What do I do now?

There is a person in my life who is very important to me. He and I are good friends and I would like for it to stay that way. Unfortunately, we have hit a rough spot in our friendship.

I have abandonment and trust issues which stem from child abuse that cause me to be hyper vigilant and hyper suspicious. Recently, he has caught me twice listening to his conversations with other people about me. Despite the fact that he was saying cruel things about me, he is still mad. He also says that I intentionally create conflict. I somewhat agree with this.

I guess my questions are

Why am I so hypervigilant and distrustful?

Why do I create conflict like I do?

Who is at fault in my situation?

What should I do to stay friends with him?

Daniel

Hi,

You are distrustful due to the events that occured in your childhood (most likely). Things that occur in childhood can greatly affect the type of adult that we become. Once you realise this, however, then you are already on the road to battling your distrustful thoughts. There is no-one at fault in this situation, because you both have valid excuses for being upset and angry with each other (and you with yourself). However, in order to make things better, you might want to talk to your friend about your difficult childhood. Otherwise, he will just think that you are a nosey person who doesn't respect privacy.

Also, you should go to your family doctor about this and ask for a referral to a mental health professional.

Take care,
Kevin

I don't know who is at fault in your situation.

I do know this: You can't change someone else.

You 'might' be able to change yourself, somewhat, but you, like me, experienced child abuse, and you gotta know that the trauma of early abuse is with you your whole life.

Can you stop being vigilant? You can stop immediately acting on those feelings. You can learn to take your time, relax, consider it, and then bring it to the people that matter in a way that is socially acceptable and peaceful. Therapy can help you to do this.

Why are you so vigilant? You already answered that question. The early child abuse teaches you that vigilance might lead to the avoidance of pain.

Why do you create conflict like you do? Maybe because you'd rather have a little conflict in order to avoid even more pain later on. Thing is, trust, once you learn it, is a lot less anxiety provoking.

Who is at fault? Doesn't matter. The one variable you can change is yourself. But know this: Kids who've been abused also tend to choose people who aren't terribly worthy of trust. Or people who can't form trusting relationships either.

What should you do to stay friends with him? Why would you stay with someone who says cruel things about you? You gotta decide if these were truly cruel, or what's really happening. Only you can determine this fact. I personally don't appreciate someone gossiping about me. And I run from those who do.

Good luck.

Thank you. You both are obviously very knowledgeable about such things. I hope that more will share their opinions as well as I feel that the more I know about my behaviour, the more I can do to change it.

The reason that I have such paranoid delusions is that I look into the future and predict what will happen if I don't watch everything all the time. Its almost like premonition but more like self fulfilling prophecy. What I mean by this is that when I forsee that someone may not like me, I act based on this and my actions end up causing what I feared would happen.

Daniel