When the people around you are dysfunctional.

[BlueAlpha1]

I'm wondering how some of you guys who had rough upbringings, abandonment, bad relationships, etc were able to cope and/or "get over" it once the bulk of the damage had been done.

I have all the opportunity a person could ever ask for including health, some cash, and my own private space. There is virtually nothing negative about my life and there hasn't been for over a year now. Any and all the bad things that have happened to people around me who I love. The problem is it's been almost everyone and I think it's left me with some PTSD.

I had one relative who suffered from addiction and a lot of physical pain, and he died before we could help him. I have another relative who is in bad health now, and is an absolute money pit with no sense of personal responsibility. Another has a record with the law for something they didn't do. Yet another relative who died was a really vicious person who abused everyone around her (including me) about half the time, and at times I'm glad she's gone but feel awful for thinking this way.

And there are more. I live with guilt, regret, and "what ifs" every single day on behalf of all these people, that their lives didn't go well and I couldn't do more. It's not uncommon for their problems to wreak so much havoc they ripple effect into your lives and infect you with a bad energy. At the same time, you don't want to totally abandon your family and loved ones and live like a hermit.

For guys like @Bible_Belt how did you put it to rest and focus inward? Did we just get a bad deck or do you think the vast majority of people are just simply narcissistic, insecure, dysfunctional, and self-destructive and most people feel this way?

 

[blind_one]

A one-eyed man is a king in the kingdom of the blind

That being said, it is best to let go of people that bring negativity into your life.
You are the only responsible person for your well being and happiness.
It can be hard but sometimes it is the only way. You are better than that.

 

[Alvafe]

I'm wondering how some of you guys who had rough upbringings, abandonment, bad relationships, etc were able to cope and/or "get over" it once the bulk of the damage had been done.

I have all the opportunity a person could ever ask for including health, some cash, and my own private space. There is virtually nothing negative about my life and there hasn't been for over a year now. Any and all the bad things that have happened to people around me who I love. The problem is it's been almost everyone and I think it's left me with some PTSD.

I had one relative who suffered from addiction and a lot of physical pain, and he died before we could help him. I have another relative who is in bad health now, and is an absolute money pit with no sense of personal responsibility. Another has a record with the law for something they didn't do. Yet another relative who died was a really vicious person who abused everyone around her (including me) about half the time, and at times I'm glad she's gone but feel awful for thinking this way.

And there are more. I live with guilt, regret, and "what ifs" every single day on behalf of all these people, that their lives didn't go well and I couldn't do more. It's not uncommon for their problems to wreak so much havoc they ripple effect into your lives and infect you with a bad energy. At the same time, you don't want to totally abandon your family and loved ones and live like a hermit.

For guys like @Bible_Belt how did you put it to rest and focus inward? Did we just get a bad deck or do you think the vast majority of people are just simply narcissistic, insecure, dysfunctional, and self-destructive and most people feel this way?

you learn and try not to do they mistake, you saw how they go and how they are, you ahve aprime example on how **** people they are, use that as a example, a example of a person you don't want to be

you also should let go your guilty, why you feel guilty? for they mistakes? they are not yours,
guilty for thinking they are bad persons and you don't want to get involved? you are looking after yourself
guilty for a really bad person do die, and be happy about it? some people are completely useless and the only thing good they did for others is have died.

one thing I use a lot is anger and rage to get over, they are feeling, but they are not bad per essence, they make you take action, all your feelings you fell is telling you how you should act, and that act is how it will make you a good or bad person, the way I use my anger is simple I feel so annoyed with such person I ask myself why I bother? then I start to use that rage to shut that person out from my life, in such a way after sometime they don't even matter and I forget who they are, some still try to get around back, but my quick and only answers question give the hint fast

 

[Desdinova]

I'm wondering how some of you guys who had rough upbringings, abandonment, bad relationships, etc were able to cope and/or "get over" it once the bulk of the damage had been done.

You don't really get over it. Time can help ease some of the emotional part of it. You just kinda learn to live with it, and that helps as well.

Any and all the bad things that have happened to people around me who I love. The problem is it's been almost everyone and I think it's left me with some PTSD.

I detest how PTSD is so commonly thrown around. PTSD causes you to behave irrationally to things that are seemingly ordinary or non-threatening. If you haven't had any kind of trauma happen directly to you, then you have no clue what it's like to have PTSD.

When I was growing up, I was getting beat up daily at school and then beaten up daily at home by my mother. I would get balls thrown at my head pretty much every gym class. My mother would beat the 5hit out of me regularly, even if I hadn't done anything. I was her punching bag when she was mad at my dad or mad at something else. I started shaking uncontrollably at school, and would also shake uncontrollably when I even thought about going to school. It's incredible how the mind can cause adverse effects on the rest of your body.

As an adult, I have difficulty being around people playing soccer, baseball, basketball, etc. Even people batting around a balloon at a birthday party causes me a lot of distress and I feel the need to take myself out of the situation. I also react badly to anybody who's talking through their teeth. If someone in my vicinity raises their arm quickly to scratch their head or grab something off a shelf, I duck. THAT is what living with PTSD is like. The reactions I get from people is utter confusion. They really don't understand how their actions are so threatening to me. Then I have to explain it to them.

You're most likely experiencing some sort of psychological paranoia.

 

[KingBeef]

I would say don't worry about it. I'm a strong believer of the "You reap what you sow" philosophy. You have to be the "Master" of your own life.

We are all given chances in our lifetime to make the best decisions for ourselves. It's true in the beginning, some individuals may have more opportunities than others but its up to the individual to take advantage and grow. Once they accomplish that, they will not only grow but learn how to surround themselves with others who live in a positive culture who aspire each other thus opening up more doors to success. It's really that simple.

As far as feeling bad or being "guilt ridden" for others who you feel "what if he didn't do this or was addicted to that" Remember this.....YOU CAN'T LIVE THEIR LIFE, ONLY YOURS... With the exception of life threatening cancers and certain addictions which in some cases they can't prevent, THEY ALL MADE CHOICES.

How did I get over that "feel bad for everyone" guilt? I remind myself this. There are 6.5 billion people on this planet....Do you really think the world is going to stop living or turning if you or someone else is gone? Trust me, it will forget you and move on because that's what it does.
They live for them... go and LIVE FOR YOU.

 

[BlueAlpha1]

I detest how PTSD is so commonly thrown around. PTSD causes you to behave irrationally to things that are seemingly ordinary or non-threatening. If you haven't had any kind of trauma happen directly to you, then you have no clue what it's like to have PTSD.

Well, I did state I was abused regularly by my grandmother, who I lived with as a kid. As was almost everyone else in her life...

I can also tell you that in August of 2012 I caught my BPD in bed with another man. Not texting or flirting with another man - in the act. I remember every split second moment in that 15 minute fit of rage. I still have trust issues I haven't gotten over 4 years later, and the betrayal changed my entire personality type with people. I don't like to be bothered anymore.

But if that's still not textbook enough, I am almost certain I have some variation of PTSD from a horrifying flight I had recently. I've been flying since I was 2 years old, had been on over 150 flights before - some over 10 hours long. I recently had a flight from FL to NY with a layover in STL. The flight from FL to STL was 1 hr 35 min long. The turbulence and storm was so terrifying that I get sick before a flight starts now. I literally count the minutes left, and the lower the altitude of the plane during landing I begin to think "with each minute, my chance of survival is going up." This isn't normal given the statistical safety of airplanes.

So I don't want to get into a debate with you as to who had it harder than who. You don't know my entire story because I didn't give you all the details, and I don't believe you are a psychiatrist either.

Besides, "my upbringing was harder than yours" is an unproductive conversation anyway and not what I was intending.

 

[Who Dares Win]

I think the majority of the users in this forum suffered some kind of abuse either at home or at school, after all when it comes of socializing and sex all the "bugs" we have in our personality are hard to control.

I basically had all my parents being of no help in my childhood, they were in fact my biggest problem from neglecting to bash my self esteem for no reason.
I was so used to their abuse that when I saw the parents of my friends not only not bashing them but even defending them against teachers reproaches I got surprised.

Once I was at a friends house while we were playing video games and eating fries on the sofa, both those things would have get me in trouble with my parents; his father instead came asked who was winning, grabbed some fries and left with no hassle....It was mindblowing to me.

I remember I was constatly stressed and intimidated from everything unable to stand for myself, even my body posture was crap, my shoulders were forward and my back was never straight.
My own mother even stole me xmas money once, she said I would have wasted them anyway.

Fast forward a decade later all I was doing was lifting weights and training wrestling, once reached a critical mass of size and strenght I turned into a wardog, usually minding my own business but ready to pick up any provocation and over react, even at home the roles were reversed it was me the bully telling my parents when to watch tv and when to be silent.

Now I believe that signed me forever, if someone does something bad to me and I cant retaliate I keep that in mind and even after years passed once I have the chance I strike and most of the times its not even proportional.

Apart that Im a perfectly functional individual, I dont cross the streets with a red traffic light, I pay the bus ticket and Im respectfull to people, I even return wallets if someone lose one.

Its just when Im provoked just like 2 weeks ago, one of those fake refugees those parassites invading europe asked me for money, I told him I had none but he kept insisting and grabbed my arm.
I slapped his face with all my strenght (open hand) he felt down, a woman started shouting stuff at me and I asked her if she wanted some too, then left as nothing happened while people was watching.

Now when it comes of women I know for sure Im never getting married or living with one, I still subconsciously feel that Im not worth of love or commitment therefore having a family would drive me paranoid.

 

[Killakittie]

Well, I did state I was abused regularly by my grandmother, who I lived with as a kid. As was almost everyone else in her life...

I can also tell you that in August of 2012 I caught my BPD in bed with another man. Not texting or flirting with another man - in the act. I remember every split second moment in that 15 minute fit of rage. I still have trust issues I haven't gotten over 4 years later, and the betrayal changed my entire personality type with people. I don't like to be bothered anymore.

But if that's still not textbook enough, I am almost certain I have some variation of PTSD from a horrifying flight I had recently. I've been flying since I was 2 years old, had been on over 150 flights before - some over 10 hours long. I recently had a flight from FL to NY with a layover in STL. The flight from FL to STL was 1 hr 35 min long. The turbulence and storm was so terrifying that I get sick before a flight starts now. I literally count the minutes left, and the lower the altitude of the plane during landing I begin to think "with each minute, my chance of survival is going up." This isn't normal given the statistical safety of airplanes.

So I don't want to get into a debate with you as to who had it harder than who. You don't know my entire story because I didn't give you all the details, and I don't believe you are a psychiatrist either.

Besides, "my upbringing was harder than yours" is an unproductive conversation anyway and not what I was intending.

My first wife, out of spite that I was going to divorce her, ****ed my biological father.

Chew on that for a minute.

 

[BlueAlpha1]

My first wife, out of spite that I was going to divorce her, ****ed my biological father.

Chew on that for a minute.

Nothing surprises me with women. Though I admit, if that had happened to me, it might have driven me over the edge.

 

[Desdinova]

Well, I did state I was abused regularly by my grandmother, who I lived with as a kid.

Did she ever pick you up by your hair and your shirt, shake the hell out of you and throw you into the wall? Did she beat you in the head with a wooden hair brush? Did she beat the piss out of you even more because you wouldn't stop crying? Did she drag your ass to religious cult meeting and beat you there because the cult endorsed it?

So I don't want to get into a debate with you as to who had it harder than who.

I'm not saying that your upbringing was peaches and cream. A lot of relatives are fvcking *******s and they'll treat you like 5hit. You wanted the experiences, so there's mine. I just said that the PTSD acronym gets thrown around a lot, and it's easy for someone to label themselves as having it because nobody can prove it. It's all psychological. The trauma is what fvcks you up. When you're scared as hell with no way out, and the torture keeps happening. That 5hit takes its toll on your behaviour and your physical self.

I don't tell a lot of people about the PTSD. My GF doesn't even know about it. Most of my GFs never knew about it. But when it shows up like an ugly c0ckroach, it shocks and confuses them.

My first wife, out of spite that I was going to divorce her, ****ed my biological father.

That's some fvcked up 5hit right there. What a cvnt. Someone needs to shove a stick of dynamite into her ***** and light it. No ex-bytch should be doing that.

 

[BlueAlpha1]

Did she ever pick you up by your hair and your shirt, shake the hell out of you and throw you into the wall? Did she beat you in the head with a wooden hair brush? Did she beat the piss out of you even more because you wouldn't stop crying? Did she drag your ass to religious cult meeting and beat you there because the cult endorsed it?

She cut a t-shirt off my body with a scissor because it was my father's company t-shirt when I was about 12. She basically terrorized me for being proud of my dad. She dragged my mother around the kitchen floor by her hair in front of me. She wished a slow, painful death on my father to my little brother on Christmas Eve because he was late to pick us up. She cheated on my grandfather for 30 years and had the man over for Thanksgiving dinner like some bad cuckold porn. My grandfather was a good, hard working man his whole life. But he's also a coward that I never respected. And at 86 years old, he's getting bitter and insufferable to be around too. My brother has to counsel me over my guilt that my empathy is fading for him too.

And guess what? When my mother divorced my dad and left, replaced him with a loser and uprooted us not only away from my dad but from her also, she begged my mom to take him back. She tearfully apologized to my father many years later one day and wished everything could go back to "normal", after all the dust had long since settled.

In 2012, she withered away to under 100 pounds and died a horrible death from lung cancer. I wouldn't have wished that on my worst enemy. But I almost never miss her. And my mother is a watered down version of her. A petty dictator next to Hitler, but the resemblances are there. The only good thing is I learned to stand up to my mother, so as time goes on and she seeks to establish her reign of domination over the family, she usually knows to check herself with me.

I just said that the PTSD acronym gets thrown around a lot, and it's easy for someone to label themselves as having it because nobody can prove it. It's all psychological.

Very much like BPD. The thing is the vast majority of the time these symptoms will go undiagnosed. I don't feel the need to get anything diagnosed because I'm a functioning member of society, but I probably have some level of it. If the symptoms are there, it might be a mild version. Obviously the PTSD of child abuse will be very different from that of a car accident or war, but it all falls under an umbrella of mental health.

A lot of the guys come to this forum because of a BPD, and they are given hell by some on this forum because the girls are not "technically" BPD. But who cares? None of us are psychiatrists but it's all pretty close enough. The stories are always similar. Not the exact same - yours are worse, but pretty damn similar.

 

[Desdinova]

She cut a t-shirt off my body with a scissor because it was my father's company t-shirt when I was about 12. She basically terrorized me for being proud of my dad. She dragged my mother around the kitchen floor by her hair in front of me. She wished a slow, painful death on my father to my little brother on Christmas Eve because he was late to pick us up. She cheated on my grandfather for 30 years and had the man over for Thanksgiving dinner like some bad cuckold porn. My grandfather was a good, hard working man his whole life. But he's also a coward that I never respected. And at 86 years old, he's getting bitter and insufferable to be around too. My brother has to counsel me over my guilt that my empathy is fading for him too.

And the bottom line is we both have issues with women. Yours has more to do with trust because you were surrounded by women who demonstrated that they weren't trustworthy. I only had the one woman who treated me like 5hit. I knew there was something wrong with my situation because other women (and girls) treated me well. So I ended up on a desperate search for a woman who would demonstrate the care and attention I didn't get from my mother.

Perhaps that's why I love this site. It helps make sense of the senseless. It helps us develop the ability to find women who care and are dedicated. Or we just say fvck all that and get laid, because we learned how to care for ourselves the hard way.

 

[BlueAlpha1]

And the bottom line is we both have issues with women. Yours has more to do with trust because you were surrounded by women who demonstrated that they weren't trustworthy. I only had the one woman who treated me like 5hit. I knew there was something wrong with my situation because other women (and girls) treated me well. So I ended up on a desperate search for a woman who would demonstrate the care and attention I didn't get from my mother.

Perhaps that's why I love this site. It helps make sense of the senseless. It helps us develop the ability to find women who care and are dedicated. Or we just say fvck all that and get laid, because we learned how to care for ourselves the hard way.

Listen man, this forum is the fraternity I never had in college. I have formed what I consider to be friendships with some guys here. I've duked it out with a few of these guys and a lot of the time and we're chill an hour later, like Fight Club. When I'm writing a post here, I go into a zone and almost have tunnel vision until I finish it.

But you're right - women have been the whole story here. My grandmother was a totalitarian monster. My mother is a petty tyrant and is used to always getting her way with every man in her life. My other grandmother died before I was born. I have an aunt taking my uncle to the woodshed in divorce court right now. The only woman I ever loved was a vampire. As an atheist, she made the strongest case for demonic possession I've ever seen.

That's not to say I've never encountered a good woman. My rebound after my BPD was socially awkward because she had her own big time daddy issues, but the 6 months we were together she was loyal, cooperative and eager to please. My brother's girlfriend is a lovely girl and my best friend has met a real gem too. I've met a couple of truly charming women in my travels from places like the Czech Republic and New Zealand, but those were brief encounters.

My hopes of finding a nice, grounded, loyal North American girl are nil now. I'm sure there are a few unicorns out there, but right now I'm not willing to sort through heaps of trash to find them. Unfortunately, culture is pervasive and a lot of the women we interact with had similar upbringings and so it would be unwise to trust them. And not withstanding, I will never give myself to a woman that deep again anyway.

 

[Desdinova]

Unfortunately, culture is pervasive and a lot of the women we interact with had similar upbringings

I think there's a couple of sides to that one...

1) Women who have 5hitty upbringings get it a LOT worse. They're the one who have creepy AFC uncles who can't get laid. They'll get the arsehole alpha fathers who resent them and their mothers, and beat the piss out of them. They get beaten, sexually abused, and they grow up to have relationship and sexuality issues.

2) Some women will over-exaggerate the negatives they had growing up and will make them out to be extremely emotionally disastrous. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. The only way to find out is to meet their family and make your own judgement.

So yeah, there's a lot of fvcked up women out there because their families are severely fvcked up, but it can really matter how the woman deals with the cards she's been dealt. She may become more independent due to her fvcked up family, or she could turn to drugs, booze, or sex. I've noticed the surroundings she has while growing up play a huge role in it. The ones who were brought up outside the city are the ones who turn out more independent. The ones who were raised inside the city can easily find their outlets with the wrong crowd and the wrong pastimes.

That's not to say I've never encountered a good woman. My rebound after my BPD was socially awkward because she had her own big time daddy issues, but the 6 months we were together she was loyal, cooperative and eager to please. My brother's girlfriend is a lovely girl and my best friend has met a real gem too.

I'm very hard-pressed to say that I've met any genuinely good women. I honestly can't think of any man I know off the top of my head who's found a real gem; a man I can be completely envious of. I think the woman I've picked is the only one I can really say comes close to fitting the bill here. She's attentive, considerate, very giving, always wants to fvck, constantly thinking about me, and I could go on and on. But that is what I've been working for. I've been searching for that genuine woman who just latches onto her man and stays there. However, I think that the man's role plays a huge part in that. A woman won't latch onto an AFC and keep him around. We know that. She needs someone she considers to be an upstanding man. The only thing is, we as men need to be extremely fussy and picky with who we keep around. Reward the good women, toss away the bad. There is a LOT of tossing to be done because of everything we've discussed so far.

 

[Once Bitten]

Keep looking till you find a group of people you can be yourself around. Your true self.
Going to a location further away helps. Especially if the activity you are participating in isn't available in your area. That way they can't "not trust you" for not staying in your own town. I say this because where I live, this is a big deal and I've been confronted with several times.

For example, my neighbor girl drives 60 miles away every Friday night to play Dungeons and Dragons in a group meeting in the city. Just an example...

Many, many people are just ****ing weird. I read a while back that when hunting for friends or a mate, we must look for someone who is our identical type of "crazy". This I truly believe.
Most folks have problems in their life they can't change. The weakest of these (most of them) find someone else to make feel miserable to justify their own shyttiness.