I have a friend whom everyone likes. I mean, really, it seems like all my other friends meet this person and they are like, “She is so great, can I get her number?!” But recently we were talking, and she pointed out someone who I am friends with who doesn’t seem to like her. She said she just knew, it’s a vibe.
“Does it bother you?”
“It used to. But not anymore.”
“What changed?”
“I like myself. I don’t really need that external validation anymore. Sure, it stings at first, but then it kind of just passes.”
Being disliked is a form of rejection and unfortunately even for the most amicable people it is a part of life. I know this friend I’m writing about worked hard in therapy, learning to tolerate the feeling of rejection, to no longer need to people-please, and to let go of the pressure she feels to appease people. Many of these feelings she carried with her for so long were seeded in her childhood with a parent who couldn’t attune to her. So as a child she always tried to gain their approval by being pleasing. That behavior followed her in to adulthood, not just with that parent but with most people in her life.
The fear of being disliked as someone in your thirties or forties is rarely about the present.
Being disliked or not cared for as children equates to a lack of safety in our brains. If you cant get a caregiver to pay attention, you may not get basic needs met like being fed or changed. Many of us experience caregivers who lack basic attunement skills, and that leaves us feeling like we need to do something to get people to care about us, and if we don’t, we are bad or unworthy in some way.
This is where the inner critic is born. This voice tries to course-correct us to be more pleasing in social interactions, in order to protect us from judgment and disappointment. The problem is it is created in childhood and sometimes no longer serves us properly as adults. In therapy, we work on understanding this critical part. Whose voice is it you have internalized? A family member? Teacher? It’s usually not your own.
We all want to be liked and accepted, but some people NEED to be because of these childhood wounds. They develop strategies to ensure they are not left on their own like people-pleasing, over-explaining, and being guarded-defense mechanisms used to avoid rejection.
Do you find yourself doing these things? You may struggle with tolerating the discomfort of being disliked.
Learning to tolerate the feeling of someone not connecting with your or out right judging or not liking you is hard but it is possible. Understanding and seeing that you may be triggered or being reactive in moments of perceived disregard can help you to be able to handle the emotions that come up in these circumstances. You can also learn to fight the impulse to act in ways that are no longer right for you if you give your self space to understand your reaction and where it is really coming from.
What helps us to tolerate when others aren’t interested in engaging or are put off by us is liking and knowing ourselves.
If you like you it is a lot easier to take someone else not being interested in being close. Get to know yourself. What do you value? What makes up the core components of your identity? What do you like about yourself? What would you like to improve? Being comfortable in who you are allows you to handle being disliked more easily and frees you from the need for external validation.