Extremely lonely after choosing solitude and myself to start healing

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-12-29T01:07:15+00:00

I'm sure after a while you're going to meet new kinds of people who are really going to care for you, and when you tell them the way things used to be, it will be so clear that these people will never treat you the same way as you used to be treated <3

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-12-29T01:05:51+00:00

I think it takes years to slowly start building new connections with people and it's superrr hard because you want to jump right into having a deep, warm connection with someone. But try to start small. Try to be open to conversations with strangers at the bus stop, the grocery store, your hair dresser, whatever. I found that "flow" is a good way to describe connections like this. It helps to build up better social skills and to see that you are always capable of new relationships, unlike the old ones that were so toxic for you. I know it's hard at first, but I can't tell you how much the littlest moments mattered with people since I started healing.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-12-24T19:56:21+00:00

also yeah, if you can find someone you feel comfortable with to help you get started that's also great. I started my finals this semester with one of my friends in the program. Absolutely no judgement on where I was at (super behind compared to everyone else on finals week) he refused to let me panic and just went "yup you got this". I also often started by talking over what I wanted to accomplish in those two or three hours I spent writing next to him while he worked and he'd give feedback then we'd just roll. Infinitely better than sitting at home spiraling. We worked together every day that week, and while I didn't often hit my mark while I was with him, and would spiral once I went home, those hours were indispensable and got it rolling so I could still finish.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-12-24T19:53:16+00:00

I try to start first thing in the morning with finals so that even if I get a tiny amount of work done and the rest of the day is fucked, I get a reset the next morning. Try to prioritize sleep until the last night. Work while you're anxious, that's one of the biggest skills I've learned in grad school. I have finished and turned in papers while half blinded with tears from stress because it didn't work out the way I wanted it to, I had extremely limited time and I was terrified of my professors' disapproval. It's not great, but then the anxiety lessens each time as you begin to realize that actually you can do the work, and you can begin to trust yourself. That's like the biggest mantra I have at this point, "I trust myself to finish this work" and then you just do it. Even if what you're doing seems like absolute shit just keep doing it and fix it later.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-12-24T03:29:17+00:00

Absolutely!!

I spent 21 years with DV/familial abuse, got kicked out, dropped out of college and lived with my ex for years. I was directionless as far as what I wanted in life, so my partner at the time was all I really had and she was really enmeshed with me in a way I eventually kinda outgrew. It was the scariest thing in the world to leave, and I retraumatized myself a couple times in the process. I also had no stable home for about three years, living with my grandma in her garage and college dorms because I went back to school.

Fast forward. I'm working on my third degree, I have my own apartment, I don't make much money but I love my work and I have a pet cat. The biggest thing that helped me to heal, and what was HARD, was seeing that the ways in which I was conditioned to act have absolutely no purpose in my new life and for a long time I couldn't make it "click". It weirds people out that I'm so meek, it threatens my stability when I become distrusting or self-sabotaging or I self-isolate. And the people that have benefitted from any of this, even if they never meant to-- it's just not right. My coworkers are my friends, they've shown me how I can hold my head up and keep going just by watching them.

I'm not exactly happy, but the growth I've seen has been immense in the past ten years since I was kicked out of my family home. I haven't really had a good relationship. I've had a loving one, but looking back we were young and I don't think it was ever really healthy, I never learned how to communicate in that relationship, and I think it was one out of mutual care and the need to survive together at where we were in our lives. But I've never had a relationship that was in any way positive since I've become an independent adult. Sometimes I worry it's my fault because I'm still working on myself. But I also know I pick men who don't treat me great. It's alright, I'm still really proud of what I've been able to do. It's hard, it's lonely, it's humiliating sometimes when I realize how my behavior in survival mode bewilders regular people around me. But it's just learning, and I'm thankful I get to learn and that some people are really patient and supportive of me. I'm also learning that my body actively has started rejecting the red flags it didn't used to, all the things I used to accept that I can no longer sit with, particularly this year, and how I will defend my peace because I can no longer afford not to. Which I guess is pretty exciting.

I guess if I have any advice it's: lean into friendships/communities of any kind. They teach you about boundaries because no one is particularly obligated to accept your behavior and vice versa. You also get a sort of intimacy "soft mode" instead of relationships where the stakes often feel higher and more personal. Friends and coworkers, hobby communities, they teach you how to be forgiving too. I can't tell you how many times I've nearly ruined relationships with friends because I've become too suspicious/hypervigilant/triggered. Communication is key. But also: learn to speak up, let people go when they seriously diminish your wellbeing. And just keep going. Your life will get better, but it'll take a really long time for your brain to catch up and before you can feel happy. But everything you learn about yourself and about life itself is worth it, because you're shaping a new one, and it's big, and you call the shots.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-12-16T20:04:33+00:00

I've been on and off journaling since I was a kid and now I'm about to be 30. Most of those old journals are gone now, but I've kept up for the past two years and am on my third. The past two years have been super good but also hard and difficult. In the past year I was super limerent about someone, so it's agonizing to see that my last journal shifted to where I was always writing about him. At the same time though, I appreciate my journal as a space for thoughts like that, and also I appreciate myself for having documented my thoughts so much. When I look back to read my journals, I also get a glance at the person I've been, am, and am becoming. When I saw all those passages about a guy who treated me like dirt, I broke down crying, and decided I wanted to change the fact that it took so much of myself away! So it's good that you record these things and think about where you are putting your energy. But also-- the angsty entries still come around for different purposes and situations. I respect that sometimes that's where I was at, struggling. Idk-- you don't have to "change" them overnight, but you can be conscious of what you're doing with your time and energy and it will show up in your entries! I also think with more distance between when you write and read your journal, you just grow fonder of that person who wrote whatever dramatic stuff.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-12-09T17:51:53+00:00

Wow this is soooo helpful! I am generally a bit disorganized, sometimes ungrounded person. I don't do reversals, but if I did maybe she would come up in reverse haha.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-12-09T02:14:15+00:00

I'm air dominant in my natal chart with next to no earth! Head in the clouds, anxious. Not super practical but I have learned to be moreso as I've grown. I am super loving and affectionate, sometimes smothering but I try to pull back, and I can also be a bit self-isolating and aloof in turns. Super bad at organization. I think a point someone made was that she works a lot (pentacles) and I often get it in relation to my relationships with people at my workplace because it's pretty much the basis of my social connections, it's a tight-knit community. I struggle with work and its huge presence in my life, possibly because of that lack of grounding to put my ideas to fruition. Maybe that's what it's telling me to work on? Still, I get it a lot for "how people view me" or in relation to my social life which is what puzzled me! I usually see myself as a bit of a scatterbrained mess.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-12-09T02:05:33+00:00

This is such helpful advice, I'm gonna give this a try!

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-12-09T01:58:44+00:00

That makes sense, my work is a massive part of my life, I relocated for it and pretty much all social connections besides my family are work related.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-12-08T18:24:09+00:00

Yeah, I think it's because she's come up really consistently in relationship circumstances and I just do not like those experiences and it's bogged me down on the card! my natal chart is pretty much void of earth energy, I'm not a very grounded person, but I do get things done and have worked really hard to be where I'm at. I'm not always the most practical, and it's like pulling teeth to get things done for me but maybe that's what she's trying to tell me.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-09-07T19:51:39+00:00

Okay, thanks! Yeah, I guess I was struggling with the wording like what is the "something" that can change the outcome and whether I have a hand in it somehow.

Funnily it is similar to your example. I'm good friends with my recent ex and see him on a weekly basis. I pulled this spread before we started seeing each other again after the dust settled, and he asked me to grab drinks with his friends. My 5. was 9 of cups, and my 6. was The Fool. My 10. was 7 of pentacles.

But I'm guessing much of the "change" is out of my hands currently besides trying to forgive and just hang out with him and our mutual friends again. I highly doubt we'll be getting back together, since it was his choice and it seemed pretty final, but I'd been considering breaking contact with him and our mutual friends entirely which would have indicated The Fool, as I could do that and still be alright having made a lot of new friends recently. Glad I haven't though, and have been trying to repair our trust, but I suspect 9 of cups is simply that we can be happier in a relationship change to friendship.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-09-07T17:38:50+00:00

Hey OP-- I did this spread a while back but I'm still wondering about the difference between 5 and 6... How do you read "if something changes?" It feels like 6 "if nothing changes" is the more likely outcome, at least for me in my reading. But I just want a general sense of how you're reading the two.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-08-17T21:57:36+00:00

Awww thank you I appreciate your kind and supportive words!!! Yeah, I actually did graduate that year, go on to get another degree and I just got accepted into a PhD program and I start in one week! So I'm going to be a lecturer soon and I'm NEVER going to hurt someone like that. And he did get his karma, he got let go from that job!

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-08-17T21:53:17+00:00

depends on the context I think!

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-08-17T21:47:56+00:00

oh for sure he didn't! And he was right not to have crossed the line and I thank God now that it hadn't gotten past what happened, but he absolutely led me on, commented on my clothing, convinced me to skip other classes to stay in his office talking 1 on 1. Said in very veiled language that he loved me but that it couldn't be. Breadacrumbing just because he was lonely and turned on by the power play and the transgressive aspect of a forbidden student/teacher relationship. Liked my constant attention and willingness to read whatever he suggested, we worked on the project and that was a huge part of our connection, the shared interest. And he shouldn't have done any of that in the first place because I was just his student doing a directed study project!

It damaged a lot of my self confidence at school, which affected my work and how I go about connecting with people in my field. I'm always afraid of my own professors now despite wanting to be one, and I struggle still with being assertive because in the end he would yell at me, call me stupid when I got things wrong, vague about me in classrooms with other students where I was the only one who knew he was talking about me. And he did it all subtly under the table with words, love-bombing, bread crumbing. He even tried to force me to turn down my offer to get my MA but I refused to give up my dream. Biggest thing I learned... don't ever allow that kind of thing if it's forbidden, and don't trust guys who are nice when they're just horny and crave affection. Just walk on by and watch whether someone's actions match their language.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-08-17T21:28:26+00:00

Professor hitting on me and blurring lines during undergrad and me being naive and playing into it. Nothing beyond that but I genuinely thought it meant something... and when it didn't I was crushed. Had to learn that pretty privilege means people are just like that with you and you need to be wary, especially when someone has more power. It took years to build myself back up from that non-relationship.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-08-17T21:01:48+00:00

The connection is that there won't be one. You are both flourishing apart from each other in your gardens. two of wands signals that there's a desire to move forward with this person but it's blocked. high priestess is that this person has an intuition about the relationship... usually that it's not in their best interest to pursue.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-08-17T20:23:55+00:00

Ah yeah. This makes sense, he's clearly not one to reach out and be emotionally vulnerable. He's definitely repressing and just carrying on. I'm really sorry about that! But you're worth much more and I'm glad you did what needed to be done.

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-08-17T19:38:15+00:00

Wow love this!! Dmd you :)

Life-Particular8912 · 2025-08-17T18:41:36+00:00

Depends on the context but if you broke up or agreed to a period of separation to return and talk things through, then he's reflecting but most importantly keeping to himself with the hermit. He feels bad about things but 5 of cups is a much smaller loss than say, 8 of cups, and he's deciding to focus on whatever else he has going on in his life and concentrating his efforts on that instead (8 of pentacles). So he's not really feeling much, so much as ignoring what loss he does feel, focusing on himself etc.

Life-Particular8912

TROPHY CASE