How can I connect with you guys?

This thread and my session with T today just has me thinking so much about shame and self-worth. I'm reliving so many of the painful moments in my life when I felt shameful and invisible. Worthless.

I can't accept that people won't like me. I'll change myself to make them like me. Or I'll stop liking them first.

At the same time, a huge part of me doesn't believe anyone actually likes me.

It's confusing and exhausting.

I know, It's hard for me to know there are people who don't like me either. I am having to learn that it doesn't mean there is something wrong with me, just that person doesn't see the beauty in my friendship. My knee jerk reaction is to hate them too, but my rational side says that is not fair and I really don't hate them deep down, I just hate that they don't accept me.

So maybe you are projecting your own feelings about yourself then?

Maybe this wish to be the most popular would be to cover up these feelings?

that's usually exactly how I feel.

I often think I don't fit in, I am one of two males that post there regularly(that I know of, apologies to any I slighted) but it has been a great source of comfort to me and worth it to me to feel like a bull in a china shop. But it is a micrcosm of real life. I have never felt that I fit in, anywhere. Please post, and I think you will find some support. I'm naturally shy and quiet, but I have my moments.

I don't feel like I fit in either. I am not particularly nice. I am not all warm and fuzzy. My views, beliefs and approach to almost everything seem to be odd to or at odds with others. I usually start from the point of no one is going to like me and if I am not dead flat hated by a majority I am doing well. I have never wanted to popular, although I do not enjoy being disliked,(popular seemed like so much effort and a burden for little return). It took until high school to have friends. And they were the nerdy band people. And even to them I was odd in my beliefs about things. I learned ways of keeping my integrity but not giving my views in a fashion that was so odd or intense or whatever. My family thought I was odd, and despaired of me ever fitting in. With them, I found fitting in was not worth the cost.
I think a small majority of people in the world are actually popular. The rest are sort of on a scale like is being presented here.

Wanting to feel connected is a good thing, I think.

For most of my life, I didn't care about connectedness. I liked being out in the stratosphere all by myself. It was lonely, but at least I didn't have to worry about anyone hurting me.

Then, when I reached my thirties, I realized how unusual and unhealthy my isolation is. So I sought out a therapist to help me feel connected...to help me to develop positive feelings towards others.

Now I'm feeling myself pull back again. After feeling just a little of the pain that self-awareness brings, I've come to the realization that it just doesn't seem worth it to care so much.

I know I am missing out on stuff and that I'm depriving myself of something that I can't recreate on my own. Maybe this means I'm inherently self-centered and immature, I don't know. But I guess I'd rather be self-centered and immature than crazy/depressed and suicidal.

I tried telling my therapist this last week, but she didn't understand what I was trying to say.

All my teen and high school years, I tried to fit in, to be popular. It was only later that I discovered what an introvert I was, and how trying to be popular was against my nature. I think I am better off with a few close friends, and have resigned myself to knowing I will never be the life of the party, or the talk of the town. And I'm OK with that, prefer that, actually.

Stopdog you crack me up!

I sometimes feel like this too.
For me it all moves too fast.

SPECULATION:

The popular kids are the ones with good parents.

Not necessarily. I have known some popular kids whose parents were horrors.

There's no reason why there would be a correlation there. Kids get popular for all kinds of screwed-up reasons.

I agree. In some circles, the popular "kids" are the ones with the handicapped license stickers (used to volunteer at an old folks' home). In other circles, the popular kids are the ones who have fake ID's and can buy beer or get their friends into clubs. Or the kids who throw kegger parties at their parents' house. Or the ones whose moms buy the right kind of cupcakes from the right grocery store.

Not in my experience.

I mentioned on the couch thread that my son was nominated for this court warming thing at his school that is basically just a popularity contest. Two of the boys nominated at my son's school for the court warming thing are from "good" families, and both are in Christian youth groups and really good, clean cut kids. [my son is one of those two ] Neither of them drink at all, they don't smoke, they are in athletics, but neither is a jock, and both do really well academically.

One boy was a foreign exchange student who is staying with a "good" family and is reportedly incredibly nice to everyone, and is very funny.

The fourth boy is from a home that I know is at least somewhat abusive. He drinks and smokes and cheats at school. He is also popular for whatever reason.

MKAC - you don't like the 4th boy?

No one, as far as I have seen, is universally popular.

He has always cheated at games and on school work. He once punched my son in the chest so hard that he gave my son an irregular heartbeat and we had to take him to the hospital. My son told me the boy's dad was abusive and asked me not to make the police report that the hospital wanted to, so then I had to deal with hospital staff saying I was an irresponsible parent for not forcing my son to tell hospital personnel who punched him. So, while I empathize with the boy to some extent, I do not particularly like him or find him admirable.

My point also was that you cannot always predict who will be popular and that people can be popular for different reasons. In reference to what the original poster said, sometimes people become popular as a result of being open with their issues and asking for help and support. Some because they always offer support. Some because they do a combination. Some others appear popular for no reason that is discernable to me.

He does not sound like a particularly likeable boy. Particularly from a parent's point of view.
But I have never found the popular to be necessarily likable. Or vice versa.
(Heathers - the movie comes to mind here. One of my favorite movies).

Hi fixated. I would not use an Internet forum as a guide to how you connect. Real life is a whole lot different. Saying that I made a friend on here. We connect away from here too. That just happened. I guess it takes 2 to want to connect. Meaning perhaps your connecting, but you haven't met anyone that wants to pick up the friendship rope.

I don't really think of this place in that light, this is just somewhere where I can chat about therapy. But if that self defeating chatter is going on in your mind, your actually see things through that prism. Try just thinking about here being a place to understand the therapy experience & not feel friendships have to be formed here.

I think this is really great insight, Fixated. Sounds like being liked is a way to not be invisible, and a way to convince yourself of your own worth. And it also seems like changing yourself to fit what others expect from you is almost protective of yourself, because it seems you think that no one would like the real you.

I also struggle sometimes with feeling like everyone hates me and I have no friends and so on (not just here, I mean in general). It's SO not true but it always means there is something else going on -- most likely that I can't let go of something about myself, and so I can't see how anyone else would like me, either. Chances are, no one is tougher on you than that awful voice in your head (that maybe you got from your parents?).

I've always had lots of friends, but I've never been popular. Not unpopular, but not popular. Every so often I'd wonder why the hell that was, but ultimately, it just is what it is. If I had to choose between the two, I'd take lots of friends any day.

And I do think that being concerned about everyone liking you actually really backfires sometimes. I had this one friend in college who just had to be liked by everyone, she really really wanted to be popular. And she sure did know a lot of people. But the problem was, she was so focused on trying to be liked by everyone, that she'd be on her phone constantly -- even when out with a group of friends. She asked me once, frankly, if she was on her phone too much, and I told her that it was hard to feel like she was really present with me when she absolutely could not resist the urge to answer the phone every time it rang, for fear of losing the "friend" on the other end. I wasn't the only one who felt that way.

Another sorta-friend I had, over one summer, I was becoming closer to, and she was kind of a difficult person to get along with but I was liking getting to know her. One day I was talking to her on the phone, and she sighed about how none of her friends ever called her. I thought this was her just kind of having a bummed out moment, so I said cheerfully, "But I'm calling you now!" And she said, "Yeah, but none of my GOOD friends call me." I didn't call her again. Different versions of this have happened over the course of my life, and I am pretty much fresh out of patience for being told by someone I care about that nobody cares about them (of course, I don't mind if they're just in a low place and are able to acknowledge that that isn't true and it's more that they just feel really bad about particular people not seeming to care, but when it becomes a persistent conversation... well, it's hard to feel like your friendship and caring is valued when it is so sweepingly negated).

What I'm saying is... thinking in extremes is shooting yourself in the foot. Focus on the friendships you DO have, or the connections you could see brewing. There are people I have met here that I actually refer to as "friends" in real life if I want to refer vaguely to something they said that I found clever or interesting. "A friend of mine said..." There are people here with whom I am friendly and like to touch base with. So, how to connect with people here? My advice would be, get invested in threads about issues that hit close to home for you. You don't have to have the answers, sometimes all a person needs to hear is that they aren't alone. Go ahead and PM people who appear to be regulars with whom you have something in common.

The couch is a tough place to connect, for me. For some people it's great; for me, I'm happier just popping in when I can. I HAVE made connections there, for sure, and I have mad love for the couchkateers and other people on PC. But I think a lot of us have had the experience of having a post ignored there. Or even on the forum -- the first thing I posted got two responses. Two. And that's not really anyone's fault, it just kind of is what it is on an internet forum. It's hard to feel like you have to build a thick skin to talk to people about psychotherapy! But like others have said, it's like practice for real life. There are fewer consequences and it's easier to start over after a faux pas, but sometimes it can still feel lonely. Sometimes you do want more "Thanks" or "Hugs". But, that's a great opportunity to ask yourself why that's what you think you want or need.

So, just like in real life, I feel like people have come to know who I am by my focusing on places where I think I have something useful to say. Don't overwhelm yourself with worrying about everybody. Look for the foundations of a few relationships -- I'll bet they are there.

And remember to use the same standards for yourself that you use for other people. There must be people in your life who you hold in high regard, for whom you have a lot of respect. And surely there are people who don't like them. That doesn't make them less worthy -- and it doesn't make you less worthy, either. And when you're ready, I'd bet that there are plenty of people who would like the real you, and that those people will more than make up for the people who inevitably won't.

If I remember right, your job situation is rough right now, and you're in a new city. These things can't be helping. It won't be this hard forever, hang in there