I didn’t need this today, Nicole.

Always interesting to hear about something new I have had for decades.

All the things I had to do to protect myself from manipulative people.

They needed my attention. I became more independent and denied giving them any attention. They don't like that I'm not giving them the attention they think they deserve so they try and turn everyone against me.

It happens often because I'm quiet and kind. They think that makes me easy to manipulate. I've become hardened to manipulators. So much to the point that physical touch with other people has become awkward or uncomfortable.

You don't make connections because Yoh believe you will be abandoned.

I don't make connections because I know I would be a shitty friend and incapable of actually maintaining a friendship.

People can’t let you down, if you keep your distance. I think it’s better this way.

Being hyper independent is lonely, but it's better than any of the alternatives I know of.

I have just come to realize I don't like people. Nothing personal, I just don't like you.

Well, shit...

The antidote is gratitude for the small moments and the things we do have.

I’m hyper independent for two main reasons:

1. Maintaining connections takes too much damn energy, no matter how good the other person is. And as someone with a nasty Voltron of ADD and Asperger’s, there are a myriad of co-morbidities along for that ride.
2. i would rather full-ass something to my own satisfaction than suffer someone else’s half-assed attempts.

... So that's what it's called. I knew it couldn't just be me. What is it called when one tries not to be this way by reaching out, but finds nobody actually helps anyway?

I'm the opposite. I essentially plead with people for connections. No one wants to do a god damn thing anymore. It's easier to sit inside and stare at a screen. I want to do stuff and no one else really does.

I have hyper-dependence

Mom told me that "we only care about you because we are related by blood, nobody out there will 'tolerate' your 'bullshit'¹"

¹like depression

This type of thinking is why there's a country with 1.4 billion people that's a low-trust society...

Wow. ITT: Several people lashing out defensively at a simple definition statement, which was not directed at them, and they say doesn't even apply to themselves.

And if it continuously gets proven correct over and over? Still just a problem with me right?

I didn't know it had a name. This is 10000% me, not contacting family or friends, being perpetually single and everything literally never asking for help of any kind.

This hits deep. Sometimes we don't even realize we're doing it until we're completely burnt out and wondering why we feel so alone. It takes so much courage to finally reach out and trust someone again.

Why are you posting about me?

Realizing this was a big ‘oh… that explains a lot’ moment for me. Learning to ask for help is a skill too.

True enough.

I never ask for help since doing so earned me punishment of some kind growing up. The worst possible thing that could happen to me is if someone complemented me on something I did and my parents didn't get any credit for it. So I still am hesitant to ask for help. It has always had a very high cost.

As far as most people are concerned my parents were fine christians.

😐😑😐😕

Fuck off internet! DON'T ACT LIKE YOU KNOW ME!

I recognize myself in this one and I hate it

GenX: triggered.

I'm feeling this one.

You can be all that with no fear of abadonment. Not having the energy to deal with people's constant bullshit, just not particularly liking people, not being very good at talking to people and being heard and not taken advantage of- are all more than enough.

This incessant need by psychiatry to link trauma to abandonment and refuse any other reasoning, has lead to a lot of misdiagnosis, especially in women.

Yup, avoidant attachment style.

I'm generally seen as pretty emotionally open, but it's always a front, like a negotiation to give the appearance of warmth but I'm terrified to open any deeper. I feel like what people think is the core us just the rind.

Babies will actually show this behavior as well- so this trauma goes DEEP. It might even be more genetic than behavioral. They've shown when a parent leaves a baby for a bit, the baby begins to cry, but when the parent returns, there are three responses (I'll pretend a baby can speak, but this is what they say with body language):

1. Ah! You were gone but now you're back! I missed you and I'm happy you are here let's play with my rattle (stable)
2. OH MY GOD YOU ARE BACK I MISSED YOU PLEASE DON'T LEAVE EVER AGAIN I'M HOLDING ON TO YOU HARDER (Anxious)
3. Oh, you're back? That's fine, I'm not gonna look at you. If I stop caring you can't hurt me again. (Avoidant)

I know I'd keep a pretty clean & minimalist room as a kids- I remember straight up saying "I want to be able to pack up my life and leave at a moments notice and no one will ever know I ever existed" when I was 10. It's still hard to believe people care about me in any meaningful way.

Weird thing- I had a very supportive childhood. Having a sister with intense ADHD was tough though since she took up 90% of my parents time, so I think that's where it comes from.

Hmm.

I don't ask for help out of stubbornness. I guess I never grew out of "I can do it myself!" But, now, I have no one to ask, so there's that.

I haven't had an actual friend in over 30 years. I had a roommate for four years who was the next-closest thing to a friend I had--mostly a friend, more than just a roommate, at least. Then I got married, and she seemed like a friend until she cheated on me. Other than that, I've had work acquaintances, some of whom I would occasionally hang out with outside of work, but once I quit and left, that ended, too. I've had many girlfriends over the years, but that's not really the same thing. It was never "friend with benefit", it was always benefit with friend. Once the benefit stopped, so did the friendship. So, yeah, not great at relationships.

I don't feel I've ever been outright abandoned. Apart from the divorce, the parting of ways was to some degree mutually agreed to. And, by the time the divorce was finalized, I was on board, too. You might think, "But, she cheated on you...", well, yes, but things aren't always so black and white and simple to parse.

I don't really worry about abandonment at all. If anything, I'd be more worried about the opposite. People like me, and want to hang out with me, and I do not have the time, energy, or desire to hang out with most people. I've had more than my fair share of clingy, dependent "friends", and I'm not a fan. Hyper-independent aloofness has definitely spared me many additions to that unfortunate list.

I don't disagree that it's a trauma response, but not always to abandonment (I wish), but often necessity. When you have to do everything, you learn how to do everything, and eventually there's not much left to rely on other people for.

This sounds like me.

Shiiit. Maybe because I'm getting old and friends naturally drift away, they are just busy or prioritizing family, it feels like they don't care about me anymore. It has gotten harder to get their helo compare to my 20s

See this with my brother.

Example: I called my mom to get me water because I was super sick and he brerates me for not being an adult because hes "grown up" enough to take the risk to go down the stairs while barely able to stand up and shivering and I wont. Like wtf? she right there in the living room. Not in next province.

If I'm understanding this correctly, the line between someone who is hyper independent and someone who is really bad at relationships or someone with preference for frequent quiet and solitude is trauma.

Also I suspect the increase in people with lower social contact not by choice is due at least in part to not enough 3rd places that don't require money to hang out and meet people.

What about just the first 2

What if I'm extremely independent because over the last four decades I have been continuously abandoned, and have learned to adapt to my circumstances?

Which turns out to be true - you are abandoned in the end:)

I wonder if this correlates to an underlying trauma experienced by right-wing style preppers who are all convinced they can recreate civilization on their own in their back yards