[here today]

I usually keep mine under wraps pretty well, or so I think anyway, but there was a time several years ago when I was in a support group and got very codependent, "care-taking" some different members there. And in each case, once they got to "depend" on me - taking them places, listening to their problems -- there came to be a time when I felt resentful, tried to back off, then got snarky and hurt their feelings. I felt guilty, but I didn't really want to repair the relationships. And now I know the dangers of me being like that I'm very unlikely to get myself into that kind of situation again.

But I heard that one of them passed away last week and I'm really very sad that things went the way they did, that I couldn't do any better. Of course, neither could she. And, of course, I feel guilty.

Any thoughts? Suggestions?

[DodgersMom]

yes, when i feel I am getting to close to anyone, i push them away, my go to way, is to become hostile. i am a kind hearted, calm person usual so it freaks people out.. and works. i have no idea why i do this though or how to fix it

[Skeezyks]

As I have written a number of times, here on PC, no good has ever accrued from me having anything to do with anyone. As a result I simply keep to myself. I consider it to be my gift to the world...

[TeaGhost]

Being the extreme introvert I am, I enjoy my time alone. I like to be able to do what I'm doing without interruption. Being the overly nice person I am, I'm oftentimes nice to people in passing who get the wrong message and take things too far in that they want to be with me always. Being the extremely socially anxious person I am, I don't know how to talk to these people, or just don't want to because it feels like it takes every bit of my energy away. I do what I don't want to do in order to set the boundaries: I start being more stern and uninterested in what they're saying in hopes that it drives them back to a comfortable distance and I can only hope that when I feel comfortable enough to approach them they can accept it.

One time in particular was a situation with a co-worker. He liked to talk. A lot. The two of us had a lot in common, except for the fact that I don't like to talk a lot. On top of his barely-above-a-whisper voice, he talked a lot of nonsense and always wanted validation to what he said, so it was either agree with him or debate with him, and I never felt like debating. One time I had reached the tipping point due to just having lost my headphones for my music to drown out the doldrum surrounding me and having to listen and constantly ask him to repeat himself, and when it was break time, I went back to the break room alone and he had asked why I didn't say it was break time so we could all take our break together to which I snapped at him with "I JUST GOT BACK HERE, SAME TIME AS YOU DID!"

I felt bad about it, and it finally got the message across for him to take a few steps back, but the two of us still talk once in a while.

[shakespeare47]

Oh man. I feel so guilty about so many things I've said and done to people. Every once in a while I'll start complaining about things that other people have said and done to me, and I'll realize I've said and done just as bad or worse.

But, there is no excuse for my bad behavior. I'd like to find ways to make amends. Maybe part of what I can do, is to just keep working on becoming a better person. One who doesn't need to resort to being mean.

[Unrigged64072835]

Yeah I did a lot of mean things, things I'm not proud of. I don't dwell on them because I'm not in that space anymore, but the memories do pop up. I forgive myself and move on.

[RainyDay107]

I've said mean things to people when I used to drink alcohol.

[RainyDay107]

Originally Posted by Fharraige

Yeah I did a lot of mean things, things I'm not proud of. I don't dwell on them because I'm not in that space anymore, but the memories do pop up. I forgive myself and move on.

I feel you. It's good we forgive ourselves.

Do you apologize? I feel....it's so hard to express my regret, I guess.

[shakespeare47]

Originally Posted by glamslam

I feel you. It's good we forgive ourselves.

Do you apologize? I feel....it's so hard to express my regret, I guess.

I've never had a good response to an apology. I had the feeling that instead of making things better, I just hurt them again.

[TishaBuv]

I've said horribly mean things to my h when trying to push him away. It didn't work. He didn't leave me. Of course, I apologized. Sure, I meant those mean things, but I shouldn't have ever said them. But, hey, I'm BPD, gimme a break.

My mother is horribly mean. Cuts you right to the core with only a word, goes right for the jugular. She's a master of mean.

I could hear her coming out of me when I went off on him...scary as hell. I don't want to do that again.

[Clairvoyant Boy]

When i'm angry or annoyed I get mean,I don't mean to and it's hard to control it.

[here today]

I think I was cognitively aware before, but became aware today in a more emotional way, that I regularly treat and think of myself in a mean-spirited way. Not conscious criticisms, just mean-spirited. Not kind.

I treat and feel about myself the way my mother treated and felt about me. Then I felt proud and "secure" that I'm "copying" my role model. Very bizarre.

She couldn't help it. Really. I spent a lot of time studying her. It was important to my survival. She couldn't help it because she learned it from her mother (whom I knew), who probably learned it from hers (whom I didn't know).

I've been in and out of therapy most of my life. Was cognitively aware of something "evil" in me, and tried to address that in therapy and other ways, without a lot of success.

It came to me cognitively earlier this week, no emotion attached, just a thought -- my family was narcissistic and evil and I have pockets of evil in me, too. Thinking like that about my mother and grandmother are big no-no's in my psyche, and so I can (used to) get a big sadistic glee out of beating myself up for thinking things like that, which invalidated the thought, or something like that.

I used to have pretty good separation between my thoughts and emotions -- therapy sought to "correct" that. But without any knowledge of what was underneath and the effect it would have in the various stages of being partially activated, I'm not so sure that was a good idea.

I also kind of functioned OK socially, as a codependent and people-pleaser when I wasn't being aloof and intellectual. I can really see now how that DOESN'T work and wrote about that in my OP.

But I also now see how I was letting my friends down, just as my mother had let me down, once I got to depending on her. I was doing to them what had been done to me. Not consciously, of course, and I would never get in that kind of fix now to begin with. But, if I hurt them, then they wanted to stay away from me, which was a pretty good for them! Because at the time I was the way I was and they were the way they were. I'm not blaming them, and not blaming me.

I may be a better person, though, if I can find a way to be "kind" to myself. My family of origin faked it well. It was something. The best they, and I, could do. But no real "kindness", like I had with my late husband and, to some extent, my children.

This will be a difficult thing to do. I don't like myself. I'm ashamed of a lot. Beating myself up was the "kind" thing, the thing our "kind" of people did.

But I don't belong to that family any more -- long story. Maybe I never did. Maybe nobody ever really did. So somehow I need to start something new inside that I don't have any example of. Many of the therapists I saw had the same fake kindness that my family did. I wonder if that's why they went into therapy in the first place! So, for me, it ended up the blind leading the blind, and I couldn't internalize anything from the therapists because they didn't have it either!! Maybe some do, somewhere, but I'm not trying that again. Too unreliable.

Kindness. What is that? I know now what it's not, maybe. Maybe that's a start. Or at least that's where I am at the moment.

[shakespeare47]

I have a really hard time forgiving myself for the mean things I've said and done to others.

[All Is Revealed]

It's tough to say if you were being mean. It's very kind of you to offer your time and space to someone else. Then after a few days, the drama begins. You no longer want to be with the other person. They become too dependent.

Then you snap and push them away for getting too close.

We can only learn from the past and hope not to repeat it.

[cool09]

I'm never mean. Is my MH provider mean? Of course. Some people here thrive on being mean to others who don't deserve it.