Loneliness and isolation after abuse

[SunshineRainflower]

I am so lonely at the moment, please help.

This week I had three really good days mon-wed, where I rearranged my lounge, cleaned and hoovered it thoroughly, then decluttered lots of old stuff out of the loft and gave it to charity, 5 bags full. It felt sooooooo satisfying cleaning, tidying, rearranging and decluttering. I have been to two yoga classes this week, and have been studying, and working on my self employed venture.

However on Thursday my depressive mood returned and I have not been able to get back to feeling good again so far.

One of my main problems is loneliness and isolation. After I left my abusive relationship I had a lot of flashbacks and realisations from my childhood and it dawned on me that I’d experienced abuse my whole life from my family, and from several previous friends and boyfriends. I’m so used to people putting me down, mocking me, teasing me, laughing at me, patronising me, treating me like an object that it just feels normal and I assumed I deserved it, so I have ended up with a lot of abusive people in my life. I read a lot about abuse and decided no contact was the best option for most of these people. The problem is, when you go no contact, then what?! People say ‘then you’ll meet good kind people to be friends with’ but that just hasn’t happened to me. I’ve been trying to make new friends for years after realising my old school friends were pretty toxic. They blame me for things, laugh at me, put me down, criticise me, let me down and often just seem disappointed at me. They act like bossying, bullying older sisters. I can’t stand it, it makes me feel so angry having people treating me like this, so I am distancing myself from them again, after I reconnected with them briefly. I was hpoing they had matured but they are just as bad if not worse than before. They also don’t understand abuse at all and encourage me to speak to my family, not acknowledging that my family are abusive, and expect me to be ‘moving on by now’ after my relationship as if it was just a normal breakup.

I used to speak to my brother but the flashbacks made me realise that I always choose boyfriends who remind me of him – he was physically, emotionally and possibly sexually abusive to me as a child. As an adult he has become sort of religious and his advice is dogmatic and makes me feel worse. I don’t think he’s probably a good person to have in my life either.

I live with my parents who I no longer speak to, after years of covert abuse. They are boundary violators and my dad gives me the creeps.

I’m not close to any extended family, I have family abroad who I have no contact with anymore (lots of family issues with them) and family in England who tend to be judgemental and one uncle is creepy and sleazy. I am still friends with a cousin, but she doesn’t seem to want to talk to me much, I think a lot of people find me ‘too much’ with all the problems that I’ve had.

I have one good friend from university left, she doesn’t live nearby so we have phone chats. She’s one of the very few good people I’ve ever known. I also recently made a friend through my self employed venture, we met through social media and have weekly phone chats and she understands and is wonderfully supportive, but she is recovering from an illness so she can’t talk often and I don’t want to burden her with all my problems.

I went from someone with a very large family, lots of friends and a boyfriend and job to being almost totally alone with no way to support myself. It feels like if I want to have family in my life, I have to accept abuse, sleaze and having my boundaries violated. And if I want friends, I have to deal with being bossed around, bullied, put down, criticised, let down, gossiped about and always have to do things on their terms, never on mine, and if I refuse, then they look at me like I’m so terrible disappointing bad person.

Being alone is peaceful, I can do things that feel right in my heart, nobody is belittling me and being abusive to me. I’m very introverted and creative so I love having the time to create things. But I would love a few good friends, and a loving, good man in my life. I don’t want to be completely isolated. When I go to local events and activities to try to be more sociable and meet new people, I feel like people can sense that I’m not really happy. I probably don’t go to anything regularly enough to make friends either, most of the time I try things each week then move onto the next. I do have a longstanding volunteer placement and the people are nice, but I’ve not made friends through it. I rarely meet women my age I could make friends with, most people are either in their early twenties or retired at everything I go to in my city. I guess most women my age are at home with families…

Wow this has been so long, it has really helped to type it all out. Thanks to anyone who has read this! I really don’t know what to do from here, I feel like I’ve been trying to improve my life for years making huge effort with little success, so I’m not sure what to do.

[Tiffany]

I think slips downward into depression are pretty normal even with a good support network. Especially after making big steps forward. I know I have had bad dips after clearing stuff out, sorting paper work, that kind of thing. And I have a pretty kick-a*s support network. They still aren’t always available when I need them and I have made plenty of phone calls to Samaritans when I can’t get through to anyone else.

Don’t rules out making friends outwith your age group. I have quite a few friends who are at least 20 years older than me. None who are that much younger, but mostly because they would be primary school aged… But a couple of shared interests and the age gap shrinks considerably.

If you are creative could you maybe join a painting club, knitting group or similar. Or get out of your comfort zone and do something different – maybe a sport? Clubs are good because they tend to have a social life around them too. And unlike classes which can be heavy on listening to teachers they tend to allow for a lot of chatting. Also they tend to be cheaper…

It sounds like you are doing well anyway. Cutting abusive ties, clearing out your stuff, going to yoga, starting a business? That is epic stuff. It’s fine if you need a few down days too.

[SunshineRainflower]

Hi Tiffany,

Thanks for your reply. I guess you’re right, I’m probably expecting too much of myself wanting to feel good most of the time. I worry I’m a really depressive person, I’ve had major depression on and off for years, but was feeling a lot better when I met my ex after some very good therapy. He was extremely cruel as he knew about my history of depression and anxiety, and knew his behaviour would make it worse after all the work I’d done to build my health back up and set about to destroy me. I have made progress since I ended things but still feel very fragile and depressed several days each week, and often have times where I just don’t see the point in my life anymore, I really didn’t need an abusive relationship on top of the other things I’ve had to cope with, but I guess that’s life, and maybe it all works out in the end.

Perhaps I should be more open to friendships out of my usual age range. I do chat a lot to the retired people and like them, but they themselves at times have commented that such and such activity is for older people and I’d be better off going elsewhere. I get the impression they don’t particularly want to make friends with me either and we don’t have much in common as they are decades older than me. I feel weird hanging out with much younger people, it makes me feel ancient and worse about myself. I’m not sure why there are not more people in their late 20s, 30s and 40s at anything I go to, it seems to be something with my city, most people here that age are coupled up so I guess they just socialise in their established groups with other couples, which unfortunately adds to my feeling of being strange and alone here.

Sometimes I just feel so incredibly stuck, and would love to know how to improve my life without changing who I am.

You’re right that I should probably praise myself more for what I do achieve, I guess I have high standards and dreams and really want to achieve them, so I’m often left disappointed as I set the bar high in every area of my life.

Thanks again for listening.

[Tiffany]

Another interpretation of ‘such and such is for old people, you would be better off elsewhere’ would be ‘what is a lovely young lady like you doing hanging out with barmy old codgers like us’. Not because they object, but because they don’t feel worthy of your time. It’s easy to assume the worst when you are feeling down, but that doesn’t make it true…

Try not to be afraid of rejection. Easier said than done I know, but if you make a committed and heartfelt effort to reach out to people they mostly respond well. If you make half hearted attempts because you don’t want to come off too strong or seem to desperate then people might not actually see that you want to be friends. Or be too shy and worried about what you think about them to reach out to you.

This is something I have thought a lot about because my ex told me I was bad at making friends. And that I come across to strong. He may have a point, but since leaving him I have had great success with contacting people who are basically acquaintances with lines like ‘I like you, can we meet up to [insert relevant activity here]’. Or even ‘I think you are really cool and I would like to be your friend’. It has a surprisingly good success rate. The other half of this was to say yes to all offers – even if they are really random like would you like to come and hear me make a speech about candle making. You might enjoy it after all. Or you might escape at the intermission with his wife and his toddler and go to the play park and go on the swings because it is deadly dull. At worst you lose a few hours to something you won’t do again.

Totally get the ‘I didn’t need that’ feeling. Chronic illness and abuse in your 20’s? More than I hoped I would have to deal with in a lifetime. And yes, he made my health worse while pretending to make it better.

Sorry its late and this is totally rambley. I might get to a computer tomorrow instead of the hopeless non aligned tiny screen phone. But last sleep deprived thought, because it is just before bed time and I used to do this then. Have you tried writing three positive things from your day down before you go to bed? It helps with positive thinking and also in noticing patterns of things which make you happy.

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