Thank you for the reply, Prycejosh, but my issue isn’t that I hold grudges over wrong-doings, it’s more that I’m feeling a lack of deep emotional closeness on my part - not just with my family, but with a lot of other personal relationships.
I do appreciate what my adoptive family have done, but don’t feel that strong connection you’d expect and want to have after 30+ years of living with someone/several years of knowing XYZ person. I did nearly two weeks of dog sitting (alone) for my brother and sister in law last year, and my mum felt almost like a stranger to me when she visited one of those days.
Also, I’ve been on the verge of being so anxious I was about to physically bolt from a (now former) friend when we were on a day out at an animal sanctuary, and my most recent boyfriend while I was still with him. I could understand that because I’m not good at being in romantic relationships, but naively thought it might be different with him. It was in some ways, but overall being with him had a lot worse effect on my mental health than any previous relationship I’d had. There were red flags, but it wasn’t his behaviour that was causing me to feel the way I did.
I hadn’t felt unsafe with my friend until that day and still can’t explain why I wanted to run away from her. In my mind, the two incidents of wanting to run away from relatively safe people likely have the same root cause.
Sorry this turned into such an essay, but I just wanted to clear things up and say it’s not my family’s fault I feel this way, maybe it’s not mine either. I just don’t like it and want to try and fix myself.