grandiose tendencies and thoughts, which was a defence the helped them survive in childhood.

Someone wrote on here like you did, that maybe I'm just not his type, like you said, maybe you weren't her cup of tea.
If that is so...why does that mean something is wrong with us?
I thought that, which sounds grandiose, ...
that maybe there *are* wonderful things about me that he just doesnt see.
He is not good enough for *me*.
He isn't psychologically minded enough, or intelligent enough...
God. cant believe I'm writing this. i don't think like this all the time.
And these thoughts only came after the pain of his no.
I do think its a defence.
I still felt s****y about myself even after these thoughts, because perhaps these thoughts are false self thoughts and they are not my real beliefs.
(But to go about life with the painful negative beliefs i have about myself that ive hidden from my conscious awareness would be too much to handle.)
But i managed to disassociate from the feelings, and from feeling bad about myself, though i didnt feel good about myself for long.
One day, i realised that i felt nothing about this rejection, about this guy, apart from disgust about the things he does and did that were bad.

My T thinks i still have feelings for him that ive blocked, and today, i noticed a hint of something for him. But i can't go there, so i wont.
(i know dissociation isn't healthy)

Im super sorry you went through it all on your own. Not fair, not the way it should be. I know it too well. Its hard being sorting and doing everything yourself all the time. 

I really appreciate your reply. Its ok that you couldn't reply back then, but i do wish i could have read the words you wrote back then, because they are so comforting, and they are things that i can never tell myself, because i don't believe them.

it is comforting to think that the future might bring good things.
I can't trust people and don't ever want to rely on anyone for anything...which i know is very either - or, black or white...
and i guess, that somewhere in my sole that ive blocked out, i do want love. I did at the time i made this thread, but negative experiences with other guys since my X left has made my bubble of want get slowly more and more deflated.
So now i cant feel that want. The only thing i want, is to like myself and to be able to rely one me...but in a more healthy way than i have been doing.
Someone who truly loves you is out there, just have to find them, or let them find you.
Thank you for telling me that I'm worth it. So are you, and I am here for you.

Sienna