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kiwi215
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Smile Jun 29, 2018 at 05:54 PM
  #1
I just don't. I don't like when people can relate to me*. I think because it makes me feel like the struggles I'm talking about are nothing special. When other people say they can relate to my pain, I guess I interpret that as my pain is just a common experience. Nothing noteworthy. And/or, it makes me feel misunderstood... There's no way someone else could possibly feel the amount of pain I feel... I also postulate that maybe I don't like the whole "you're not alone" sentiment because, in my mind, that means that those other people who "share" my pain will get the attention and care for it. And I won't. There won't be enough love and empathy left for me. I also have a major tendency to want to be the "sickest" one in a group, likely for the same reason. I feel very emotionally needy (I have a history of childhood emotional neglect).

*See second to last paragraph for clarification!

So I think the two main reasons I react negatively to "you're not alone" is because it either means that A) other people will get the loving, caring, attention and empathy that I so desperately crave and there won't be much if any left over for me, and/or B) that I'm being misunderstood; that people can't see my pain for what it really is, and therefore it won't be seen as "that bad" or that worthy of being attended to. So maybe it all just kind of comes down to fear? The fear that I won't get my emotional needs met. That I will always have this void. That all that empathy and compassion and care and attention that I so desperately crave will never be mine.

Anyone relate?? "You're not alone" is sooo commonly used in the mental health community and it's meant to be comforting, but for me it's the opposite. It's not that I want to be "forever alone" or a loner in that sense. I want caring people in my life. I don't (generally) want to be alone. I just want my pain to be seen for what it really is and I want it to be remedied to its fullest.

Ironically, as I'm writing this, I notice that I just wrote "anyone relate??" as if in an effort to elicit a "you're not alone" response haha. But if anyone replies with that or something to that effect, it won't affect me in the ways I described above. I think this is more an interesting phenomenon to me that I'm just curious about to see if anyone else experiences it. Above, what I really meant to get at was I don't like it when people say they relate to my pain. Like... "I had a similar bad experience with a therapist and it sucked too" (and then in my head I'm like... Umm, no you didn't. Don't say you understand when you don't. You don't know how much pain I was/am feeling. Your "bad" experience with a therapist wasn't nearly as bad as mine was. That feels invalidating).

So for this particular situation, yes, I am genuinely interested in knowing if anyone else experiences this reaction to "you're not alone" or similar sentiments. Just curious from more of a scientific standpoint as a student of psychology
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Default Jun 29, 2018 at 08:07 PM
  #2
I feel like the problem with the "you're not alone" statement is that people say it in general a lot without they themselves being able to relate and it feels like a cop-out, no-thought statement. It used to bother me a LOT more than it does now. Now I mostly see it as "at least they're trying to make me feel better", because they easily could just ignore me entirely or make fun of me. Still, at times I don't like to hear it because it can feel like people didn't put much effort into caring and that can hurt more than getting no reply.

When I respond to threads or posts that others make I always wonder if people see my replies and secretly are mad because I say I can relate to them. I heavily debate not replying a lot of the time, but every once in a while someone will reply saying my reply helped them, so I keep taking the risk knowing someone could snap at me for it. It will probably only take one person snapping at me to get me to stop replying altogether though... I try to be sensitive about my wording as well, because I do not want to seem like I'm invalidating what someone is feeling by sharing my experiences, I just want to provide them some comfort if I can.

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Default Jun 30, 2018 at 01:06 PM
  #3
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Originally Posted by ShadowGX View Post
I feel like the problem with the "you're not alone" statement is that people say it in general a lot without they themselves being able to relate and it feels like a cop-out, no-thought statement. It used to bother me a LOT more than it does now. Now I mostly see it as "at least they're trying to make me feel better", because they easily could just ignore me entirely or make fun of me. Still, at times I don't like to hear it because it can feel like people didn't put much effort into caring and that can hurt more than getting no reply.
I think that's a big part of it too! I think maybe for me there's another component, but yes, it does sometimes seem like a cop-out statement. But I like what you said about seeing it as those people at least making an attempt to comfort me. Whether it's effective for me or not, they do probably mean well.

And I'm glad you responded! Thank you. I hope you continue to voice your thoughts. Even if someone has a negative reaction, that doesn't mean that amends can't be made or clarifications can't be given. And at the end of the day you're still allowed to have your opinions anyway. I imagine that your sharing and responding does more good than harm.
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Default Jul 02, 2018 at 02:38 AM
  #4
I remember the first time someone said that to me. It was a therapist and I just began sobbing and saying, “no. That can’t be true.” It was meant to comfort me but instead I was weeping for all the others who felt like this too. Weeping for how terrible of a place this society/world must be if I am not a unique freak of nature that has been given the ability to feel this much pain. I still feel that way but I have learned that when people say that “I am not alone “ their intentions are so help, so I try to take comfort from that.

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Default Jul 02, 2018 at 07:51 AM
  #5
When my ex T used to say that to me, I would honestly wonder why he thought that would help. It didn't make my pain less to know that other people out there were also in pain. I didn't feel like I could find those other people and we could have a big kumbaya circle and bond in our shared pain and all of us would feel better. I suppose he could have meant that I could have sought them out and asked them how they fixed things in their lives and try to use the same tactics in mine but...when you're in so much pain that you can barely get out of bed and pretend to be human, it doesn't seem likely that you have anything left in the tank to track down other people who feel the same way.

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Default Jul 03, 2018 at 05:17 AM
  #6
I don’t like it either. When I perceive “ I feel your pain” “ I know what you feel” “you’re not alone”...when they aren’t said in a genuine way.
No comfort at all.
Unless someone could be into another person’s head...I think we can only make an idea of what this person may be going through...maybe a similar experience, but never the same.
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Default Jul 04, 2018 at 11:35 AM
  #7
Thank you all. It's frustrating. Sometimes it makes me feel like I'm ineffective at explaining things. The other day I was telling the people in a therapy group I'm in about a horrible experience I had with a past therapist and how that left me so broken down. One girl said she understood and told me a brief story about how one of her past therapists told her this one thing that bothered her. And I was just sitting there thinking, No no no… That's not even close to what I went through. Did you not hear what I said? Did I not express it well enough? It felt so invalidating to my experience. Like, if she thinks that her pain that she went through when her therapist said that one thing to her, then she most definitely does not understand the hell I went through with the over a year-long relationship I had with the past therapist I was talking about. Now I feel bad for feeling this way because had I said that out loud to her, she probably would have felt invalidated too. So I don't say those things out loud. And in my head I try to be fair, too, because perhaps that experience affected her more too than I'm imagining. It's just so hard to believe that someone (non-BPD) else's "similar" experience could possibly even come close to the pain I experience as someone with BPD.
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Default Jul 04, 2018 at 02:36 PM
  #8
Wow! I get what you're saying! I think this is really insightful. I always had an instinctively angry response to people saying these things but could never articulate it.

Makes me realize that sometimes I just have to stop trying to find common ground, shut up, and listen.

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Last edited by SparkySmart; Jul 04, 2018 at 02:49 PM..
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Default Jul 04, 2018 at 05:29 PM
  #9
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Originally Posted by SparkySmart View Post
Makes me realize that sometimes I just have to stop trying to find common ground, shut up, and listen.
I like that. I would very much prefer somebody listen to me and ask questions if they're having trouble understanding, rather than look for a similar experience in their life to conceptualize my pain, no matter how similar they think it is. I don't think a person has to have had a similar experience to comfort me.
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Default Jul 05, 2018 at 08:23 AM
  #10
This is not exactly related...but...last year my little dog (Sparky) died. When I returned to work and told people, they said, "Oh no! How sad! I've been through that, too! Did I tell you how awful it was when my dog/cat/turtle/snake died?" And then I sat, bug-eyed and stunned, while they described their experience in agonizing detail and I tried to appear to comfort them. Oh please oh please oh please shut up. Can't you tell I'm grieving? Please just give me some room here.

I had a friend years ago who would listen and only speak to clarify points, like, "So I think you said XYZ. Is that what you were saying?" Gosh. It made me feel so...so cared for and understood somehow.

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Default Jul 05, 2018 at 11:05 AM
  #11
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Originally Posted by SparkySmart View Post
This is not exactly related...but...last year my little dog (Sparky) died. When I returned to work and told people, they said, "Oh no! How sad! I've been through that, too! Did I tell you how awful it was when my dog/cat/turtle/snake died?" And then I sat, bug-eyed and stunned, while they described their experience in agonizing detail and I tried to appear to comfort them. Oh please oh please oh please shut up. Can't you tell I'm grieving? Please just give me some room here.

I had a friend years ago who would listen and only speak to clarify points, like, "So I think you said XYZ. Is that what you were saying?" Gosh. It made me feel so...so cared for and understood somehow.

...my little dog (Sparky) died. When I returned to work and told people, they said, "Oh no! How sad! I've been through that, too! Did I tell you how awful it was when my dog/cat/turtle/snake died?"

I don’t see so bad the “ I’ve been through that too” phrase, what it’s pretty understandable. In the end, we all go through events that may be similar. This is life.
What I see mean is what followed. It was your moment of sadness, your loss, your time to have a friend ear in case you wanted to share more. Nothing worst than adding more sadness with their sad experiences.
Whoever with a little of empathy can see it. I don’t know what’s happening...we are becoming too much self-focussed.
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Default Jul 05, 2018 at 06:41 PM
  #12
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This is not exactly related...but...last year my little dog (Sparky) died. When I returned to work and told people, they said, "Oh no! How sad! I've been through that, too! Did I tell you how awful it was when my dog/cat/turtle/snake died?" And then I sat, bug-eyed and stunned, while they described their experience in agonizing detail and I tried to appear to comfort them. Oh please oh please oh please shut up. Can't you tell I'm grieving? Please just give me some room here.

I had a friend years ago who would listen and only speak to clarify points, like, "So I think you said XYZ. Is that what you were saying?" Gosh. It made me feel so...so cared for and understood somehow.
I think it's related. And insightful too because perhaps part of the reason why I don't like "you're not alone" is because it often turns into the "listener" taking over the conversation and making it (at least somewhat) about themselves. It sounds to me like in your example that those people just contributed more sadness, telling more sad stories and not really focusing on what they could have done to comfort you, even if in their heads they were trying to. It seems like it's this natural human response to automatically think about similar experiences in their lives in order to comfort someone. Which I can understand how that could help with empathy and it's probably human nature to attempt to relate to others. But sometimes people just get too caught up in their own past experiences I guess.

I wish I could have been there to offer some comfort after your dog died! I hope you have been able to do some healing since then
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Default Jul 06, 2018 at 01:49 AM
  #13
Thanks, Kiwi. Sparky died over a year ago, so I've come to terms.

But your post reminds me that others don't necessarily want my very wise advice or commiseration as much they just want to be heard. Listening and not interrupting is hard.

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Default Jul 12, 2018 at 02:02 PM
  #14
I don't feel like that with that particular phrase. I do feel like that with "you don't have it so bad--be grateful!"

My pain is mine. I don't need it to be minimized.
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Default Jul 14, 2018 at 12:10 PM
  #15
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"you don't have it so bad--be grateful!"

My pain is mine. I don't need it to be minimized.

I HATE that phrase. That one does feel worse to me as well. Those people couldn't know how bad someone else's pain is anyway. They can only make guesses and assumptions.
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