Affecting friendships and social anxiety coming Out of the FOG

[Serendipity12]

I have been NC (apart from two halfhearted hoovers and gaslights) with my UnPD mother and enabler sister since 2016.
With the clarity and peace that comes along with this I can also see that I can tend to place too much importance on friendships, as if they should somehow be FOO by proxy.  I am often bad at setting boundaries (ie saying  'no thanks' when not wanting to go on holiday with a friend when it doesn't suit me) and I worry too much about offending people. Even though I have read studies that show friendships are largely changeable, temporary things (7 years length I think is average) I get panicky if I think a friendship might end and wonder what is wrong with me - as though the natural end of any relationship is somehow my fault. To be fair I think I was the same  before nc as well but just didn't see it clearly. I feel as though I yearn for something I can never achieve.  Does anyone else experience this and maybe even have some insight on how to deal with it?

[DistanceNotDefense]

I am definitely dealing with this too. NC almost a year.

I can become a swirl of emotion and what feels like desperation in my close friendships and marriage, now that I don't have family, seeking someone to replace them. This wound me up in a couple of very dissatisfying friendships last year, and I honestly believe I kind of attracted these people to myself.

I try to simplify it in my mind. Some people are born into the close relationships that will help sustain them throughout their lifetime.

But not us. We need to find those people, and it just is what it is, we didn't do anything to deserve it.

People who can't take "no" for an answer to small requests and still respect you, or who might be offended by perceived slights over small things, are not the people you want. Right?

If you winnow out those people you will be alone for a little longer but in better shape for it. It will make time for better candidates to enter your life.

Until we find the good people we need to be our own family and parents, and learn to be that for ourselves (easier said than done, sheesh!) This clears your energy of desperation and taking anyone that comes along, which is what I did. I think I drew in people who were "predatory" for lack of a better word...not necessarily narcs. But fake.

People in healthy families are lucky that the people who raised them reflected back to them that they deserve love, respect, and stability without anyone's help or outside validation, which in effect taught them to be self-reliant and not distressed being on their own for a bit (or not nearly as distressed as we get).

Almost everyone goes through periods of loneliness in their lives, finding new people, friends, romantic partners - just for us it is WAY harder.

We missed out on any complete sense of self and keep looking for that validation from outside of us, but never getting it from our family/caregivers, or people who are similar to them (who we are subconsciously drawn to or they're drawn to us).

One thing that changed my perspective immensely: the people who I chase friendships with. Do I even like them? Do I even want to spend that much time with them?

I still have spirals of shame and loneliness that occasionally *must* be met by some sort of company, high quality or no.

But once the foggy dust of fear and guilt clear, I realize that some part of me prefers my company above that of others. That's a feeling to hold onto, expand, and nurture.

[theonetoblame]

you make a good point about friendships being largely transient, the 7 year average seems familiar looking back on my life.

Looking at it from this perspective means that the key to having friends then is to continuously be making new ones. If a person, like me for instance, is reeling from coming Out of the FOG, and hurt by other relationships, we may be gun shy and unwilling to take the risk of meeting new people and making new friends.

If our life circumstances have led us away from actively reaching out to meet new people, the ones who are left become more important. Perhaps too important, because there aren't new friends to replace them should they depart.

I'm not sure how active you are in terms of ongoing efforts to make new friends, but could a possible solution for your dilemma be that you focus more efforts on making new friends?

When looking to change our behavior it is very often more effective to find a new thing to do rather than focusing on not doing an old thing that isn't serving us. By focusing on the new thing, the old thing becomes less important and if we're lucky we eventually stop doing the old thing altogether...

[blues_cruise]

I relate a lot to this, friendships are really difficult and I struggle with the fact that they are so changeable. It does seem to be the way that you naturally grow apart from people over the years and when it happens it feels really painful, largely because I tend to think more of the friendship than the other person does. I too blame myself, to the point that I feel uncomfortable about bumping into the person in public after months of naturally drifting apart and not speaking, even when a large factor in this was that the other person had become increasingly flaky and disinterested. For me, the main aspects of this are people pleasing and assuming too much responsibility. I default to being what I think other people want me to be (i.e. in other words: "Please love me!") and completely lose sight of my right to have healthy boundaries and to distance myself if I feel I'm being treated unfairly or being taken advantage of.

I'm not sure what the exact answer is I'm afraid, it's something I'm still working on. I do wonder if a lot of it is needing stronger emotional boundaries and to just generally loosen up enough to have fun and stay in the present moment. Also, nurture and self care: consistently and without shame giving yourself that soft landing in the fact of rejection, which those with a healthy upbringing would find within their FOO and most likely take for granted. When you're preoccupied with the fallout from growing up in a dysfunctional family and the resulting trauma I think there's a tendency to be very intense about friendship because you don't want to be triggered into feeling more loss and rejection. If it's going to happen though, it's going to happen; there's not a lot you can do to avoid it! I think first and foremost this indicates that we need to try to be the best possible friend to ourselves so that we can better weather the inevitable loss and rejection that life throws at us.

Humans can be really quite crass when it comes to relationships too and have completely different ideas about what even constitutes a good friend. Some people do genuinely just want loads of interchangable acquaintances to go out with who they might refer to as 'friends', whereas others only really find friendship worthwhile if there's a closer bond and the prospect of some longevity to it. There nothing wrong with either scenario as long as you're on the same page. It's when your values misalign that you run into issues, with one person being more invested in the friendship than the other. From experience this is when situational friendships break down (i.e. former work colleagues), because even if you like one another and enjoy each other's company it's very difficult to continue to find common ground when you don't have (m)any shared interests or any other mutual things that might continue to link you to one another. It's really sad, but perhaps just something that needs to be grieved the way that you would with any loss. I think most people probably do feel sad when this happens but it's probably less profound for those who have a stronger sense of self and a secure family unit who has their back.

[Serendipity12]

Wow. Thank you so much for all of these replies. Not only is it reassuring to see that I'm not alone in grappling with this (and suspecting it's the fallout from UnPD past abuse), but your replies are full of fantastic,  affirming advice. I love the idea of focusing on the future and moving on forward, coming to terms with the changing face of friendships and making new ones. And, yes, asking whether some of the friendships that I worry over are worth it anyway.  I also need to remind myself that I can be my own family in many ways and that not all friendships need to have 'depth.' Thanks so much again - I really feel able to move forward with more hope.