Ask a therapist > Relationships > How can I get past the feeling that most people I care about actually don't care about me?

How can I get past the feeling that most people I care about actually don't care about me?

Ever since last Feb 2021 I've been having intermittent feelings of worthlessness. It first started with a guy I really liked and who I thought felt the same suddenly got with someone else out of the blue. I cried for months after that and kind of isolated myself a bit because we were really close and he was usually the one flirting and making all the moves. It was like losing a best friend. Then little problems kept cropping up in my life that normally I would be able to handle but was too down to deal with. It started feeling like everything I try to do ends in failure. Around November I felt really good and happy and like myself again until around mid March. Then the bad feelings came back because I was trying to continue schooling but delays kept on happening so I was idle a lot. Many of my close friends left the location I am in so I end up being alone in my room most times. I typically only usually interact with my flat mate who is also a good friend and her boyfriend who visits. Sometimes seeing them makes my loneliness 10 times worse because I have never experienced romantic love, guys typically only lust after me. I've never had a boyfriend yet I turn 22 next month. I get moody and separate myself from them but don't say why. I met another guy in January this year who I like as a friend, we hooked up once in February and we kept talking regularly. It was supposed to turn into a regular friends with benefit type of thing but we couldn't meet up for a while because of a religious fast. We were supposed to meet after that when suddenly he seemed to have lost interest in the friendship all together. He no longer reaches out, but always replies when I reach out to him but he no longer checks up on me and tries to be a friend. I don't know why people suddenly lose interest in me after sometime, typically guys. I tend to make long lasting female friends. However now I feel like a have nobody left because most of my friends are not around, neither is my family. Someone I care about, (the guy from last year, we managed to become friends again this year) is also leaving this week but he is doing as if he can't make time, yet I see him hanging out with the girl he ditched me for but he says he doesn't know if he will have the time to tell me goodbye in person. Why do I care about people who don't care about me and how can I stop feeling so replaceable and forgettable by so many people. I really thought I was over this guy yet just this situation is making me lose my mind and cry all over again
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Asked by Angel
Relationships
Rejection
Answered
07/20/2022

Hello and thank you for posting your question in this forum. This is a complex concern but we will attempt to help you deconstruct it as much as possible, given what you have written here. It appears you have had some difficult feelings since February 2021. It appears this is primarily prompted by a relationship which you entered with a significant other. You were close to this person and became emotionally vulnerable with him but then it appears you felt rejected by him, as he appears to have stopped contacting you.

 

Often, especially when we are young it is difficult to handle rejection. With that in mind here are some general tips to help you move through feelings of rejection: 

  1. If you experience rejection, it doesn’t mean you’re never going to be successful. If you get negative feedback on a piece of work, it doesn’t mean you have no capacity to become better at it or that you’re not talented. If you find yourself personalizing rejection or negative feedback, ask yourself whether you’re catastrophizing — blowing it up into far bigger of a deal than it is.

  2. Be gentler to yourself about your imperfections, mistakes, and times when you’re not as good at something as you’d like to be. If you can learn to be nicer to yourself about your imperfections, you won’t automatically jump to feeling attacked when other people make comments.

  3. Frame taking rejection well as a positive goal. For example, frame refusing to personalize at work as part of being professional and robust. Recognize that demonstrating your ability to accept negative feedback likely will bring you accurate feedback. When people worry about hurting your feelings, they are more likely to provide confusing feedback.

  4. Learn to label your emotions accurately. Emotions drive thoughts as much as thoughts drive emotions. What emotions trigger personalizing thoughts for you? Some common ones include anxiety, embarrassment, disappointment and anger. If you can label your emotional reactions accurately, you can then focus on doing some appropriate self-care to deal with that emotion. Once the emotion subsides, so will the personalizing reactionary thoughts.
    Often, appropriate self-care for emotions just involves accepting that you’re having the emotion and patiently waiting for it to pass, which will happen over time. The things people do to try to “get rid of” their emotions usually end up causing more harm than good.

  5. Put yourself in situations in which rejection is likely but doesn’t have any major negative consequences. Doing things such as making requests when you expect you might be told “no” will help you learn that rejection often isn’t personal. Learning through doing behavioral experiments is the best way to change thoughts.

  6. Don’t be overly eager to please because you’re afraid of being disliked. People who personalize often have attachment anxiety. If you act overly eager to please, you’ll just end up believing that it’s the only way to be accepted. Be warm but practice good boundaries.

  7. Believe in your capacity to become someone who doesn’t excessively personalize things. I see a lot of people who seem to have accepted that they’re doomed to a lifetime of being the way they’ve always been and that is an incorrect assumption. You can change your cognitive style away from such assumptions. 

These tips should help you move forward with thinking of how you can best handle points of rejection. Next, you will want to consider some of the ways in which you are conceptualizing your importance to others. Simply because there is some rejection currently ongoing in your life, especially in a romantic sense, it does not mean you are not worthwhile. You must always reflect on this and recognize this as true.

 

Some friends and partners may leave your life and move but others will come into your life and fulfill a new role. Be ready to accept them and have an openness with regard to this, if possible. If you think negatively about it then negative things may occur. In psychology we call this a ‘self fulfilling prophecy’. However, if you retain an open mind and retain a positive outlook on such occurrences it is likely you will experience more positive events in the future and you’ll be better able to handle these negative situations.

 

Finally, it may help you to seek counseling (either over a platform like this or in-person) which can help you to further explore your history, your future goals, and any concerns surrounding attachment/rejection. Hopefully all of this gives you some sense of where to go next in your journey towards better psychological health & wellness.

 

Thank you again for posting your question in this forum. I wish you good luck in the future as well as good physical and mental health.

(LPC)