Afraid of Myself

I'm curious, is anyone else "afraid" of themselves connecting with others? I've grown afraid of myself, because any time I try to make a friend or a have a relationship I somehow manage to mess everything up. I get too intense, I think, or I just shut down, or perhaps the worst, I go into the mindset that I'm going to "test" the other person to see how much they actually care by shutting off communication to see if they put in the effort (they never seem to, though). Is this a thing? I want to connect but I'm scared to connect because I'm scared I'll mess it up and I'll be alone anyways, and I guess my mind thinks it's better to be alone by choice than to have people leave.

Yuuuup, sounds just like me. Yes, it's a thing, but it's not a good "normal" thing and we should be doing our best not to let ourselves fall into such mindsets. Sooo much easier said than done, I know.

What helps me sometimes is to remember how the other person is probably perceiving what I'm doing. It brings me back to reality for a bit at least. For example, if I do what you said and shut off communication to test if they care, they don't actually know they're being tested... So if they don't seek me out or take a long time to do so, it doesn't necessarily mean that they don't care. That said, if you're always the one to initiate conversation with someone, that's not really a good sign either - in that case I would either bring it up directly that you wish they would initiate or just let that person go.

I do my best in the last few years to just be straight with people. It not only helps me to get issues sorted, but helps them to know how to deal with me. I'm still trying to find the perfect balances of how much to say and when to say things, I definitely have not perfected my system yet.

I think I tend to self-sabotage too sometimes. I only seem to be attracted to guys I can't have, because I'm afraid of having a relationship that will actually work out.

I sabotage my own efforts to make friends. I am afraid of rejection and I just don’t read people well. Sometimes after I’ve completely pulled away from someone because they didn’t seem to be reciprocating, the person is hurt and kind of confused. Clearly I don’t always communicate so well and there’s too much going on in my own head. I do best when I let go of expectations of others and just accept the relationship as it is. Not every friendship will be built into a solid long-term and healthy relationship and in fact most aren’t. If a person doesn’t seem to reciprocate much I just pull back but I don’t just cut people off or “test” them. I used to do that a lot and now I struggle with building healthy friendships because I guess I don’t know how to. This behavior comes from insecurity and I agree with Shadow’s suggestion to also look at things from the other person’s perspective. The thing I have struggled with lately is that I have often reached out to get to know people and invite them to things but rarely does anybody reciprocate and invite me to things. It hurts my feelings when somebody I have included in my life talks about all the other events and things they’re doing and not one time was I invited. I don’t get it. This leads me to start feeling down on myself, like I don’t measure up and I’m always the outsider. Sometimes I get upset and decide I’ll just stop inviting people. But how else do I try to make friends? I totally get your frustration and I wish I had better answers but I struggle with this stuff too.

It's definitely a thing - I've felt very much like you describe. My interpersonal relationships have always been intense, & I've overanalysed them all in such depth, I now overthink things in current interactions. Constantly having it at the forefront of my mind, that I mustn't make the same mistakes again, sometimes causes me to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, & I wonder why I even bothered. For awhile, I lived my life with the motto, 'If you can't win, don't try.' It was a pretty cruddy motto. I've managed to move beyond that mentality in some areas, but still struggle with relationships - I'm so lonely sometimes, but I just can't risk the heartbreak of starting friendships only to lose them in the end.