No one seems to know what’s going on, but no matter where I go I’ve always had trouble fitting in, regardless of how much I’ve had in common. People would look for every excuse to not accept me, and even if I seas accepted in the short term, they would be looking for a reason to give up on me and disregard me.
Even my parents did this to me. It’s like they did everything they could to reject me without actually disowning me. They did not like me, and most of what I did was never enough.
This caused me to develop a codependent narcissist personality growing up, where I would be so desperate to prove my worth, and prove I had talents and skills that were better than everyone else’s. These were all survival mechanisms to keep from getting rejected.
I have since gotten rid of these habits through years of hard work, but I still have low self worth and feel that I’ll never be appreciated no matter what I do.
I have no idea what to do. I thought it was because I was ADHD, but there are plenty of ADHDers who get accepted so I’m not sure, it might be because something about my looks or my body language is unattractive and offputting.
I have done my best to remain as realistic, fair, and positive with my attitudes toward people, which is why I’m just trying to fix the situation instead of taking everything out on people.
Any advice helps. Unfortunately, based on past experience, odds are 90% of you guys would look at me like I was disgusting and ignore me if we were in person. The other 10% would try to be nice and ignore whatever it is that’s wrong with me. If anyone has gone from being consistently ostracized to having a healthy social life where friends aren’t so hard to come by, tell me about what you did.
3 comments
I believe 50-70% of adhd children experience social rejection by their peers
The greatest person who ever lived was abandoned by everybody, so you might be doing something right.
I’m really sorry that you’ve had this experience and are feeling this way. I had similar experiences with parents and peers growing up. It’s led to me being very cautious around people.
I now know a lot of people and from the outside it would look like I have a lot of friends, but I don’t have any friends that I could call if the shit hit the fan. We see each other in group settings and occasionally text each other in group chats. Anyway, it’s come a long way from feeling like I don’t belong at all. These are still important social connections that I place a high value on but I keep things light with them and feel like I have to be ‘on’ as I would at a business networking event. One thing I stopped taking personally was that I’m usually the person that makes the plans. I used to assume that people were hanging out or chatting without me, but they’re not. People are just really bad at staying in touch. So realizing this helped me get to this point.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I just haven’t found my people yet – the folks that I could count on if the shit hit the fan. They are out there and I just need to put myself out there more. Everyone that I know now, I either met through work or they were friends with someone I know. That’s not bad but we don’t have much in common. So, phase two for me is I’m joining more groups that are focused on things I’m interested in so I can meet people that have common interests. It’s not a guarantee but it’s worth a shot.
I agree that I don’t think it has to do with your ADHD, I know plenty of people with that who have very full social lives, including my sibling but they found their people. My sibling is wonderfully weird and into some pretty niche stuff and he found his tribe – people that’ll answer his calls at 4 am. His primary reason for success is that he doesn’t really care what people think and keeps putting himself out there.
Regarding your last paragraph, don’t talk shit about yourself or make assumptions about what others think of you. I’ve met people who assumed others had a negative view of them and were full of self-loading – you can feel that dripping off of them and it’s not something a lot of people want to be around, that is a people repellent.
As for people looking at you and thinking you’re disgusting – the vast majority of people don’t look like supermodels. Taking good care of yourself, dressing yourself in clothes that fit and make you feel confident, keeping good hygiene, and having a positive attitude all make a massive difference in how attractive someone is. I’ve met tons of people who weren’t supermodel attractive but were magnetic and I’ve met supermodel type people who were unattractive. If you need help or inspiration on what that all looks like in practice I highly recommend watching Queer Eye on Netflix – it’s all about all this and has been really impactful for me at difficult times in my life.
I hope this was encouraging – keep your head up – we are all fabulous in our own way and everyone has a tribe somewhere. There is nothing wrong with you! Outside of obviously bad behavior like lying, stealing, murdering, etc. and true psychiatric conditions, who the heck has the authority to decide what is right or wrong about a personality? It’s a trick question. The answer is no one.