[herm02]

Hi I'm 44 years of age and divorced for 15 months now.
I have a problem living alone. If I weren't training for a marathon in Nov I don't know what I would do with myself. I have no social skills . I don't know how to make friends. I feel needie sometimes. When I look in a mirror I don't really know who I am.
As a child I was beat by both mother and father. My mother would spit , bite, hit me over the head with her shoe. My father would slap me in the face, put my hand by a fire ( I said the f word) hit me with a strap, make me keel in front of a wall until he said to move. This did not happen all the time but as I "acted out" as a child.
In my teenage years I used drugs . I stopped everything in 1987. Now I look at my self and I look at others and see a big Gap. When I look at people interact I see how they do it so fluidly. When I do talk to someone I can feel fear sometimes or comprehending what the other is saying is hard due to fear.
My doctor wanted me on antidepressants because of my divorce but My running is helping me with that. I want to face what is keeping me away from interacting with people more than I am but its very hard. When I do get up enough courage to talk to a women I like, I start spacing out because of fear.
Its only after I get to know a person then my fear quiets down and then almost completely stops.
On my days off from work when a quiet time comes(alone with myself) I somtimes feel emotional pain.
I like people, But I dont know how to start a friendship.
Wow, after reading what I just wrote I really feel like a messed up person.
Any help would be great ifs it not to late already. Thanks!

[samantha]

I dont think that it's too late at all. After all...there's no time like the present. Anyway, I belive that you have made a step in the right direction already by choosing a hobby. Something else that you might not have thought of is that you are dragging a lot of baggage with you. You might have a preoccupied look on your face which sends a signal to others that you are not wanting to be bothered or you are not interested in talking with them. Try this, start off by walking with you head up, next try and make eye contact with those around you. Once you feel comfortable with that, smile when you make eye contact. Before long you will probably have people saying hello to you and if they don't, then you say hi first. It won't be that hard if you take it a small step at a time.

[herm02]

Quote

You might have a preoccupied look on your face which sends a signal to others that you are not wanting to be bothered or you are not interested in talking with them. Try this, start off by walking with you head up, next try and make eye contact with those around you. Once you feel comfortable with that, smile when you make eye contact. Before long you will probably have people saying hello to you and if they don't, then you say hi first. It won't be that hard if you take it a small step at a time.

Thank you Samantha,
Thats what people at work tell me , that I look angry but im not at all angry...just deep in thought most of the time. Ill keep trying to " come out of myself " but it seems this fear is so strong. It holds me in my own prison.
I always thought the opposite of love is hate but I now see the opposite of love is fear.
Thank you.

[Benjamin Fry]

You have detailed some quite serious abuse in your childhood. We sometimes tend to minimise our misfortunes in life because that is a function either of our culture or our time and Iím struck that you were surprised to read your own account of yourself. This shows that you find it difficult to connect with an objective appreciation and understanding of what has happened to you and how it has affected you.

Really the impact of all behaviours around children should not be judged on what seems reasonable, fair, harsh, normal, acceptable etc. but on how it affects the children themselves. This varies from child to child which is why there is no one set of answers that work for all kids. In your case you lived in a home where violence was meted out to you by the same people that you relied on to keep you alive. This is a terrible conflict. Young children need their parents and understand this instinctively. Without them they would die, and that is where the fear of abandonment comes from. However in your case with them, you were also in serious danger. You faced a choice between the extreme fear of being without your adult guardians and the extreme fear of being with them. Fear was the diet of your childhood.

This would have been overwhelming and so much of these very intense emotions would have been repressed. Now that you are a big strong adult, you have the chance to release these repressed feelings, which is good for your internal growth and health, but of course feels terrible. Thatís what repressed feelings feel like when they emerge.

I think that it is no accident that these feelings in the present are triggered by the presence of people who you donít know very well. Anything unpredictable about another could result in the kind of trauma that you experienced as a child, so you relive it and thus process it a little. You particularly identify women, which fits with a desperate need for a mother-like love, but at the same time a real terror of it (as experienced by you).

These are hard issues to solve alone and certainly you deserve some support. Iíd recommend that you ask your doctor to refer you for some counselling rather than just rely on the medications. You may also find some support groups for adults who have been affected by domestic violence as children. One of the best experiences you can get is to talk to other people who have been through the same problems and have the same issues. It can make you feel more normal.

To get back to a more useful social skill set in the present, you need to focus your fear on where it came from ñ the past. This past is still living within you. You need to access it and to externalise it. Then you can start to move on. Itís never too late, but itís always difficult. The first step is to make friends with your difficult emotions. Then you can start to bear them more easily and therefore process them faster. Thatís what all this fear is about. If you resist it, you just stay stuck in it.