Decay Posted July 14, 2012 Posted July 14, 2012 (edited) It's not right and I know it isn't, but I can't stop these pressing feelings of inferiority and jealousy towards her and I believe it's having a negative effect on my personality and self-esteem. We both have very different personalities and manners in which we carry ourselves. I've been told even by her and others that I am too nice, too caring and too polite while she on the other hand will out right insult people to their faces and act very mean to them depending on her mood. She even prides herself off of it. We've been friends since March and bonded very quickly but changes in my personality is that I've become very quiet to the point it annoys her and bores other people but I feel like sometimes if I talk it's awkward and causes a dreadful silence. I feel like I have nothing interesting to say so I shouldn't say anything at all. I've even resorted to drinking to make myself more social, whereas before I was naturally very bubbly and called quirky, always made sure I kept people laughing and everyone around me was having fun, but now people close to me are telling me that I seem a lot older and pointing out that I don't talk or that I always seem to be off in my own world when alot of times I feel like I have nothing to say, my mind just goes blank and I used to bounce back with saying something random that would make people burst out in laughter but now I can't do anything. What I am jealous of is her friends and the type of people she attracts. I don't know if it's because of my silence but the guys go up to her and talk to her and want to be with her and I'm just there. There was this guy who did seem like he liked me but it took a while to figure out he was just using me for sex, she never liked him from the start and he didn't like her for her attitude towards him but when I told her that I thought he was using me since the only time he contacted me was for sex she called him up to tell him off then she made me talk to him on the phone to say how I really feel and he told me that I was letting her own me, control how I feel and that I am basically her mindless slave. I feel like she constantly gets all of the good guys and when I do have someone who likes me I get all of these jerks and all of them just want to use me sexually or financially. Whereas her relationships end simply because she gets tired of the person she's with. When we became friends I got her into my circle of friends which pretty much dispersed from inner and cross conflict between them and my sister who was once their friend too and I didn't like the things being said about my sister so I stopped being friends with those people and me and my best friend, we've pretty much drifted towards her ex's crowd of friends who are on a different level of intellect and like us, deeply into art and fashion which I'm also into and I thought I would be able to click with them like my friend is so easily doing, but it's not the case. I wanted to make a good impression on them but I can only talk to them when I'm drunk and sometimes I get out of control and I fear that I make myself out to be crazy or just doing too much. I just feel like these feelings are wrong and I don't want to break my bond with my best friend but I feel like somewhere along the line I've lost my soul. I have this lingering and intensifying paranoia that maybe everyone secretly hates me and just tolerates me. I don't what I should do. Edited July 14, 2012 by Decay
january2011 Posted July 14, 2012 Posted July 14, 2012 I suggest that you get out from under her shadow and start making some new friends on your own. While on one level, you might admire her gutsy attitude, she doesn't make you feel good about yourself nor does she actually motivate you to speak up more. That's not great that you're choosing to spend time with someone who makes you feel bad and withdraw into yourself. You need to expand your world so that you are less focused on her and the world that she makes for the both of you.
SpiralOut Posted July 15, 2012 Posted July 15, 2012 I agree with what January said. I don't have any additional advice. I just feel like responding because I've been in a situation where I began to spend time with someone and the more time I spent talking to her, the more I began to put myself down in front of other people whereas I never used to do that before. It's not a good sign when your personality or the way you feel about yourself changes for the worse. Friends should make you feel good about yourself.
The Tallest One Posted July 15, 2012 Posted July 15, 2012 I agree with both previous replies 100%! I had a friend many years ago that slowly sucked the life out of me. Friends shouldn't make you feel bad about yourself or change your personality. Plus the drinking to change your behaviour or any aspect of your personality is a huge red flag. Be yourself always! Spread your own wings and fly to your own heights!
Author Decay Posted July 16, 2012 Author Posted July 16, 2012 I believe you are all right. I think I have for the most part lost touch with myself and maybe I need to stop hanging around her so much and concentrate on finding myself for a while and find more organic friendships, instead of this shallow desire to want to impress people I'm placing false values on. Yesterday we went out to lunch with a mutual friend who has recently became her boyfriend last night. We were all just mutual friends before and me and her boyfriend come from the same cultural background and have had a lot of similar things happen in our lives so that's just how we click on a conversational level, she told me right when they were deciding to date that he even told her that had a small crush on me but wouldn't act on it because it was too small and doesn't want to be with me, and I'm not sour about it all because he isn't my type and I never really liked him that way. But during the lunch when we started talking about childhoods and his and my upbringing were very similar and it was more of comparison type of conversation I guess and she turned to me and was like "Why all of a sudden are you talking so much?" I said it was because I had a lot of coffee and I was kind hyper and wanted to talk her ear off today and she said something along the lines of how she wishes I would shut up, the guy even told her to be nice. But after that I stayed silent and started to text an old friend I hadn't talk to in a while to see how she was doing. But I have been seriously thinking it's just time to find myself again, figure out who I am and what I really want and how I can become the person I truly want to be, which is just having an infectious good and funny time, being true to myself, embracing my individuality and just trying not to care what others think or envy what they have.
Author Decay Posted July 16, 2012 Author Posted July 16, 2012 (edited) Also I wanted to thank you all for taking the time to reply. Edited July 16, 2012 by Decay
Cealabeala Posted August 2, 2012 Posted August 2, 2012 (edited) We've been friends since March and bonded very quickly but changes in my personality is that I've become very quiet to the point it annoys her and bores other people but I feel like sometimes if I talk it's awkward and causes a dreadful silence. I feel like I have nothing interesting to say so I shouldn't say anything at all. I've even resorted to drinking to make myself more social, whereas before I was naturally very bubbly and called quirky, always made sure I kept people laughing and everyone around me was having fun, but now people close to me are telling me that I seem a lot older and pointing out that I don't talk or that I always seem to be off in my own world when alot of times I feel like I have nothing to say, my mind just goes blank and I used to bounce back with saying something random that would make people burst out in laughter but now I can't do anything. I feel like somewhere along the line I've lost my soul. I have this lingering and intensifying paranoia that maybe everyone secretly hates me and just tolerates me. I don't what I should do. Hi Decay. I'm sorry to hear that you are having a hard time. You sound lost. I just wanted to say that I don't believe a single person is capable of making you feel this bad. I think that if your self esteem is where it should be, no-one can do that. So it might be helpful to stop focussing on how your friends or any other external factors are the cause of this and start looking inside yourself. I think many people go through rough patches like the one you are describing, and I know I certainly have. Can I ask how old you are and what stage of life you are at? I'm 21 now, and when I look back at my 18/19 year old self, I think I often felt similar to how you describe. I just wanted to tell you that to try to give you a bit of hope. You can figure it out. I think some of the reasons and ways my life improved are: 1. Things got so dark that I hit rock bottom, reached out for help and went to a counsellor. 2. I let go of my need to hang out with the people I believed I should be seen with and began to hang out with people who I felt comfortable around instead. This is so much easier said than done, I know. 3. I started a new job that really knocked the social awkwardness out of me. Obviously this might not be an option for you, but I think really having to push myself in this area did wonders for me. Life is so much easier when you are at ease with yourself and what other think of you, and that will only come with really putting yourself out there. Feeling the fear, doing it anyway etc. 4. I stopped focusing on men and thinking that the key to my own happiness would be a boyfriend. I think I did this purely out of trial and error. I noticed that men were making me feel even sh*ttier than I felt before I got involved and decided it didn't make any sense. I don't mean that when I go out now I snarl at any guy who talks to me. I just don't let the fact that no-one's hitting on me, or that guy hasn't contacted me back, dictate how I feel. I'm just not in the right place for romance right now. I sometimes have random sex with guys... but I'm thinking about cutting this out too. It's not for me. If you can handle it, props, but if I'm honest it doesn't sound like you are at the moment. Sometimes, guys can be a great way of distracting yourself from the work that needs to be done ON yourself. 5. This one is a bit embarrassing. But I stopped buying so many clothes. For a really long time, I thought that if I looked a certain way, I would be happy. It was really important for me to be "on-trend" and I spent a lot of time and energy making that happen. I justified it to myself because I told myself I'm creative and I was just expressing that. But I started to realise that I was acting more out of fear than anything else. I was terrified of falling behind and it took me ages to get ready to leave the house every day. This is the one I stillneed to work on the most But the biggest thing that helped me are Mindfulness techniques, because I was riddled with nasty thoughts about myself for a very long time. Mindfulness is a way of improving this. If you're interested, the book that helped me is called The Happiness Trap by Russ Howard. I hope this helps. But I also think everyone has to figure these things out by themselves. I know you will x One more thing! To understand yourself and why you're different from others you could try taking this test. http://similarminds.com/jung.html/ I'm not being dramatic when I say that this literally changed me life Edited August 2, 2012 by Cealabeala
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