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Old 03-05-2019, 07:42 PM
 
892 posts, read 477,875 times
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it's a sad fact that not everyone in interested in treating people decently. it can be too scarey to know that even if you are polite and kind, there are people who can see that as an opportunity to be irresponsible and egotistical. but it's hard to know beforehand exactly how people are except from their behavior. it can be disorienting to find someone speaks nicely, and then does something that didn't match their nice-sounding words.
take your time. it's only healthy to want authentically nice people in your life.
my experience went from feeling hopeless, wanting to connect more deeply, and either finding out a person cared about this, or didn't. there are still decent people (the fact that you care about this shows that such a person exists!) around. i myself had to pay more attention to "red flags" more quickly and stop making excuses for bad behavior. saying "i didn't know"(sometimes said as an excuse to not be accountable, and make you feel sorry for them, instead of considering your experience) is also the reason they need to learn what caring treatment means to you. "i didn't know" doesn't mean they 'can't' know. how else would they get this far in life if every thing they did wrong to another person was "all" they could know?
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Old 03-05-2019, 09:32 PM
 
37,411 posts, read 45,595,277 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by imfine View Post
Hi guys,

there is some paradox about people who have been severely bullied as children. Some, if not most, are not able to connect to people never again in their lives, so other people hate them for what they've became. I'm one of these bullied people.

Today I'm not bullied at all, because the primary cause of me being bullied is gone. But I still expect people to hurt me. I realized that my entire life is counter-phobic behavior. I put myself to situations to try overcome my limitations, but most of the time it doesn't go very well.

Here's how my contact with people usually goes. I will tell you about 1:1 contacts, because in groups I'm freaking out and I'm wearing my mask. I try to talk to someone many times during the day. Sometimes my voice is very quiet and people ask me to repeat what I said. I feel embarrassed at this point. I try to tell something to that person or just ask question, hoping he or she won't hurt me. People dismiss me a lot, probably because I appear dull. My anxiety makes my voice very monotonous and my body language frozen. But I also know how it feels to feel more relaxed and people give me completely different kind of feedback then. It flows. But it's like 3% of my all interactions or less.

I also send negative vibes a lot. People assume I'm just a mean person, while what it really is is my cope mechanism. I guess that's how it works for many "mean" people. I will dismiss a person by grumpy face or short answers to just end the interaction that I'm unable to handle. I feel sorry for that person afterwards, because what I do is not what I really feel towards that person. But unfortunately it's like that most of the time. My brain is busy with analyzing and avoiding being hurt again, so there is no space to actually connect with the person I'm interacting with. It amazed me when I see people talking smoothly to each other, having dynamic body language and being relaxed, keeping eye contact that doesn't seem forced etc. That's what I never, ever experienced.

When I feel like I'm on fire, energy level is better than usual, I easily become cocky. I guess that's how I want to express my achievement of overcoming huge part of the anxiety. That is not the greatest behavior in the eyes of most people neither. My best interactions are these when I really am focused on something else or just did something really satisfying shortly before.

I would like to improve my social interactions, because being rejected this much causes lots of problems. I also tend to stick too much to people who I find understanding, appearing as needy.

Can any of you relate?
I was bullied as a child. It has not affected me in that way at all. I am actually a much stronger person, I think, because of it. You have some other issues going on, IMO.
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Old 03-05-2019, 09:37 PM
 
109 posts, read 60,767 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChessieMom View Post
I was bullied as a child. It has not affected me in that way at all. I am actually a much stronger person, I think, because of it. You have some other issues going on, IMO.
Describe your bullying, please. Were you picked on by random people? Did you have support from others? What about your parents?
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Old 03-05-2019, 11:15 PM
 
Location: Texas
13,480 posts, read 8,284,755 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChessieMom View Post
I was bullied as a child. It has not affected me in that way at all. I am actually a much stronger person, I think, because of it. You have some other issues going on, IMO.
Your situation is not everyone's situation.

Everyone is different. Everyone's situations are different. Everyone's experiences with bullying are different.

Make any sense?

Just because you feel it did not affect you, doesn't mean it has no effect on others.
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Old 03-06-2019, 01:38 PM
 
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
6,288 posts, read 11,717,064 times
Reputation: 3369
Quote:
Originally Posted by imfine View Post
we knew each other for more than 10 years and have travelled a lot together
This means he considered you a friend for that period of time. But sometimes people change.

Quote:
I live in Europe. Not the friendliest part of Europe either, but it's fine.
So, northern EU or something? I find people are very sociable in Spain, Italy.

Quote:
Thank you for great insights.
You're welcome.
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Old 03-06-2019, 02:59 PM
 
6,277 posts, read 4,136,985 times
Reputation: 24726
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChessieMom View Post
I was bullied as a child. It has not affected me in that way at all. I am actually a much stronger person, I think, because of it. You have some other issues going on, IMO.

Everyone’s situations are different and it’s dismissive and cruel to make assumptions about others when you don’t know all the facts, the type of bullying, age of the victim of bullying, or how long it occurred.
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Old 03-06-2019, 03:45 PM
 
109 posts, read 60,767 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 80skeys View Post
This means he considered you a friend for that period of time. But sometimes people change.
Well, I don't think it's the case here. I forgot to say that in my native language, the word "friend" has much stronger meaning. By definition, you can have just a few "friends" max and most people have none.

I'm really thinking about underlying issues now. Maybe that's true, I'm not sure. On one hand, I do have a few traits that make me different than most people. On the other hand, I remember my social skills were pretty good before I've been bullied for the first time. And that first time must have been somewhere around the age of 7. My appearance has been ridiculed for about 10 years. When I grew up, I started to look normal. I am pretty sure that my appearance wasn't the only think people attacked me for. But it was in the beginning. I've became quite awkward after months and months and bullying. I've got some psychosomatic symptoms (mostly shaking) that have been ridiculed then as well.

Everything has its good sided though. I wouldn't be who I am today without all this abuse. I needed to try much harder than most people to understand what is going on. That made me try many things, read many great books, travel the world etc. If I sort out my anxiety, it's gonna be a beautiful life after what I've learned through that.
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Old 03-06-2019, 04:36 PM
 
840 posts, read 3,454,965 times
Reputation: 781
Just ran across this: https://www.aconsciousrethink.com/4169/i-no-friends/
When you click on it, scroll down to where it says:
Have You Been Giving People The Wrong Message?

People are usually quite open to making new friends, but they have to feel that the other person wants to be their friend too...... So, you need to be asking yourself whether you are giving off the wrong signals to those around you who might be potential friends.
There is some good info on there.

Wishing you the best.
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Old 03-07-2019, 12:46 PM
 
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
6,288 posts, read 11,717,064 times
Reputation: 3369
Quote:
Originally Posted by imfine View Post
My appearance has been ridiculed for about 10 years.
A lot of people in this world are just a bunch of ***holes. I wish I could use strong language to describe them but city-data will blur it out.

I can relate somewhat to your experiences. I wasn't bullied, but I grew up in a gang neighborhood and had run-ins with those guys; they weren't picking on me specifically, they always try to cause problems with anybody and everybody they can get their hands on ...

Quote:
If I sort out my anxiety, it's gonna be a beautiful life after what I've learned through that.
Fortunately for you, anxiety is one of the easiest "psychological" problems to cure, as it is basically a learned response and therefore can be unlearned.
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Old 03-07-2019, 04:25 PM
 
109 posts, read 60,767 times
Reputation: 115
Quote:
Originally Posted by 80skeys View Post
Fortunately for you, anxiety is one of the easiest "psychological" problems to cure, as it is basically a learned response and therefore can be unlearned.
I'm afraid this is not true at all. Maybe some kind of short-term or mild anxiety is, but most people with chronic anxiety live their whole lives with it. Calling anxiety "one of the easiest to cure" is misleading. Hyperactivity of reptile instincts is never easy to cure. I spent more than 15 years trying to fix this without success. If it's so easy to fix, then I must be just dumb.
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