This person is feeling drained around people.

Hey!

It looks like you’ve been feeling very bad recently and that’s very heartbreaking to know. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now but I’ll try to help guide you a little.

First, I would like you to know that we appreciate and love everyone that comes forward to ask for advice. We feel welcomed and appreciated by the community as well, especially if a person asks for advice again because that means our previous advice helped them. So we are all genuinely grateful to have you reach out to us again. It means a lot to us, thank you.

Now moving on to your situation, I think the first and foremost thing you could do is a kind act. When you wake up in the morning, you could try and make breakfast for your parents, or buy them a nice cake after you’ve gone out and come home again. Maybe help them with something they’ve been worried about or would like to do but were unable to. I think a kind act could lead you to see their smiles, and although you might feel very annoyed or upset, if you see their smiles as rewards, I think you would feel fulfilled as well. You can do that same with your friends, buy them all juices or milkshakes or coffee and tell them you’re stuck in a difficult situation and have no mood to talk but still care about them deeply. This shouldn’t only be limited to your family or friends, try to be kinder and nicer towards yourself and the community and society as well. Feeding a stray cat might not have any effect on this world but it would definitely make you feel good and ultimately, that’s the result we’re looking for. To make you feel good, even for a short while, that is also called happiness.

You don’t have to get right back into being an enthusiastic person to talk to you friends or family. You might snap and get irritated by your family, but they’re still your family, once you realize your mistake, you can try doing another good act towards them and ask them for their tolerance and forgiveness. This does not mean you can snap at them all the time. If you think you’re gonna be rude, just leave them or sit down and have some water. Keep your mouth busy through water and it won’t have a chance to be rude to others. Try keeping a bottle of water on you at all times.

Now don’t take big leaps into getting back into friendships with your friends or family, start with small acts like giving them a juice box with a small note on them and describe to them how you feel today and how much you’re grateful they’re being patient with you or anything random since you’re friends, anything random will be fine too. Next, you can invite them to quick, short meals and do the same ‘drink water every time you feel bad or want to say something rude’. It’ll require practice and compromise but that is how relationships in this world work. You don’t have to do such things every day, every week is good enough and if it’s too hard, every 2 weeks to one month should also be alright.

After small meals, you can try watching a good movie in the cinemas since that doesn’t require you to talk much during the movie and you don’t have to stay and discuss after that as well if you feel that bad but it would be nice if you could stay and discuss the movie after finishing it since it would deepen your relationship with them. Slowly, you can start rebuilding your new relationships with people; they don’t have to be like the old ones where you were fine and nice. These new ones can be more mature, you can make mistakes, they can make mistakes and you can learn to forgive each other.

I don’t expect you to be fine in a week or two, but I’m sure that even if it takes a year or more, you’ll do just fine if you work hard for your friends and family once in a while. I think cutting them off completely could lead you to worsening your situation by making you feel completely alone in handling this. Handling such situations with understanding friends and family is better. However, their tolerance towards your attitude should not give you the excuse the manipulate and say bad things all the time. You should know where the limits lie and not cross that line in case you worsen your relationship with them.

And speaking of therapy, I would suggest you try it for a month or two at least. See if you benefit from it and understand yourself better, if you do, continue getting therapy and improving yourself.

Human beings all have weaknesses and flaws, trying to improve yourself in those factors makes them a strength. So your end goal should be making good relationships with others your strength. I genuinely pray the situation gets better. We’re grateful you contacted us again.

Thank you,

The Advice Column Team