Professional Outcast

[UntiedShoes]

After my childhood long segment of militant psychology training (a.k.a abuse),I can now smell a narcissist with a well developed scam a mile away, I am an outcast because now I smell red flags about 6 months before they even begin to set in. After 15 yrs of therapy I can also now sense when I'm not in danger so I don't misapply my "training". This insight causes many things for me, including feeling like an outcast when I don't buy into things too quickly and test character before believing.

Due to this I'm termed as a "skeptic, pessimist, cynic, anxious, etc.."
I disagree because I feel this is the good outcome of these horrible upbringings, you just gain wisdom which can be anxious and fearful, but if you work on it it becomes helpful.
Anyone experience this?

[madeline7]

My experience is a little different, yet similar because my interactions with people today have been shaped by my very long history of trying to survive my childhood and my early and mid adulthood. I don't think people view me as a pessimist, but I am no longer willing to tolerate toxic behavior in others. People do tell me to not take things personally and to let things roll off my back, but I am done always deferring to others, smoothing things out and internalizing my feelings. I do act with compassion, and empathy. I do think of others, but not when they are acting in a way that is maladaptive. I think I am now seen as overly sensitive, but my now much smaller circle of friends and family gets me, and are supportive. I still care what others think of me, but not as much as I used to. This has been about a 30 year process for me, and there are times when i want to scream about all that wasted time and energy.

[Onyx22]

I relate to this a lot.
For me, it's mostly that I am very skeptical of overly nice/happy people. Though I'm not so accurate and I get false positives, as I lean towards distrust.

I'm overly sensitive to changes in tone or volume when talking to people. It takes me a long time (usually at least a month or two) to start to be comfortable around a person. In this time of discomfort I struggle to open up, so when I do become comfortable my reservedness is already the norm :/

I'm definitely a pessimist as well, though I've been working on being less so. I've always seen it as a good thing too, something that protects me from further harm. I'm still grapling with the concept myself, and have a hard time explaining, but being more of an optimist can be freeing/relieving. (Particularly, I always want to expect the worst in every scenario and feed my anxiety in doing so. Where I'm learning to allow myself to expect a better outcome.) -- This is more around situations where the outcome is likely good, not expecting good things when it's more likely bad.
To be clear, for most of my life I could think of literally anything as turning out bad. Basically not expecting everything to have a negative outcome, which may not be your experience.

I'm hoping to be more comfortable opening up to people, as I've lost out on many opportunities to make new friends or be closer to the ones I've had. Growing up, I believed that as you become closer to someone you were bound to start fighting. Hearing my therapist tell me, "It's possible to have a relationship where you don't yell at each other" meant and still means a lot to me. I know now that I have the capacity (and support if needed) to leave any relationship that makes me uncomfortable. Still, easier said than done

Anyway, I think sensing narcissists, or even generally dysfunctional people, is a useful skill to have. I wonder if you are in a similar boat as me in struggling to form/maintain relationships? Do you feel like you miss out on what could be good relationships (friends/coworkers/...)?


@madeline7

I think I am now seen as overly sensitive, but my now much smaller circle of friends and family gets me, and are supportive.

This stood out to me, because after going NC I've been told that I'm overly sensitive. I think it's because I'm finally allowing myself to feel my own emotions and say 'no' to things for reasons I used to find weak (ex: canceling plans because I feel sick).