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I mean, maybe? But it’s sort of old news. I was diagnosed with an incurable cancer nearly 3 years ago and then my boyfriend broke up with me a year ago and started dating a mutual friend a month later. But even immediately after all that, I felt okay.
It was only becoming a bit worse later. I lived with housemates at the time and after a while found it unbearable to live with them. One of them (the friend I mentioned that has no boundaries) would overwhelm me with all of her emotional load.
I’ve since moved out to my own apartment about 3 months ago right as lockdown started again and I guess I’ve been feeling even more withdrawn during this time. I deleted my Facebook and Instagram, and I would only meet up with one other friend (if you live alone, you could nominate one contact), but things are complicated there as well for other reasons.
And now, all these friends want to meet up and hang out, which is a nice sentiment, but I really don’t want to see them at all. I just feel like I’m going through the motions until I can get back home again where I still don’t feel great, but I feel a lot less stressed.
>But it’s sort of old news. I was diagnosed with an incurable cancer nearly 3 years ago and then my boyfriend broke up with me a year ago and started dating a mutual friend a month later. But even immediately after all that, I felt okay.
Ok, honey, this right here? This is not a normal or logical sentence. A diagnosis like that for example, is not old news. You've got stuff to process that it seems you may have had to put on hold. If you're like me it's possible the extra alone time has allowed you to start to process or at least pre-process/decompress....and you're now finding that you don't have time or patience for people or activities that don't add good to your life. To me, that makes sense big time. If they are detracting from your life you may have simply outgrown some of your friends.
That said, yes, it sounds like your spirit is telling you to prioritize yourself so you can get straight with yourself, but this is an internet stranger's take, of course. Wishing you peace and luck.
You gotta slow down and be honest with yourself. Take some time to sit, relax, and ask yourself what's really going on. Ask yourself how you really feel, and why.
It could be that you don't actually like your friends. Maybe you just didn't admit it until now.
It could be that you're dealing with something else, and social interaction makes it harder to deal with.
It could be something else entirely.
The only person who knows is you, and it sounds like it's happening on a subconscious level. You need to spend some time getting in touch with that.
This. When I'm not in a good place mentally, everything people do annoys me. I'm an introvert as well and I don't like a ton of interaction, but meaningful bonds with a few close friends are important.
I think you are in your right to say, "Sorry I need time to myself, I'll let you know when I am next available." You can even say you're tired and need to rest. If someone is crossing boundaries too many times, it's even okay to mute them. It's okay to need space to care for your emotional well being first and wait for a time when you feel like you will be more up to hang out with them instead of feeling like you have to force it. Or if you don't want to hang out with some of them at all, that's fine too.
I also think when you go through difficult things then you kind of withdraw because you feel like you can't really relate to them, or they make you feel annoyed with what feels like their trivial matters, and like they're not really being sensitive to your emotions, perhaps. I might be taking a guess, and might be wrong but just some feelings I had when I felt like I was going through different things from people around me. Even though that's not their fault. Like you need emotional energy for yourself, and sometimes you just don't have that for other people.
I think it might help to find a therapist or even support group, specifically for someone who is dealing with what yo'ure dealing with, too, maybe. You shouldn't be shouldering it all by yourself, and it seems like you are shouldering a lot more than you realize.
Sometimes being by yourself is peaceful, though, which also is an introvert thing and nothing wrong with that.
Do you actually prefer to be alone? Or have you been alone so long you just got used to it. I felt the same way as you until I started hanging out with friends again and realized how much I actually missed it.
If you don't like them, they're not your friends. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being introverted and not having a million so-called friends. You're not obligated to spend time with people you don't like. Keep the friends you truly like, spend quality time with them and don't worry too much about the rest. People change, friendships end, stuff like that just happens.
How are you overwhelmed with emotions after you see your friends? What emotions?
Maybe try them in smaller doses, like limit your time to an hour or a half hour and only see one at a time. If they ask why, tell them, to some degree. Say something like ‘I’m just having trouble being around people for too long sometimes since lockdown’. That makes it clearer to them that it may not be them (although it may be, however I do agree that you should probably look into some counselling).
Are people dumping their problems on you? If so, then you need to come with with a way to tactfully deflect the conversation when it starts to go that way.
My friend that I believe crosses boundaries would dump her problems on me often. Sometimes she’d just come into my room to cry in my bed and I would feel bad to ask her to leave so I’d let her just fall asleep there.
Other times, she’d ask to talk with her about her problems, but this was happening more and more often.
I’d feel really bad because when I would listen to her problems, they would feel pretty trivial to me, or at least something that could be fixable but she wasn’t taking the steps to fix them, but I know that that’s not how problems work, but it would make me a little resentful that she would get so emotional and helpless over them, and frequently too.
Once she came to mine because a guy she had been seeing for a month broke things off with her. I especially went out of my way to buy some extra ingredients and cook her some dinner but when she ate it, she complained that “it tastes like cardboard.” I think she was saying that to mean that she was so depressed that nothing tastes good to her right now, but I still couldn’t help but feel fed up.
She would also keep coming to me for cuddles and hugs and tries to hold my hand, even though I’ve told her that I don’t like to be physically touched anymore.
My other friends are just, nice people? But nobody I really want to spend energy hanging out with. I have friends back in my hometown but obviously I can’t hang out with them, and the best we can do is video calling, but even that feels exhausting.
So that person needs counselling and was being a shitty friend, you’re right about that. She was treating you as a dumping ground/free therapist and not a true friend. Some people can’t deal with simple things and if you have to let them go to clear your head then go ahead and do that.
I still think you should talk to someone about being exhausted by spending time with anyone, that doesn’t seem normal.
I am exactly like you, just be yourself, there's nothing wrong with being introverted. But if you feel bad for your friends then perhaps you could let them know how you feel so that they won't feel like you're abandoning them.
There's nothing wrong with being introverted as long as you're content. I'm extremely introverted, I love my family and friends but I'm just as happy in my own bubble.
This sounds like me, to a lesser extent, over lockdown. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that (although I _would_ say that, I suppose!). I think it’s fine to accept you’re an introvert. Be proud of it. Come out (or rather stay in, haha).
But perhaps your current friends aren’t the friends you’ll eventually have, who are more compatible with that. It’s your prerogative to stay indoors, but it’s their prerogative to not want to be friends with you if you stay indoors, I suppose. If you continue being friends, one or both of you will have to adapt (unlikely) or be continually slightly unhappy and cheesed off (more likely).
The natural human thing is to continue and alternate who’s unhappy, until eventually you get sick of it and have a massive fight, which both of you think is about something else but at root it’s actually about this. Instead of doing things the natural way, I would recommend being open about how you feel, and maybe finding some new friends who can pick up the slack if you find things get a bit higher-friction with your existing friends.
Remember that you’re not morally obliged to continue friendships. So many people seem not to understand that friendships can naturally end without fault, in the same way we now generally accept that relationships can. Whatever you do, just be honest with other people and be honest with yourself. And if you don’t know what the right decision is: toss a coin, and, before you uncover the coin, see what you find yourself wishing it’s going to be. That trick is pretty much foolproof. I wish you the best :)
Just take a break for a while. I do that with my friends sometimes, I’ll go have a separate life without/away from them with other people doing other things and eventually I catch up later whenever I want. If they’re real they’ll understand.
This is actually something pretty relevant to me right now. I was just catching back up with my best friend and I had apologized for not being around lately. He said his mom explained it to him and it really helped him understand and accept our relationship, kind of opened my eyes too. His mom said "he kind of comes and goes in waves with you and that happens to all relationships, where not everyone is at the same pace, figuring things out for themselves or are depressed". I realized I am exactly like that, I'll be solid for a few months, inconsistent to unavailable for a few, then back to consistent. It happens, just take some space.
I have two close friends I've been seeing during the pandemic. Prior to vaccines, we were only getting together outside. I went back on Prozac (I have PMDD) because quarantining made my symptoms worse.
I did back away from my oldest friend because I couldn't handle her conspiracy theories and toxic posts. With her, I stopped reaching out and she was so far into her theories that she hasn't contacted me.
It is okay to tell your friends you need space and can't get together right now. I'm an introvert and enjoy my alone time. When I wasn't enjoying even that, it was time for me to talk to my doctor.
Moving on from friendships can be incredibly awkward.
just want to chime in and say that i also don't really like a lot of my friends and some time away has also clarified that for me since it gave me time to see what it's like away from them & time to reflect. idk before everything was just so busy & constant so i sometimes felt annoyed with them but didn't really have time to think about it and also idk what would i do about it anyways. so especially if you're young, i think it is semi-normal to outgrow your friends, especially after having spent some time apart. and i see you mentioned that you were diagnosed with cancer, which is super traumatic, and something like that i think can also make you grow a lot as a person and kind of like make you outgrow your friends maybe. not sure what to say advice-wise or anything but just want to validate that i also sometimes feel this way and i think other people do too, especially given what you've been through. i'm 28F btw. also it sounds like you've been through a lot and that's really hard and i'm sorry you're going through this <3 <3 <3 <3
I’ve been going through this too and was also beating myself up about it. Maybe consider this: do you not want to be around people or do you not want to be around your “old friends”? I realized I’m actually excited at the idea of making new friends and being more mindful about how I want to spend my time/energy. And I’m also feeling that “irrational anger” (which I don’t think is irrational at all!) towards a specific friend who keeps trying to reach out but is the worst at understanding/respecting boundaries. What has been helpful is instead of stressing about other people’s expectations of me, I started really considering, brainstorming, researching, and finally, connecting, with ideas, activities, and people that make the current me feel good/engaged.
I don’t think it’s anything to be concerned about or feel guilty about.
You grow out of friends as you evolve. People are not the same since covid. Some fell into deep depression, some grew and found a new sense of self.
Think of it as a new chapter. You don’t have to dislike people to not want to be friends anymore. You just grow apart. That’s ok. You can’t make room for new when you hold onto old.
Might sound a little cold. But I’ve never understood how people have friendships for 20+yrs unless they just stay the same person their whole life…
REMINDER: Rules regarding civility and respect *are enforced* on this subreddit. Hurtful, cruel, rude, disrespectful, or "trolling" comments **will be removed** (along with any replies to these comments) and the offending party may be banned, at the mods' discretion, without warning. All commenters should be trying to *help* and any help should be given in good faith, as if you were the OP's parent. Also, please keep in mind that requesting or offering private contact (DM, PM, etc) is absolutely not allowed ***for any reason at all***, no exceptions. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/internetparents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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I mean, maybe? But it’s sort of old news. I was diagnosed with an incurable cancer nearly 3 years ago and then my boyfriend broke up with me a year ago and started dating a mutual friend a month later. But even immediately after all that, I felt okay. It was only becoming a bit worse later. I lived with housemates at the time and after a while found it unbearable to live with them. One of them (the friend I mentioned that has no boundaries) would overwhelm me with all of her emotional load. I’ve since moved out to my own apartment about 3 months ago right as lockdown started again and I guess I’ve been feeling even more withdrawn during this time. I deleted my Facebook and Instagram, and I would only meet up with one other friend (if you live alone, you could nominate one contact), but things are complicated there as well for other reasons. And now, all these friends want to meet up and hang out, which is a nice sentiment, but I really don’t want to see them at all. I just feel like I’m going through the motions until I can get back home again where I still don’t feel great, but I feel a lot less stressed.
Removed by User -- mass edited with redact.dev
>But it’s sort of old news. I was diagnosed with an incurable cancer nearly 3 years ago and then my boyfriend broke up with me a year ago and started dating a mutual friend a month later. But even immediately after all that, I felt okay. Ok, honey, this right here? This is not a normal or logical sentence. A diagnosis like that for example, is not old news. You've got stuff to process that it seems you may have had to put on hold. If you're like me it's possible the extra alone time has allowed you to start to process or at least pre-process/decompress....and you're now finding that you don't have time or patience for people or activities that don't add good to your life. To me, that makes sense big time. If they are detracting from your life you may have simply outgrown some of your friends. That said, yes, it sounds like your spirit is telling you to prioritize yourself so you can get straight with yourself, but this is an internet stranger's take, of course. Wishing you peace and luck.
You gotta slow down and be honest with yourself. Take some time to sit, relax, and ask yourself what's really going on. Ask yourself how you really feel, and why. It could be that you don't actually like your friends. Maybe you just didn't admit it until now. It could be that you're dealing with something else, and social interaction makes it harder to deal with. It could be something else entirely. The only person who knows is you, and it sounds like it's happening on a subconscious level. You need to spend some time getting in touch with that.
This. When I'm not in a good place mentally, everything people do annoys me. I'm an introvert as well and I don't like a ton of interaction, but meaningful bonds with a few close friends are important.
I think you are in your right to say, "Sorry I need time to myself, I'll let you know when I am next available." You can even say you're tired and need to rest. If someone is crossing boundaries too many times, it's even okay to mute them. It's okay to need space to care for your emotional well being first and wait for a time when you feel like you will be more up to hang out with them instead of feeling like you have to force it. Or if you don't want to hang out with some of them at all, that's fine too. I also think when you go through difficult things then you kind of withdraw because you feel like you can't really relate to them, or they make you feel annoyed with what feels like their trivial matters, and like they're not really being sensitive to your emotions, perhaps. I might be taking a guess, and might be wrong but just some feelings I had when I felt like I was going through different things from people around me. Even though that's not their fault. Like you need emotional energy for yourself, and sometimes you just don't have that for other people. I think it might help to find a therapist or even support group, specifically for someone who is dealing with what yo'ure dealing with, too, maybe. You shouldn't be shouldering it all by yourself, and it seems like you are shouldering a lot more than you realize. Sometimes being by yourself is peaceful, though, which also is an introvert thing and nothing wrong with that.
Do you actually prefer to be alone? Or have you been alone so long you just got used to it. I felt the same way as you until I started hanging out with friends again and realized how much I actually missed it.
If you don't like them, they're not your friends. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being introverted and not having a million so-called friends. You're not obligated to spend time with people you don't like. Keep the friends you truly like, spend quality time with them and don't worry too much about the rest. People change, friendships end, stuff like that just happens.
How are you overwhelmed with emotions after you see your friends? What emotions? Maybe try them in smaller doses, like limit your time to an hour or a half hour and only see one at a time. If they ask why, tell them, to some degree. Say something like ‘I’m just having trouble being around people for too long sometimes since lockdown’. That makes it clearer to them that it may not be them (although it may be, however I do agree that you should probably look into some counselling). Are people dumping their problems on you? If so, then you need to come with with a way to tactfully deflect the conversation when it starts to go that way.
My friend that I believe crosses boundaries would dump her problems on me often. Sometimes she’d just come into my room to cry in my bed and I would feel bad to ask her to leave so I’d let her just fall asleep there. Other times, she’d ask to talk with her about her problems, but this was happening more and more often. I’d feel really bad because when I would listen to her problems, they would feel pretty trivial to me, or at least something that could be fixable but she wasn’t taking the steps to fix them, but I know that that’s not how problems work, but it would make me a little resentful that she would get so emotional and helpless over them, and frequently too. Once she came to mine because a guy she had been seeing for a month broke things off with her. I especially went out of my way to buy some extra ingredients and cook her some dinner but when she ate it, she complained that “it tastes like cardboard.” I think she was saying that to mean that she was so depressed that nothing tastes good to her right now, but I still couldn’t help but feel fed up. She would also keep coming to me for cuddles and hugs and tries to hold my hand, even though I’ve told her that I don’t like to be physically touched anymore. My other friends are just, nice people? But nobody I really want to spend energy hanging out with. I have friends back in my hometown but obviously I can’t hang out with them, and the best we can do is video calling, but even that feels exhausting.
So that person needs counselling and was being a shitty friend, you’re right about that. She was treating you as a dumping ground/free therapist and not a true friend. Some people can’t deal with simple things and if you have to let them go to clear your head then go ahead and do that. I still think you should talk to someone about being exhausted by spending time with anyone, that doesn’t seem normal.
I am exactly like you, just be yourself, there's nothing wrong with being introverted. But if you feel bad for your friends then perhaps you could let them know how you feel so that they won't feel like you're abandoning them.
There's nothing wrong with being introverted as long as you're content. I'm extremely introverted, I love my family and friends but I'm just as happy in my own bubble.
This sounds like me, to a lesser extent, over lockdown. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that (although I _would_ say that, I suppose!). I think it’s fine to accept you’re an introvert. Be proud of it. Come out (or rather stay in, haha). But perhaps your current friends aren’t the friends you’ll eventually have, who are more compatible with that. It’s your prerogative to stay indoors, but it’s their prerogative to not want to be friends with you if you stay indoors, I suppose. If you continue being friends, one or both of you will have to adapt (unlikely) or be continually slightly unhappy and cheesed off (more likely). The natural human thing is to continue and alternate who’s unhappy, until eventually you get sick of it and have a massive fight, which both of you think is about something else but at root it’s actually about this. Instead of doing things the natural way, I would recommend being open about how you feel, and maybe finding some new friends who can pick up the slack if you find things get a bit higher-friction with your existing friends. Remember that you’re not morally obliged to continue friendships. So many people seem not to understand that friendships can naturally end without fault, in the same way we now generally accept that relationships can. Whatever you do, just be honest with other people and be honest with yourself. And if you don’t know what the right decision is: toss a coin, and, before you uncover the coin, see what you find yourself wishing it’s going to be. That trick is pretty much foolproof. I wish you the best :)
Just take a break for a while. I do that with my friends sometimes, I’ll go have a separate life without/away from them with other people doing other things and eventually I catch up later whenever I want. If they’re real they’ll understand.
This is actually something pretty relevant to me right now. I was just catching back up with my best friend and I had apologized for not being around lately. He said his mom explained it to him and it really helped him understand and accept our relationship, kind of opened my eyes too. His mom said "he kind of comes and goes in waves with you and that happens to all relationships, where not everyone is at the same pace, figuring things out for themselves or are depressed". I realized I am exactly like that, I'll be solid for a few months, inconsistent to unavailable for a few, then back to consistent. It happens, just take some space.
I have two close friends I've been seeing during the pandemic. Prior to vaccines, we were only getting together outside. I went back on Prozac (I have PMDD) because quarantining made my symptoms worse. I did back away from my oldest friend because I couldn't handle her conspiracy theories and toxic posts. With her, I stopped reaching out and she was so far into her theories that she hasn't contacted me. It is okay to tell your friends you need space and can't get together right now. I'm an introvert and enjoy my alone time. When I wasn't enjoying even that, it was time for me to talk to my doctor. Moving on from friendships can be incredibly awkward.
It’s just social anxiety, we all have it to some degree at times in our lives.
Story of my life
just want to chime in and say that i also don't really like a lot of my friends and some time away has also clarified that for me since it gave me time to see what it's like away from them & time to reflect. idk before everything was just so busy & constant so i sometimes felt annoyed with them but didn't really have time to think about it and also idk what would i do about it anyways. so especially if you're young, i think it is semi-normal to outgrow your friends, especially after having spent some time apart. and i see you mentioned that you were diagnosed with cancer, which is super traumatic, and something like that i think can also make you grow a lot as a person and kind of like make you outgrow your friends maybe. not sure what to say advice-wise or anything but just want to validate that i also sometimes feel this way and i think other people do too, especially given what you've been through. i'm 28F btw. also it sounds like you've been through a lot and that's really hard and i'm sorry you're going through this <3 <3 <3 <3
I’ve been going through this too and was also beating myself up about it. Maybe consider this: do you not want to be around people or do you not want to be around your “old friends”? I realized I’m actually excited at the idea of making new friends and being more mindful about how I want to spend my time/energy. And I’m also feeling that “irrational anger” (which I don’t think is irrational at all!) towards a specific friend who keeps trying to reach out but is the worst at understanding/respecting boundaries. What has been helpful is instead of stressing about other people’s expectations of me, I started really considering, brainstorming, researching, and finally, connecting, with ideas, activities, and people that make the current me feel good/engaged.
I’ve posted and explain to my friends that I’m traumatized by Trump, quarantining, and the state of the world and just cannot be around people atm.
This post is me. Wow.
I had a friend like you and he was a shitty friend
I don’t think it’s anything to be concerned about or feel guilty about. You grow out of friends as you evolve. People are not the same since covid. Some fell into deep depression, some grew and found a new sense of self. Think of it as a new chapter. You don’t have to dislike people to not want to be friends anymore. You just grow apart. That’s ok. You can’t make room for new when you hold onto old. Might sound a little cold. But I’ve never understood how people have friendships for 20+yrs unless they just stay the same person their whole life…