Nobody Likes Me

I don’t remember exactly when it began. Somewhere in the first few months after my TBI, I had this disturbing repeating thought pattern. Nobody likes me. I mean NOBODY. None of my parents like me. My future husband hates me. My lifelong friends just put up with me. Do not even get me started on how I felt my extended family members thought of me.  Up until about a year ago, I felt my entire hometown thought I was just the worst person ever.

I remember multiple occasions of me sitting in the middle of the floor all by myself, paralyzed at the realization that everyone hates me. It took multiple calls to family and friends to get reassurance that they do in fact like me. I started therapy for the first time as an adult around this time. Many sessions helped me realize that the world doesn’t hate me.

Over the past 10 years, I tried to keep relationships going even though I felt the other person didn’t like me. In that time, I figured out that many people do love me as I am and were willing to help me process through this dark cycle. Others are no longer within my sphere because it turns out they don’t like me.

Okay that is not a fair statement for me to make. Those people no longer in my sphere might have liked me at one point. Hell, who knows, maybe they still like me. Over time I have processed that my cyclical thoughts of the world hating me is in fact a defense mechanism.

I now know that when I begin to think someone doesn’t like me, it turns out I don’t like them! Also, not a fair statement. It is not that I do not like the person, I do not like how they have treated me at one point or another. I assumed that when someone did not treat me respectfully it was because they didn’t like me. Because how can you be disrespectful to someone you like?

Turns out people are assholes just because and it is not always a reflection of how they value you as a person. That was a tough concept for me to swallow. When I realized that my core issue with some of my extended family and lifelong friends was feeling a lack of respect, I didn’t know what to do with this knowledge.

The solution I came up with was I trying to implement boundaries regarding how I am treated, considered, and spoken to by people. After not understanding boundaries, whether implementing them or respecting others’, it was a rocky start. It is fair to say a few of my wedge relationships are because of my lack of ability to create healthy boundaries, and that these people have never had them with me, and it can be a shock to the system when someone finally gets a backbone with you.

I will circle back to my newfound tool of boundaries later. But there is one more level to this repeating pattern. Within the past few weeks, I made an even more profound realization about this issue. It isn’t that I do not like these people that do not respect me. I now know all these ick feelings come from the fact that I do not trust someone who can assert themselves the way they do in my presence.

I had known I have trust issues for years. I had no idea how deeply rooted they are until just recently.  I am working on digging that up so I can move on and flourish with life. It is very hard to live a happy and abundant life when you are constantly in fight or flight mode 24/7 due to feeling that world is mistrustful and out to get you.

I have also learned that I can be liked by people who are untrustworthy. I can like people who I feel are not 100% authentic or genuine. I will continue to work on learning to accept that it is safe for me to trust, starting with myself and extending into my loved ones. I am learning that even if there are unsafe things around me, I am still safe as I am. I have faced many shoes that have dropped. I do not need to fear the next shoe, as I am only given what I can handle.