Crying when someone is nice

[isilme]

I'm not even sure where this should go.  Just had our office Christmas party and it was very nice, but when my secret Santa revealed herself, I ended up crying.  I had figured it'd be a kinda simple, superficial gifting for the most part, but it seems like in our office many actually tried to find out what someone would REALLY like, as my gift-giver did. 

Holidays are hard for multiple reasons:  memories of traumatic things at this time of year with my FOO, two BPD parents as an only child.  Hopes that come with the time of year.  BPD H and his issues, his family, as kind as they can be compared to mine, which has its own fleas and flying monkeys.  Feelings of guilt for being NC for years in Mom's case, decades in Dads'.  I guess there will always be some feelings of unworthiness in me, that a kindness touches and I feel like "Why?  why are you being nice to me?"  I don't know what to do, I just dissolve into tears.  I think I must kinda quietly assume people just tolerate me, maybe don't outright hate me, but certainly don't feel they LIKE me, not many of them, and even then I guess I am kinda damaged and can't really accept it if they do.  So when a lady I only see because we are paid to interact for 40 hours a week does something as simple as making sure to find out I like cats and gets me a few things that I DO like, it's weird and hard to process. 

I can deal with barbs, slights, insults.  Those I can usually brush off and ignore - the walls built over 40 years can handle that.  Neglect, being ignored, those seem to hurt a bit more, but I can manage that, too.  Being treated in a kinda, normal way - I have to cry.  It's like the circuits blow and all my internal processors break. 

Things like this - was I really programmed THAT messed up as a kid, to where a simple kindness feel like someone donating a kidney?  Sorry - had to type or just weep quietly in my office. 

[heartandwhole]

isilme 

I can relate to what you have shared, and am very moved by the kindness of "strangers." Do you think it stems from FOO issues that trained us to not expect kindness and thoughtfulness from others? That's what I suspect in my situation.

Also, I think in times like that, we allow our hearts to open a bit, and that softness and vulnerability gets the waterworks going. It's very sweet, in my view, and feels somehow refreshing, like a heaviness dropping off.

Do you feel similarly?

heartandwhole

[Sunfl0wer]

Thank you for sharing.
I completely relate and have this issue often and it surfaces in many ways in my life.  Currently I am beginning a relationship with a man who is quite kind and I struggle to hear him speak kindness or express happiness with me.  It confuses me.  My therapist says I have few inner scripts for this and will have to learn as I go.  Yet I also have gotten teary and emotional when someone takes the effort to do something nice or when I discover someone thinks well of me that I barely thought they knew me at all. 
Anyway, just saying thanks for sharing and yes, I totally relate.

[I_Am_The_Fire]

I can completely relate to this too! *hugs*

I grew up with an NPD father, been in abusive NPD, BPD relationships my entire life, and have PTSD as a result. I'm seeing a really good trauma therapist who helps me with things like this. Here is what I've learned in my case. I hope this may help you too.

I lived my entire life believing deep down that I wasn't worthy of anything good. That I deserved bad things and bad people. I had this internal shame of who I was that festered inside me all of my life (I'm in my 40s now). I felt alone and invisible. That no one could possibly like me for who I really am and that I'm always wrong and bad in everything I do. None of this is true but I felt it was since I was a toddler due to abuse. So when someone (my now fiance) finally actually "saw" me for who I really am and not only accepted me but loved me for me just as I am, I cried and still do at times. When he does something for me that is simple but extremely thoughtful, it really touches me and I cry. When it was my birthday, he arranged a surprise lunch with our friends. I broke down and cried. It was the most perfect thoughtful gift for me. So it's like there's this conflict inside me that I'm trying to resolve - on one hand deep down I feel I don't deserve it and on the other hand it's hard for me to believe that they truly care for me and went out of their way and their busy schedules just to have lunch with me on my birthday with absolutely no strings attached.

It may also be like this thing called "joypain" (I think that's from Melody Beattie but I could be wrong. I can't seem to find it.) that my therapist told me about. Some things feel so good that it actually hurts and we can't help but to cry to express it.

[Turkish]

Did you thank her for the   ? How did it go?

I can relate.  I could never deal with the Splitting.  Well,  I did deal with it,  but not well internally.  I also don't like people doing nice things for me.  It isn't like waiting for the shoe to drop with that specific person at the moment.  It feels more like I don't need a favor.  Ordinary civility is good enough.  I hurt kind of a quasi-dad some years ago when I blew of his idea for throwing me a birthday party.  I was in my 30s. Adults don't need parties; certainly not the wolf.

The other night I clicked on old Gmail drafts.  I was going to delete them,  none had titles.  I read one from 2013 where my ex was telling her paramour about me,  how I was everything a woman could want but that she felt empty and couldn't love me. 

It kind of still hurt,  because at my core I don't feel deserving of love.  Interestingly,  I believe my kids when they tell me that they love me.  On the flip side,  I shrug it off when they split and say "I hate you forever!" (S7 when angry at me).

So I can take it from a kid,  not an adult,  and it likely goes back to being a kid being split by an adult.  Personally,  I was also ostracized by my peers due to having a handicap from which I looked different. 

So where does this leave us as adults to move forward?

[Notwendy]

Me too- if someone is nice to me, I am surprised. I don't expect people to treat me poorly, and  don't accept that, but genuine niceness feels great and overwhelming.

I have a hard time trusting that it is sincere.

My BPD mother isn't usually sincere. If she acts nice to me, I suspect something is up and that she is being manipulative.

[isilme]

Oh I thanked her.  I got up and ran around the table to give her a hug, but I could tell she was surprised I ended up getting weepy.  THEN the person I work closest with gave me her gift, and it started again.  It just surprises me for people to be thoughtful who have no "real" reason to do so. I guess that makes sense since the people who were "supposed" to love me and care for me were so poorly equipped to do so, and even while I CAN say I do have decent memories of good days, things that were not God-awful, the God-awful bits really hurt me. 

I think my parents tried as much as their mental health allowed - their mental health is just so f-ed up it just didn't allow for much and I was a thing, an object to control when wanted, ignore the rest of the time, and chastise when a literal whipping girl was needed or I'd transgressed. 

I kinda always feel in life a bit like someone looking in a window at happy people, sitting outside, happy to see them happy, but never feeling like its MY place to be part of it - It's been that way since I was small, and even though there was no way for me to understand the level of abuse and neglect I was facing at home. 

I was also ostracized by peers as a child, not for having anything visible other kids noticed, but simply from being so weird - I had to be very self-sufficient at a very young age, I had no filter taught to me by my parents, I did not know how to be a kid, and I was not an adult.  I had no place to be. 

So it's like there's this conflict inside me that I'm trying to resolve - on one hand deep down I feel I don't deserve it and on the other hand it's hard for me to believe that they truly care for me and went out of their way and their busy schedules just to have lunch with me on my birthday with absolutely no strings attached.

^^This.

I don't think usually I have problems trusting sincerity, probably the opposite.  I am just always surprised when people treat me like more than a piece of furniture.  I guess joy-pain is a decent word, maybe surprise-joy-pain is closer?