Cynicism and lack of faith in others

I should clarify-- when I see or hear others engaged in happy friendships and bonding-- it stings-- because I don't know how to accomplish that. It is an extremely exhausting feat for me to feel comfortable in building real friendships.

I know how to be intense and focused on problems and I help others with their problems at work all the time. People approach me when they need help, but not for invitations to do something fun and lighthearted outside of work very often.

If a neighbor (or a parent of one of our kids friends) is nice-- that is great, but I feel like every part of our lives should jive before I can feel at ease hanging out with them more. That doesn't work well where the majority of the moms are stay at home and I am pretty close to being a workaholic.

I need so much quiet and alone time to re-energize after social gatherings. I don't exude a sense of well-being with most people and they pick up on this and they feel uncomfortable. And yet I feel lonely and week after week continue the same patterns !!!

Where is my future most perfect close friend?? I am building a "fantasy friend" in my mind that no person could fill...

I am cynical about a great many things, especially people, but I believe it's mainly a result of my own private cocktail of experience. Like Volatile said, it's mainly armor. For me, a defense mechanism that I only believe is necessary.. It certainly works in synergy with my avoidance, and I would guess they're a bad combo.

I have a perceived history of serial abandonment. I say perceived because while I can authenticate certain abandonments as true, there are a lot of others that I don't feel healthy whining about (anymore) because I don't really know the whole story. Then there's the most recent betrayal by my family. Almost as if fate was saying "Hey! Starting to come to terms with some of your cynicism regarding how you have been mistreated by others? Try this on for size!"

At 52, I'm too old to be carrying around all this anger. I've foolishly squandered most of my time with the doctors I've seen lately on OCD and anxiety issues, and more and more I'm wishing I'd dug into my issues with mistrust of people. I did start to get somewhere with a psychologist I was seeing but there was a snafu with my insurance and he called me one day to say "You're not covered. Bye". Just like the psychiatrist I had been seeing for five years prior to him. After Obamacare, he opted out of Medicare. He began seeing me on a sliding scale which was still too much for me until the day he suggested we stop because it was obviously too hard on me financially. Which it was. But I saw it as him thinking I was filling up an hour he could better profit from with a patient who was paying in full. Maybe. Probably. I seem to remember the good old days when doctors were happy to see you and seemed to really care. But I was just a kid. So maybe it's just a distorted memory, an illusion.

inverse wrote:My fierce independence is due to me not ever wanting to feel obligated to someone, so I accept no favors in case someone wants to call them in when I have no energy to reciprocate.

Auxiliary11 wrote:Same here mostly. I don't want to have to rely on others out of my pride and feeling that I should have independence to fall back on if they stop supporting you. And I don't like others relying on me out of fear that I couldn't support them, and they would quickly see this. Although having someone else believe that you can help them would feel good. Even though I feel that I can get on independently, I can't help others at the same time for extended periods of time.

Tailoring and modifying one's behavior to suit other people's opinions/responses and all manner of what if scenarios means you're not really independent, because your choices aren't determined by your own true needs, but by the response (or perceived/possible responses) of others. Worrying about how others will react, or what if they call a favor in when you can't respond, or that they might think something bad of you, or say something bad about you, etc, etc., etc., are thoughts that determine your behavior.
Independence is something I believe we should all strive for, so we can make choices from positions of strength not weakness, as we so often do. It does not mean we cannot rely on someone or someone rely on us on any particular occasion/purpose, but I think its important to remember that all humans are fallible and that if it should happen that someone lets us down, or we do so to someone ourselves, it does not mean that the world has stopped spinning or that a disaster has occurred.

In addition, realizing that we can't control the outcomes of many things can reduce or eliminate the the feelings that come with expectation, along with treating "failure" or "success" with equal indifference, for they are both meaningless and imaginary concepts.

inverse wrote:People don't actually do things for the good of their heart. If they do something for someone, they're still getting something out of it, if nothing else a little hit for "being a good person." Even something so small as a basic compliment. And some people do that. But most people keep tallies in their heads. "I've done this for you X amount of times, now you owe me."

I agree. Its quite true that underpinning everything we do is what we receive or gain from it, even when it appears not be so and however tiny/intangible whatever it is that we receive. Relationships are also selfish because they are all about what each person gets from one and what needs it fulfils. There isn't anything wrong with this because we all have needs but I wish more people would recognize that this is so, rather than pretend they are, like you said, trying to be a "good person" and such thoughts, when there is no such thing in reality. This is the same situation when people "sacrifice themselves" for some cause or do stuff for "the common good", the "goodness of society", "making the world a better place" et al, which are just imaginary things.

momof3inTN wrote:I should clarify-- when I see or hear others engaged in happy friendships and bonding-- it stings-- because I don't know how to accomplish that. It is an extremely exhausting feat for me to feel comfortable in building real friendships.

momof3inTN wrote:When others are engaged in lighthearted banter and laughing, talking,and bonding--- it upsets me. What the h--- is wrong with me that that should get under my skin???!!! I know I am not depressed actually-- but maybe having a hard time experiencing joy is the issue

I believe I am very familiar with this feeling. But I have come to think of this differently now, which is that the pain that I used to feel isn't because I don't have what I see and "think I need" (this last part in quotes is very important), but because I believe I want it/need it/should have it but can't have it, because of what I thought was wrong with me. This is what actually causes the pain, in my opinion.

Unless we know what we truly need (and we can't do that without knowing ourselves), we will probably remain unaware of the true cause of our suffering.

It might be true that you do really need to have what you speak of, but equally, you might not. And so if you continue to believe in the thoughts for something that might not be for you, it is sure to keep you in pain and suffering.

Me v2 wrote:I agree. Its quite true that underpinning everything we do is what we receive or gain from it, even when it appears not be so and however tiny/intangible whatever it is that we receive. Relationships are also selfish because they are all about what each person gets from one and what needs it fulfils. There isn't anything wrong with this because we all have needs but I wish more people would recognize that this is so, rather than pretend they are, like you said, trying to be a "good person" and such thoughts, when there is no such thing in reality. This is the same situation when people "sacrifice themselves" for some cause or do stuff for "the common good", the "goodness of society", "making the world a better place" et al, which are just imaginary things.

I disagree. As a parent, what I do for my son is because I love him, and I put his needs above my own.

Also, many people have given their lives for causes they feel are bigger than their own lives.

Cokey wrote:I disagree. As a parent, what I do for my son is because I love him, and I put his needs above my own.

Also, many people have given their lives for causes they feel are bigger than their own lives.

Doubt it. You care for your son because he is a reflection of you, and you put his needs above yours because he will carry on your legacy and genes.

Many people? Doubt that too. There are really so few of them, and that's why they become famous. Are you going to say military folk? Show me one that would do that job without being paid. Politicians? Same thing, or because they love power, or because they love attention. Once in a blue moon people dedicate themselves to a cause, but when they can't pay their bills and they aren't getting the attention they crave, they drop it like a hot potato.

Me v2 wrote:(I think there is a name for this phenomenon but I don't know it).

Synchronicity?

Me v2 wrote:Ideas about "sacrifice" and "serving others" before ourselves or instead of ourselves have, I believe, been invented & promoted by religious ideologies in order to have their aims, needs and desires met, for free, with endless myths and expressions of how the person will be rewarded "spiritually".

That is a interesting way to look at it. I've read about these few "good Samaritans" (which goes back to your religious theory) who come to the conclusion that they are gonna die some day, and want to devote their life to improving the quality of life of others, whilst also lowering their own. And I'm not talking about people who get this idea temporally and then get frustrated over spending most of their time helping others, but rather those who do in fact carry this throughout their life. I can see where you are coming from.

inverse wrote:
Doubt it. You care for your son because he is a reflection of you, and you put his needs above yours because he will carry on your legacy and genes.

Many people? Doubt that too. There are really so few of them, and that's why they become famous. Are you going to say military folk? Show me one that would do that job without being paid. Politicians? Same thing, or because they love power, or because they love attention. Once in a blue moon people dedicate themselves to a cause, but when they can't pay their bills and they aren't getting the attention they crave, they drop it like a hot potato.

Wow. That's so offensive to so many people, I am literally speechless.

And you know nothing about me or my child.

Yeah, I'm thinking maybe this site is not so good for me. I better go calm down.

"offensive to so many people" - how do you know? Did you poll a bunch of people or something? It sounds to me like I've only offended one person, and that would be you. Or was that a "royal we" situation? Or are you so underconfident in your own opinion that the only way you can express it is to fabricate a crowd to hide yourself within so your imaginary crowd can back you up?

You have someone (one person, so far) disagree with you and you're flouncing from the whole forum?

You're saying that you have no personal stake in how your son represents you? That you're not proud of him when he behaves "correctly?" That you don't cringe if he misbehaves? Think about it truthfully. Does his behavior affect you? Because that's not pure love. Sorry, it's not.

What if he was invited to go to a boarding school where he would be able to fully reach his potential, away from you. Would you let him go? Because if it was true unselfish love, you wouldn't hesitate. I know, as a mother of a special needs child, I am constantly searching for the best treatments for him, and when something turns up 100 miles away, or 500 miles away, it terrifies me, but I still check into it to see if it would be better for him than his current treatment.

And popping your idealistic image of how many people in the world are altruistic? That's lovely that you want to believe people do things by the good of their own hearts, and I bet it stings to have the curtain pulled back to see how things operate just below the surface. But that might be part of why you're so down on yourself, if you put people on an unattainable pedestal and think that's the standard you are supposed to, and failing to, meet. Shocking, yes. But think about that. Seriously, it might free you to know how few people achieve that ideal. Which means that you don't have to try to achieve it, either.

Well, if you drill down, nobody ever does anything that doesn't profit them in some way. In the purest form of altruism, people generally help others because it makes them feel good to help.

So what?

Does that make the deed less valuable? I doubt the starving homeless man cares about why somebody would help feed and clothe him, he just is grateful that somebody would.

I often advise people to volunteer in order to fill out a resume. Do I feel guilty about that? Umm nope! Volunteering is providing something worthwhile, no matter what the motivation.

Some things are not worth overthinking, and to me, this is one of those things. It's probably more important to ask if the person offering to help may actually end up hurting you instead.