How the fuck do I find a sense of belonging?

[trenton]

I don't belong in my family. Their emotional support is empty to me. These are just the people I happened to be born to and now their supposed to be fucking special. I'm sorry, I don't buy this.

Part of my emotional numbness is caused by ptsd. To be honest, I feel like I belong back in the psychiatric ward or some kind of group therapy. Those people are accepting of me. I was able to use everything I learned from everything I studied to improve the lives of others. It would be nice if I could do that more. I love those people more than my family.

Now how am I supposed to square my life with something like this?

[PlayOnWords]

I accept you. For what it's worth.

Are you currently in some kind of therapy? Do you have any relationships outside of your family that you can look to for support and connection? These two things sound like good starting points for you.

I'm tempted to say, however, that the roots of your suffering come from childhood. Is this the case? I know it was for me and I've had to do a lot of work on that shit to heal.

[trenton]

@PlayOnWords I grew up with a dysfunctional family. They tell me to just let it go and move on. What the hell do I have to look forward to in this life other than recovering from a horrible childhood? I've repeated the story several times on this forum. My family is the reason I have been isolating myself and refusing to socialize.

I'm sorry your childhood was hell. 

[Roy]

Do you have any hobbies or communities you are apart of in real life?

You can find belonging from joining tribes.

[trenton]

@Roy my interest in chess is falling again. I'm still adjusting to the new pills. I'm otherwise not apart of any communities but this actualized forum. I mostly just dream about self actualization without doing anything. The closest thing I felt to belonging was in group therapy.

[PlayOnWords]

41 minutes ago, trenton said:

@PlayOnWords I grew up with a dysfunctional family. They tell me to just let it go and move on. What the hell do I have to look forward to in this life other than recovering from a horrible childhood? I've repeated the story several times on this forum. My family is the reason I have been isolating myself and refusing to socialize.

I'm sorry your childhood was hell. 

If only it was as easy as letting go. But that does not mean that you have to be condemned to live a life of misery.

I know it's cliche but it sounds like you really need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do something to start making a shift in your experience. I have been doing Jin Shin Jyutsu for a while now and I recommend it to you as well. There should be a practitioner near you somewhere. Do some research on it and make an appointment with someone.

Jin Shin Jyutsu works by opening up the energy pathways in the body, helping the life energy, or chi, to become balanced again. It's done using the hands so there's no scary needles or anything like with acupuncture. Give it a try.

[TheCloud]

What you describe sounds like an emotion of unresolved loneliness.  This kind of loneliness cannot truly be fulfilled outside yourself, neither by surrounding yourself with the right people, nor by rejecting the wrong ones.  It's an emotion that no longer has eyes to see your present situation, so it will never know that you're with wonderful people, or people who have changed for the better.

 

This kind of emotion can spawn all kinds of other crazy emotions, such as hatred and guilt and jealousy, and all kinds of self-defeating choices that come with those emotions.  You already recognize the loneliness inside you;  look at how desperate you are to belong.  Do you really think that there is a person or people somewhere you need to be with in order to resolve your desperation?  No, there is no such perfect existence.  There is no way to cut off your loneliness without cutting off your own neck;  it's a part of you, more even than your hands or feet.

 

Resolution comes through accepting your experience, recognizing all the harm you've caused yourself, and the misguided desperation of your childhood self to cut off the loneliness entirely.  Learn how to guide, accept, coexist with, and ultimately integrate with that childhood self who was misled by unbearable loneliness.  You'll never find resolution by looking to your family, and you won't even really find it in your therapy group.  It's something that only exists through self-exploration.

[Ulax]

@trenton I'd try and physically leave your family environment.

Then also do either Gestalt/ IFS therapy

[Michael569]

Family can be tough. On one side you feel obligated to love them (even tho deep down you may not feel it) and you feel obligated to be there for them even if you don't want to.

On the other hand, many families pressure their kids by guilting them with stories about personal sacrifice during and kind parenting during upbringing. "after all we've done for you"...this type of toxicity. But remember, you did not sign up t be brought up - they chose to have a baby and if they now use it to put an expectation on your shoulder, that's a sign of bad parenting and a MAJOR sign of immaturity. 

Can you move out? Could you afford a rent of as low-cost flat (maybe even shared accomodation with another person) 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Michael569

[Sucuk Ekmek]

On 20.07.2023 at 5:37 AM, trenton said:

My family is the reason I have been isolating myself and refusing to socialize.

Second law of thermodynamics: Any isolated system will increase it's chaos.