Break from "social life"

[BefuddledClarity]

Has anyone gone on a "social life" break?

Once I get my own place and car(again)...I want to stay offline or away from the phone for 2wks max ... Not talking to anyone.

I don't want anyone to know where I live for that time either. I just need time to decompress, do offline hobbies, and not be bothered 24/7. I'm drained... Completely drained.

All I want is for my toddler son to come back home in full custody and spend quality time with him. I won't cut off his social life though, he has friends in daycare. I want him to still have fun and socialize. I just mean me...I don't really want to talk to friends/family/acquaintances for a little while.

For the people I care about, I will give them a heads up that I'm going offline, so it's not a big surprise. I don't want to do it cold turkey.

As for uPDfamily members and uPDacquaintances...I will cut them out cold turkey. I don't think I'll stay in contact much with certain flying monkeys either. I'm tired.

I'm planning on changing my phone # too.
I'll give everyone my WiFi number for now and weed out the toxic people away from me.

Are you in a point in your life where you're mostly "free" from PDpeople in your inner circle?[ex. Family, friends, workplace, etc]

I wonder sometimes if it's possible to have NO PDpeople in one's life...My eldest bro is a flying monkeys to my PDmother pretty much[he lives with her] and the other two brothers still keep in weekly contact with her but don't really tell my business[I...hope...], so she's "stuck" in my inner circle, somewhat. I'm slowing going back into NC with her, currently LC, but just.... exhausted...she tires me.

I don't feel any love or hate for my PDmother. Just indifferent, just...like entertaining an annoying stranger.

If I get this job here soon, I'll be able to work alone, unsupervised..which is awesome! I left jobs that had PDbosses since my mental health was slowly deteriorating overtime...

Anyways...I hope all is well for y'all!

[feralcat]

Yes, I've done this as well.
And been the better for it. I don't think it's possible really to start healing whilst you're being constantly triggered by other people.
Although I joined Facebook recently - because I need to see what's happening re certain venues/festivals etc, plus a couple of private support groups ( information mainly)-  I've not joined Messenger or accepted more than a few friends requests. No information posting generally.

I rarely talk now to FOO. I dare say they think I'm antisocial. And odd. Whereas I'm actually not. But I have become a lot more selective.
And I don't care !
Which is major. I'm increasingly indifferent. I truly am a grey rock. I can now focus down on the small things in life, like nature and reading and feeling calm. And not the moany ,gossipy, drama llama ,unfulfilling ...and ultimately depressing and boring dance I was once part of.

So more power to you. Good luck 👍🏻

[BefuddledClarity]

Hi feralcat,

That's good to hear that it's been better for you after taking a break!

The first major "break" I had was when I deleted all my social media close to a decade ago...but that was mostly since I was getting stalked by weird men and also to stay away from PDfamily/flying monkeys among other things...

Then I transitioned to just phone number, but... I feel like too many people that I DON'T want to have it, has it. So, I'm doing a reset on that too ...

I can relate to the FOO thinking I'm antisocial...My PDmother is an immigrant to this country, and the majority of her family live outside the country. She used to feed them with lies about us[brothers and I], so they perceive us a certain way[ex. They see as as "children", they think some of us are shy while other of us are "party animals", etc]... I wasn't fluent in my mother's language in the past, but now I'm much better and can defend myself.

As for grey rocking, that's been pretty hard for me to do... I need to revisit on how to grey rock. Its becoming harder for me to hide my disdain for people. They confuse this disdain for "Oh no, she must be sad!" since my outer appearance is "she's that naturally 'happy, goofy, energetic' girl..."[not a little girl, I'm a WOMAN, I LOOK much younger than I am, and am forever cursed with having a "baby face", but please don't patronize me.]

I try to grey rock my PDmother, but it takes too much energy from me...That I am deciding to go NC again. She doesn't add anything to my life, not really. I don't even talk to my PDfather...he's much older than her, and closer to the deathbed, but...I don't know...we both just don't talk? It's been about 2-3yrs of silence with him. (Most of) my brothers don't really like talking to him either, yet they talk to my PDmother who's as bad or maybe worse...

Thank you for your kind words, feralcat!

[mary_poppins]

Hi Befuddled Clarity.

Yes, I plan on taking a break from social life, too. You said it's draining. Yes, it is. I guess when you've been abused, you can't take social interactions anymore. You need some down time. Both offline and online. I deleted my Facebook for a period of time and I think it has already improved my life. I plan on deleting Instagram too when I find out how. Being online gives you the ilussion that you socialize or feel accepted in a certain circle but it's not true. I maybe know almost 5% of my Facebook friends. I only talk to 2-3 people from that long list. The rest, I have no idea who they are. And that's damaging to me. It makes me feel like I have so much interactions with people when I engage in a discussion with them but it's fake. I'll never meet those people in real life-I don't even talk to them in my DM.

I'm also thinking whether it's wise to go to support groups anymore. I've been to one last Sunday and one woman's severe abuse triggered an anxiety attack in me. Also, I've met, for the most part, kind people in there but I didn't seem to have a healthy relationships with any of them. Our talks would be solely about our abusive parents and on how hard life is.
I've heard one psychologist say that going to support groups won't make us feel better because we keep sharing our awful stories and re-inforcing our traumatic feelings. I think I'll take a break from those groups, as well.

I am glad you went cold turkey and cut your family out. How long have you been NC?
I'm planning on going cold turkey, too. I can't seem to do LC or VLC. I've tried it many times and it hurt me a lot.

Also, remember that no one forces us to socialize or have friends. Maybe society or our own internal mother's voice tells us we're weird/loners/bad if we have no friends or social connections. I think we should do what feels good for us-no matter how weird that may look to someone.
You need to take care of yourself in a way that feels good to you.

Stay safe.

[BefuddledClarity]

Hello mary_poppins,

Hi Befuddled Clarity.

Yes, I plan on taking a break from social life, too. You said it's draining. Yes, it is. I guess when you've been abused, you can't take social interactions anymore. You need some down time. Both offline and online. I deleted my Facebook for a period of time and I think it has already improved my life. I plan on deleting Instagram too when I find out how. Being online gives you the illusion that you socialize or feel accepted in a certain circle but it's not true. I maybe know almost 5% of my Facebook friends. I only talk to 2-3 people from that long list. The rest, I have no idea who they are. And that's damaging to me. It makes me feel like I have so much interactions with people when I engage in a discussion with them but it's fake. I'll never meet those people in real life-I don't even talk to them in my DM.

I 100% agree with you in regards to this! I guess... technically the only social media I have are language learning/language exchange related...a lot of the time, I'm repeating the SAME small talk to get to know them, and I can't really say they're my "true" friends. [In the past, I did have really cool online friends, but now...it feels like a grind to get to know people instead of feeling easy...]

Ah, also here is the link to delete Instagram: How do I delete my Instagram account?

I've...been debating about deleting my language exchange apps and sticking strictly to language learning by myself or just using only ONE language exchange app and deleting the others... technically I'm stuck on one right now and the others are just lying around inactive, but the one I have feels too much like Facebook 2.0 sometimes, and I don't like that...

I'm sorry to hear about the support groups... I went to one for my anxiety/depression back in college and...It was really awkward. Nobody would talk. Then the other groups I had to do was parenting classes [CPS requirements], which was okay... Now, I'm going to do a Domestic Violence support group later today for the first time [also requirement from CPS, or rather, individual counseling for it was, but I was never able to get in, so I'm just doing the group temporarily until they get me in]. I don't know how to feel about it because I don't like talking about myself or my life in person vs here on the forums...

I've heard one psychologist say that going to support groups won't make us feel better because we keep sharing our awful stories and re-inforcing our traumatic feelings. I think I'll take a break from those groups, as well.

That...makes a lot of sense actually.
There was a different website I used to go on, before I came to Out of the FOG, and it was a lot of negative stories, anger, name calling, etc. It didn't have the rules like we have here...It started to make me more anger and bitter, instead of healing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pseudonyms
Eldest brother - Yaw
Older brother - Kwasi
You get brother - Kofi
Gentleman "friend" - Marino
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not completely NC with the family...yet.
It's been a back-and-forth with it.
I pretty much unintentionally NC with my PDmother's family, since they live outside the country[I'm glad though, because a lot of them have FLEAS or are definite PDs themselves, I can't stand most of them].
As for PDfather, I'm NC with him completely. He doesn't bother me at all and I don't really know his family well [sadly, because there might be some cool ones...]

If I truly want to cut my PDmother out of my life, I might have to cut my brothers, which sucks but...at the same time...I don't want to KNOW or HEAR about her. I currently live with Kwasi and Kofi ... Yaw lives with our PDmother who's close to 2 kilometers away from us [different state]. Kwasi and Kofi agree with me how toxic our Pdparents were and we've discussed/complained about things they've done but...the thing is, Kwasi and Kofi shrug it off at the same time. Yaw doesn't say much at all because he's scared to anger our PDparents.

It felt awkward the other day when Yaw called me out of the blue to apologize to me. I haven't been talking to him lately, but it wasn't anything personal...He thought I was mad at him. It's just... I think eventually I might have to cut him out, because he's not good at keeping secrets from PDmother sometimes. Either that or... Just grey rock the crap out of him, which sucks too because I'm terrible at it and it feels like I can't talk to my brother Yaw anymore...

I feel you on not being able to do LC/VLC, I keep hurting myself doing it. I'm VLC with PDmother, only for my son's sake but...she's shown her true colours, and seems to like the status more than her actual grandson... She's also extremely racist and religious. She wanted me to date someone from HER country/heritage/ethnic background and someone who's Catholic, get married, and have kids. I didn't do any of those things...plus I'm mixed race. She hates my dad's race, but that's more of her hating him and just assuming all people of his race are like that...She didn't like that I had a child out of wedlock with someone she didn't handpick.

Also, remember that no one forces us to socialize or have friends. Maybe society or our own internal mother's voice tells us we're weird/loners/bad if we have no friends or social connections. I think we should do what feels good for us-no matter how weird that may look to someone.
You need to take care of yourself in a way that feels good to you.

Stay safe.

My PDmother used to tell me that no one would ever love me as much as she did, and how dare I love my friends more than her. I think it kept me from having friends for a while... Then I did a 180 and tried to make as many friends as possible when I hit late teens-early 20s...but it backfired...and I ended up not really having quality friends in the mix and I felt depressed. I disappeared from them and went NC with both good and bad friends due to anxiety/depression. Moved to a couple different states, AWAY from PDmother & PDfather.

Now? I guess I'm just...I'm not really trying as hard anymore to make friends...people gravitate towards me because I'm the "class clown" at work, just seem happy and cheery[even if I feel like dying on the inside]. I've hungout with some coworkers, but our friendship kinda dies once I quit the job. I have nothing against those people but...I don't wanna hear about how crappy it is working at a place I don't work at anymore.

Sadly, the only "real" friend I have is a guy I'm seeing, Marino. Marino is both Kwasi & Kofi's friend that they introduced me to.
We're at this awkward stage of whether we're considered BF/GF or not. It happened so fast with clicking together and both getting out of toxic relationships...Its really weird...He said he doesn't want a GF and wants to slow down, which is fair, so I treat him as JUST friend. No kissing, no pet names, no cuddling, none of that. But when I pull back, he gets sad and treats me like a GF instead with all of those things plus cooking for me and doing my laundry?? If I try to initiate and kiss or hold his hand, he says it makes him uncomfortable, but when I stop being affectionate, he starts getting EXTREMELY affectionate [not in an inappropriate way though lol] and even mentioned he loved me and wants me forever in his life regardless of whether we become a thing or not... It's confusing...

Anyways... I bring this up because at the same time he can be a bad friend. He has TERRIBLE time management and it's affected me many times. My tolerance is low for that. And also the mixed signals of what the hell he wants out of the friendship/relationship. He's a good guy otherwise just... irresponsible... And...it's sad that he's my only friend, because in a way, I feel like it puts too much pressure on this friendship/relationship.

I kind of need a break from Marino too, to figure out what I want to do or who I want to be with..

I need a break from everyone and from my online presence... I'll probably go hiatus or delete my language exchange account that's similar to Facebook 2.0. I have many followers and group chats, but... I'm tired... I'm on anonymous on that Facebook 2.0 app without ever showing my face, but still..

I found a more slow pace PenPal app, that sends messages as though it's a real letter. I really like the idea much more, because it's less pressure. I'm thinking of replacing it with that app for now.

Ah sorry, I tend to ramble a lot in my posts haha...I like these forums though. I feel more free to express myself than in real life. I try to keep my mouth shut in real life tbh.

[1footouttadefog]

Sounds like a good plan to me.

I think it's healthy to reset relationships from time to time.

Reviewing each and everyone and adjusting the type and level of interaction so they are safe and stress free as possible.  In some cases this might mean going NC or VLC.

I hope your two weeks with your son is wonderful and that they social break will bring clarity and perspective that will propel you forward toward your goals. 

[BefuddledClarity]

Hello 1footouttadefog,

Indeed, I hope it brings some clarity too!
I've just been kinda emotional lately due to lack of food, rest, and well... TMI but hormonal birth control in the form of an IUD[I need to get that checked too, just in case].

I'm hoping those 2 weeks can help me focus better. I'm anxious to start the job already! I start this Monday. I'm planning on paying the eviction debt first so I can get the place for me and my son. 

Thank you again for your wonderful posts!

[JustKeepTrying]

The pandemic did this for me and the divorce.  I do have social media but I don't check regularly and I turned off the notifications. So I have my accounts but they. don't flag me.  If I want to participate - like have the energy and curiosity. - I will and can.  But turning off those notifications was the most helpful.

I have a very small social circle now.  That a is fine with me. 

When I camp, I am often without connection.  That is when I am at my best.  My most centered and peaceful.

I often wondered if posting here on Out of the FOG does that reiniforcing of trauma but I think for me - it's more about reinforcing the skills for survive it.  It all depends on how we view it I suppose.

I think it is a positive step and good for you!

[BefuddledClarity]

Hi JustKeepTrying,

Camping sounds like fun! After all these years.... I've never tried it, well, not really. The closest I got to 'camping' is when we set up tents for family reunion at a rich uncle's backyard in his beach house and...that's pretty much it...

Ah, I need to turn the notifications off individually, sounds like a good idea. I've been putting my phone on "Do Not Disturb" mode, but I miss out on text messages/phone calls from certain people. The only people I have that can override my Do Not Disturb list is my attorney and case manager...pretty much anyone legal related I let through.

I often wondered if posting here on Out of the FOG does that reiniforcing of trauma but I think for me - it's more about reinforcing the skills for survive it.  It all depends on how we view it I suppose.

I think it is a positive step and good for you!

I feel you on this...I'm kinda in and out of this website and randomly reappear every couple months or so depending on my situation. I don't want to think about my PTSD too much from way back when in childhood...

Though, this website is kinda of nice using as a record/journal sometimes so I can look back and see my own mistakes too...

I'm just surprised on how past-me was DEEP in the fog with PDex, and me being in denial. It's depressing to see that. I feel 10x better after leaving him. I guess the good thing is that now I know better, and now I know how to handle a situation like that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pseudonyms
Eldest brother - Yaw
Older brother - Kwasi
You get brother - Kofi
Gentleman "friend" - Marino
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If I truly want to cut my PDmother out of my life, I might have to cut my brothers, which sucks but...at the same time...I don't want to KNOW or HEAR about her. I currently live with Kwasi and Kofi ... Yaw lives with our PDmother who's close to 2k kilometers away from us [different state]. Kwasi and Kofi agree with me how toxic our Pdparents were and we've discussed/complained about things they've done but...the thing is, Kwasi and Kofi shrug it off at the same time. Yaw doesn't say much at all because he's scared to anger our PDparents.

I meant to write 2,000 or 2k kilometers away, not 2 kilometers in my old post highlighted in red lol.