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Originally Posted by Julia Cannon
I can not stand where I live. I have no friends in my building and spend my time isolating in my apartment because I loathe the people in my building and do not trust them. I have one friend who is very sick emotionally who is not healthy for me to be around and who stalks me. My life is a nightmare. I have never met such immature, nasty people in my life. A number of people in this building sit around all day ripping people apart . They sit there day after day doing nothing and desiring to do nothing. I despise them. For three years I have managed to stay away from these people and live my life. I managed to go for over two years with nobody bothering me or talking about me. It wasnt until I got a dog that some people started talking about me. This guy approaches me the other night and tells me all these things that people said about me. He tells me that they are saying that my dog is going to the bathroom in the hall, that my dog is not trained. Also that I think Im better then everyone because my mother used to be the mayor of my town. I should have just laughed this off because it is such a joke but it couldnt be further from the truth. My dog is so well behaved and most of the people in the building adore her. My dog has never gone to the bathroom in the hall. The fact that they say I think im better then everyone else is ridiculous. I dont bother with alot of these people because they are mean and back stabbing and not to be trusted. I used to be so friendly to everyone and not bother anyone and just stay busy outside of the apartment building. However I have not been working since November and have been hanging out with this woman who alot of the people in the building do not care for. She has alot of problems but has been there for me. I think I am having these problems because of her. I am telling her things in private that I think she is repeating yet she refuses to admit that she said anything about me. She keeps comparing me to herself saying people say things about her and she doesnt do anything. However there is no getting through to her. She tells people off and is very outspoken plus she is always mentioning her mental illness and has alot of very annoying behaviors. I do not do any of this and have rarely told anyone off. I have spent three years watching every move I make and trying not to cause any problems. I dont bother anyone and yet people are still talking about me. I have been very nice to these people and let them play with my dog. I talk to them on a very superficial level but cannot tell them anything deeper. This place is so unhealthy for me. Not too long ago I was teaching swimming lessons and getting alot of positive feedback from people. Now I am living in fear in my building, isolating and not wanting to talk to anyone or be nice to anyone because i do not trust them. I have never done anything to these people and the one person that I have as a friend is extremely unhealty for me and is always mentioning her mental illness and how people dont take her seriously . She is always trying to pretend that she is doing better than me. She is way sicker than I am. She acts like she is my saviour and rescuer just so she can feel better about herself. My life is a living hell. It is a catch twenty two. I need to get better and recover to return to work yet I am living in a very sick enviornment.
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Socializing with your neighbors obviously sounds very important to you. The last apartment building I lived in, I lived there a little over four years and didn't talk to anybody. I like it that way. For years it was a quiet building, no partiers. No one really bothered anyone.
My advice is just to move out. You said you were out of a job. Is there a friend or relative you can crash with for a while? I would move out of there.
I just moved out Feb. 28 of this year. I'm currently living with relatives for about six months before I make my final move out-of-state.
But anyway....
It was pretty quiet up until the past year or so. The mailman accidentally put my neighbor's mail in my mailbox and that's how I found out that she likes to write to men in prison...
She is a very lonely woman. She always needs a relationship, even if the guy is a scrub. She was doing long-term babysitting for a while. She had been doing that since I moved in, up until maybe a year/year and a half ago. I thought the baby was hers, for a very long time. She wouldn't correct people when they would refer to him as "her" baby. I think she wanted everyone to think he was hers.
Very insecure.
But anyway, after she broke up with a long-term boyfriend (I heard the whole episode), she invited this guy to live with her last summer. I'm pretty sure it was one of her prison buddies. The vibe in the entire building just
darkened when he moved into her apartment. And everytime you'd walk by her apartment, he would look out the window. He was paranoid about something. I thought the vibe thing was my imagination, but another woman in the building and I got to talking one day, and she mentioned the same thing - that she felt the vibe in the place had gotten darker. Not long after that conversation her little storage shed outside was robbed. And she moved out shortly after that.
Our landlord is quite lax about who her tenants invite in. She even said to ME, I could invite anyone I wanted to live with me, as long as the rent was paid. And a couple weeks before I was planning to move, I bought a new used car. A couple of my neighbors went and damaged it, two nights in a row, after it was dark. Put minor scrapes and dents on it. I had to start parking it at a friend's. They probably thought I moved out because of them. (I won't mention how I know, I just know... and there is zero possibility I am wrong... yet I can't prove it. If that makes sense.)
That's the joys of apartment building living. I lived in them much of my childhood as well. It's kind of the bottom of the food chain. You always have your share of wacked out neighbors who are really nosy, or insecure and can't live alone so they invite in their prison buddies (haha), jealous ones who can't stand to see anyone moving up in the world (even in the most subtle of ways, such as purchasing a car)..... you luck out a bit when you can live in the nicer ones. The ones that are $600-$700 a month. But when you're doing low-income (you didn't say you were in low-income, I know)..... or ones that are a little cheaper... prepare for some interesting neighbors. And often angry neighbors.
Maybe you can find a place that is NOT in a building? Maybe a duplex or a small building with only three or four units?
Good luck to you. My only advice really is to move. That's all you can do. If you don't like where you are living you need to leave. I think you already know that. You're not going to change those people.
And I would just keep it to small talk with this mentally unstable neighbor friend. People want to drag you into the drama even when you try to keep to yourself, there's just no avoiding it. Unhappy people need to create drama, so they can have an illusion of a life. Just keep it to pleasantries.