I don’t think I know how to truly connect to people. I don’t think I ever learned how to make real friends nor do I think that this was truly ever modeled for me. As my mother raised me , she did not really have any real friends. For a lot of reasons and many dramas happening during my upbringing , I was raised primarily by my mother.

Going to uni , 23 now, I ended up attracting Narcissists who would use me; trauma dumpers who had no interest in getting to know who I am, my value to these people was only what I could do for them. This was reminiscent of the relationship with my mother where I was only valued so long as I can do something for her. I was not valued outside of that. Even now as my birthday shortly passed , I really see that my mother does not truly love me in reality. She may love me in ideal but when she talks fondly of me and lovingly it is only of me when I was a baby and a toddler or an infant. Me as a human being with a self with my own interests , with thoughts, a person that is not a baby or a toddler or an infant , my mother does not like me as a person separate from a helpless baby , separate from her, she does not even bother to learn about me , she repeatedly despises non baby/ toddler me saying, I like you just not your behaviour (this also extends through her actions to my thoughts , my goals , my dreams everything basically) or anything she does not like (which is everything about me) it always has to be from “the kids at school”. Truthfully , the only closeness I had with my mother other than begging her to hug me was when her and I would fight over and over again.

Needless to say, my mother has not and does not and more likely will not ever fulfill my emotional needs. So I try to fulfill them through friends but I suck at making friends. All the people that I have gotten as friends are at best acquaintances. Others have been the trauma dumping narcissists. Now being all alone in university as I am doing an extra year, and all my acquaintances are gone and my so called friend of 2 years who really was a trauma dumper who barely cared to know about me but would talk to me when things go bad or when she wanted attention (I was discarded when she got a boyfriend), I am left feeling lonely and even missing this so called friend because even though she did not care about me , at least I did not feel lonely. I find that many women tend to use me like this a lot. The men however have no interest me at all unless I am of some benefit to them (just like my previous female friends). So I have learned and internalized that if I am not of any transactional benefit to people, I will be left alone and lonely without anyone. I find that no one not even my mother , cares to know me , love me and like me for me. No one cares to even know me for me and have any friend or familial relationship with me for me , for who I am. Instead I am only valued based on what I can give to others. And when I cannot give anymore or when I confront their using me , I am immediately thrown away. And truthfully I feel drained , worthless , inferior and unloveable.

How do I fix this exactly ? I feel like I am such a mess and I feel old too and I feel so much shame around my life. What do I do. I also have been trying to make friends online since lockdown and I am left being ghosted. They all fade away and amount to nothing.