feeling disconnected

[dayhiker]

Thought I would create a discussion about a concept/idea that I've run into a number of times the last year. Its not a feeling I relate to having, but the negative of it seems to effect people I'm in a close relationship with.

A person has a lot of concerns about how others are going. Might be their kids, their spouse others they are close with.
Or maybe they have a lot of empathy and so each person they meet with problems their heart goes out to.
Over time their spirit is scattered, they feel their person isn't whole, their heart is concern with how many other people are doing, they have leaf some of themselves with each of these people.
Result they just don't feel whole or complete. They don't know their own desires, what they want to do. They can't find themselves.

I've had a few people tell me they were this way and had to pull their spirit back from where they left it so that they could feel whole. They speak to their spirit to come back to them.

I seem to be the opposite. I started out life very shy, so I watched people from the edge of the room.
I got over that and started to talk about things with people.
I got braver and have had some very intimate conversations with people over the years.
When I leave I leave with having shared my life but bringing my whole life with me.
GFs have expressed things like when we are apart they don't feel close to me, they feel like I might forget about them. Yet when I'm with them they feel like everything is perfect and feel how much I love them.

This seems to similar to what nurses and councilors say they can't take on the cares of their clients. Tho perhaps I go one step further, take on their cares while I'm present with them, but don't take them with me when I'm not with them.

Would love others thoughts about this idea.

 

[memoriesbymichelle]

Well, I feel like I have a lot of empathy for people but I don't feel like they take pieces of me. I have a different response. I feel MORE whole and more validated and worthwhile WHEN I AM helping someone else. If I don't have people to help, I feel less than. And then like with my kids, even though I know it isn't true, when they are doing badly I feel like a failure. I know they are mostly grown and are their own person not some robot but it just comes with being a parent I guess.

But my life is not fulfilling unless I am doing for others. But I have balance and I try not to stretch myself too thin. I know friends that do this and it's just not healthy.

 

[dayhiker]

Thanks for your perspective, Michelle ... that's more how when I am a friend to someone.

 

[blackribbon]

A nurse (and a trained counselor) are taught to have "therapeutic" relationships with our patients/clients and their families. Most friendships are two-way streets....where both people give and take. A therapeutic relationship is a one-way friendship where the profession does not offer up their personal life into the relationship....it allows the patient/client more room within the relationship. The professional does not expect or "get" anything from the relationship. They also do not get to "pick" who they enter into the relationship with either...we accept whoever.

The ability to remain separate is necessary. We are not "friends", we are professionals providing a service. Most of us care and do become involved, but to become too involved and face loss after loss would be harmful to our personal lives. In the case of difficult people like diabetics or addicts who do not take care of themselves in spite of everything we do can cause us to become jaded or hardened toward others in similar situations.

Now in real life...people become detached for different reasons. Usually it has to do with being rejected or being betrayed...so it is a trust issue. The ultimate detachment is from God and starting to feel like we are unworthy of God's love in a personal way. It is easy to think about an all-encompassing God but it sometimes is hard to realize that He really does care about the little things. I went through this earlier this month and it is what brings people to the point of being suicidal. It feels like you are completely alone in this world and are insignificant.

 

[dayhiker]

Thanks, black.

 

[memoriesbymichelle]

I am coming to believe that since we are all broken people, living in a broken world, that right there is really the main reason that people are mean, harsh, and want to disconnect from society. I view them differently now. They lash out and hurt the wrong people most of the time, but it's because they just don't know how to deal with the pain they are going thru, for whatever reason, be it past abuse, losing a loved one, or an addiction that has a hold on them or whatever else.

It's not natural to want to be alone....all the time. Of course we all should have our alone time to spend with God and reflect on our lives.

The problem comes in when you get stuck in that rut of being by yourself all the time. Because you have too much time to think, you are usually thinking about yourself and what you have or don't have or want or don't want.

It's the idle mind/devil's playground thing. IMO

 

[blackribbon]

Truth, Michelle. The best way out of that hole is to help someone else. But for the people too tired or unwilling to crawl out of that hole, sometimes they need someone to give them an arm up....or even just sit in the hole with them holding their hand until they find the strength to do it on their own.

 

[memoriesbymichelle]

Amen, what you said about sitting with the person until they have the strength to get up themselves reminds me of Job's friends. The first few days when they came to see him, they all sat in silence......for days

 

[dayhiker]

Its really amazing that of all the preaching I heard thru my life, I'd not heard this idea of people are hurting and how much this affects their actions. But a few short years ago I saw it for the 1st time in my friend and the issues that was between him and his father. No feeling loved or understood by his father has hurt him so deeply. I'm sure it was around but I was blind to it before. God's love and our love is how they are going to deal with it as far as I can tell. I don't think some command to forget about it will work.

 

[memoriesbymichelle]

I have felt disconnected ever since I decided to change churches. I wasn't super involved in my other church. I had quit the last bible study but I wasn't serving so I wasn't really connected. And then, of course, I go to my new church and then the Pastor gets found out for multiple adulteries and that kind of put me in a funk. So now I am not wanting to jump into any ministries or anything, but that's probably exactly what I need to do. One of my goals this year is to get more involved. I plan on volunteering more for Kohls and hopefully the church too. But ATM I feel disconnected and slightly alone.

 

[blackribbon]

I think disconnecting us from people is one of Satan's best ways of disconnecting us from God.

 

[memoriesbymichelle]

Can't argue with that.

There's some new show coming on TV about moving to Alaska (brrr) and one lady on the commercial preview is saying "the more remote the better, with no people around" and it just made me think.....sometimes I think people that isolate themselves from other people or who just want to become hermits, do so because they have been hurt by people and they are putting up their wall and no one is going to hurt them again, but then in place of that, they will have to deal with lonliness. To me that is a heavy price to pay just to make sure you aren't hurt by anyone again. But I do agree it is a tactic satan uses because the last thing he wants is for us to all be together, and happy and loving GOD.

 

[blackribbon]

There is the one exception and that would be some personality traits that really do seem to be basically "relationship" disabilities...people who do not need people nor want relationships. But these are rare.