Spinning people off into other relationships?

Hi,

I'm not sure how to word this or what it means, why I'm asking this of people and if I have a legitimate cause for concern, but can anyone else relate to having experiences w the opposite sex/in relationships where coming into contact w you changes people's views on other potential partners, and they end up with others who were in their life anyway and on the verge of having a relationship w before they met you. Another thing that happens to me a lot, is that men can become insecure around me, they might get into other relationships specifically to make me jealous (or because I've made them angry or I've triggered something in their minds that lead them to other people who were right in front of them, who they wouldn't otherwise have pursued without my input). I hope I'm not coming across as a salted wound or a third-degree burn on legs, I really want to avoid this because I don't think it's true. I am very strong and really resilient. It could be learned helplessness on my part as well.

I might not give them the reaction they want, the relationships that were created out of jealousy (or insights thanks to me) actually last (they become what they're meant to), I distract myself and move onto something else, and so do they. On the surface I'm really laid back and easygoing and I don't want anyone to know how hurt I feel, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking I want to inject myself, collapse in an empty room and forget about the world, without accountability. I get angry sometimes when people want to help me because I think it would take a really long time for me to articulate enough for them to know what they're dealing with and I feel like a lost cause.

I think sometimes, what about me? I'm not a relationship counsellor, I need love and to feel like I belong and am understood (to a point) just as much as the next person, without having to go through WW3 to get it. It shouldn't be such a struggle. I'm not going to go causing drama and start breaking up people's relationships because I have a sense of entitlement. I have to keep moving on and turning a blind eye to it and cleaning up the mess it's made of my mental health/self-esteem etc. I'm so sick of being told to focus on myself, bc that's all I ever do, and I'm sick of myself. It's such a Western cliche. It doesn't take away from the pain inflicted by the rejections and the mixed messages I keep internalising about relationships. I'm also really sick of being in therapy and analysing everything I think and do.

I'd do anything to numb myself out and I have escapist/addictive personality traits. I've also had psychotic episodes and dissociative episodes where my delusions controlled my life and it's taken me a long time to get back in touch w reality. I find the dissociation kicks in when extreme trauma becomes an issue. So there are a lot of layers here. I've been in therapy my whole life and I'm really sick of it. I can't believe I am spilling my guts on here either, I am so ashamed and I don't want anyone to know about this.

I try not to take it personally and let it go. I think I've tried too hard to let things go and it's coming back to haunt me because I have a lot of attachment fears as a result of going to extremes to wipe out all co-dependent tendencies, it brings up my PTSD and relationship trauma (years worth). A part of me enjoys inflicting harm on myself by denying myself love as well. I think it's making me stronger but it's actually weakening me and it's masochistic. It's starting to chip away at my sanity a bit, it's hurting me and it's reinforcing existing mental health problems, low self-esteem, self-blame etc. I've had some urges to self-injure but I can normally evade them. I am emotionally quite sensitive and very self-protective and I want to keep myself away from people and situations that might hurt me if I can. Emotionally I struggle with getting close to people and I don't want to attract experiences that reinforce it if I can help it, I'll change anything if I have to. I'm intelligent enough to see when I've made a mistake and recognise that I need to change. But how?

I can't stand people making assumptions about me (like I've had a really easy life, I'm really positive and together etc despite this being the attitude I project because I learnt to shut up about stuff that was going to put people off) and if they knew what I'd been through and how difficult it is for me to get out of bed some mornings, they wouldn't hurt me, but life isn't that simple and people aren't mind readers. I'm not dumb and I've had a really scary life, at least when you look at it from the perspective of my mental health.

I'm trying to get my life back on track after a psychotic episode as well, and I was suicidal, involuntary committed to a high dependency Psych unit. I blew all of my savings last year, I'm back at home living on a shoestring and I have financial obligations so I might need to work FT on top of study. I also lost a lot of my friends because I was having a lot of outbursts and my anger/psychosis was really out of control and I feel like $#%^, but I get out of bed every morning and do the best I can to fix this, it's not easy to live with this mess of a life. I live with no ego and no accolades for what I've done and I don't value myself a lot. I'm very hard on myself.

I could be doing really well and building a life for myself and then I get thrown really easily when I've only just started rebuilding and I don't have the reserves to weather the storm as quickly as I'd like to. It's effecting my study and attempts to seek work, my responsibilities etc. and I need to keep functioning. I can't be lazy this year.

I don't get it. I feel stupid for even posting this because it's ridiculous. I don't want to point the finger and blame other people when it's my fault this keeps happening to me, or 'because of me'. I'm really over the pop psychology explanations for it as well bc they don't help- the 'obvious' answers.

I am a rejection magnet and I have had abandonment issues, all of the typical explanations don't make a lot of sense to me though. I'm sensing that there is more to this than I'm consciously aware of, and on a psychological level it could be that they just be responding to my emotional distance and the fact that I change a lot etc. but even that sounds dumb. I'm just not happy with typical answers and explanations and I'm wondering if anyone else has more sophisticated views on this, because I don't. I'm confused as hell and I'll work on anything I need to work on to change this dynamic once I know what it is- it's just a blind spot for me.

I know consciously that attracting the same circumstances over and over can be a sign that something is wrong with the way I think, act and believe, something needs to change, but I have absolutely no idea why this happens and what it says about me. I'm aware of my commitment and abandonment issues, but even they aren't really enough to prove anything to me. Am I sending the wrong messages. I've learnt how to shut up and project a positive image of myself, but even that, or so I recently discovered, made others feel very insecure and they went straight into other relationships, the relationships they went into are always really messy and really dramatic and they end up in heartbreak.

By then I've moved on because I don't want to take on any emotional crap from people and I don't have the energy to play games or respond to people who are going out of their way to make me jealous. I have a life. At the same time, I don't want any defences effecting my relationships, I don't want to be bitter, cynical or angry and shut down, I want to be connected and engaged w the world without defences. I'm trying to understand things from other people's point of view and take as much responsibility as I can (yeah, there are a lot of mixed messages in this post as well because I mentioned that I wanted to drug myself out and forget everything). My depression is getting really bad and I'm more apathetic than ever, I'm not eating enough, I'm sleeping in a lot more and finding it difficult to get motivated. You could argue I'm dressing up rejections, but still, it's just weird and I don't think there is a simple (one-sided) explanation for it. I'd probably need to go into more detail. This is a really scattered post, I haven't edited this and I'm just throwing my thoughts on the page without censoring anything.

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