@Former-Member
I can understand that feeling of always pushing people away. I did that for the first 43 years of my life. I was never close to anyone because I didn't trust anyone and just never let them close to me because I was so sure they would leave me or not like me if I let them close. I know there's nothing i can tell you that will change how you feel, or make you think differently. It's just how you've learnt to protect yourself, as I did, and I know it can take a lot for us to even begin to lower those defenses even just a bit.
But what you are doing here, by talking about how you feel to people here will hopefully, given some time, let you start to see that there are people who will try to understand and support you. It can take some time but just stick with it.
When I first joined here earlier in the year... my first thought was i'll read a few posts, maybe post one about myself (I still don't think I ever did) and I'll disappear once people get bored of listening to me. But people kept being supportive and slowly I started to get a bit of that trust that maybe there are people who were helpful and supportive. That I could open up and even if someone didn't totally understand me, they would try. So joining here at 53 years old, I finally began to trust people a little and open up about how I really felt for the first time ever. Those negative thoughts about myself started to loosen their grip and I started to believe people when they said nice things about me. I still struggle a lot with these doubts as it took a long time (a life time) to build these defenses and I don't think i'll ever be rid of them, but I do feel I can at least start to work around them now. So I can only say to you to just keep doing what you're doing and just keep that tiniest flicker of hope alive that things can get better and that there are people you can trust.
I guess that is one of the benefits of these forums, no one knows who you really are so you cant really hurt anyone here so that makes it safer to trust. After all, if you decide it's not working, you just stop logging in and it all goes away and we all just wonder what happened to that Gremlin24 person who was struggling so much. Likewise, you can't let anyone here down. Everyone here is here because of their own struggles and most of us find it helpful to use what we've learned from dealing with our own stuff to help others, so there is no sense of success or failure, just a desire to help other people who are struggling mentally. A bit like our own little 'tribe' i guess. So you are 100% in control of just how alone you want to be here and 100% in control of how much you want to share and how long you find it helpful here. I hope you stick around and find it as helpful as I have but if you don't well, we can be disappointed, or hurt, or let down by someone we don't know other than a username and what has been shared with us. All we can do is try to be helpful and supportive for as long as you allow us.
This way of looking at it is what helped me so much at the start to begin to feel that trust and safety. I just sincerely think that is what can help you so much right now.
