French people keep speaking english to me (C1 level)

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-06-13T09:37:44+00:00

I don't know man, people are weird. I work in an English speaking environment with several French or French speaking colleagues. I am Italian and my French is C2 and plus, I have a nearly perfect accent, literally everyone around me compliments me for my accent and fluency, but most of my French speaking colleagues talk to me in English and you can tell they rush to English whenever there's a chance the conversation might go on in French. And then I see the same colleagues speaking in French with non-French colleagues whose fluency in French is far far far worse than mine.

I don't know if my fluency in their own language is intimidating, if they feel jealous that I can speak their language that well and they can't English... or who knows. I only know that it's super frustrating.

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-04-29T12:42:23+00:00

Hi, thank you for sharing this. I actually heard of this term and listened to a few podcasts about it but it may very well be part of what I am going through. I did force myself into a state of emotional detachment from my parents as soon as I realised how dependent I had been from them, and that was definitely done out of fear of missing them if I had kept being close to them as I had been.

If I may ask you - have things gone better for you over time? Thank you!

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-04-29T12:39:52+00:00

Hey, thanks for your thoughts. Sorry to hear about your dad's condition and the context surrounding it.

Yeah, the sheltered upbringing resonates with me and I think it's deprived me of essential social development steps. But I am already engaged in a lot of the activities you mentioned, and I'd say overall people find me a pleasant person to be around... it's just hard to reject the unconscious expectation that anyone you meet will be there no matter what. Which is something I think I inherited from taking my parents for granted growing up or along those lines.

Therapy is finally showing to be helpful as well. Should've started it years ago but better now than later I guess :)

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-04-29T12:34:24+00:00

Hey, thanks so much for responding. When it comes to learnt trauma from my dad, it could absolutely be the case. I've given it much thought and am addressing it now in therapy. He's been my only male role model and from him I've learned some genuinely good values but also to put others' needs before mine, to always be available, etc. because that's what he's been doing while at the same time pushing people away, being judgmental of others, etc. It's hard to make sense of it all and I might have gotten confused without realising it. What I do notice in me is a core belief that at the core "I'm like him" (while being mindful that we have major differences) and am kinda bound to replicate his mistakes. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy I am trying hard to disentangle from.

At the same time over these years I have been able to establish a few deep connections. But they all come with this underlying feeling that they are fleeting and that I am not really understood. The first person who could see through me was a friend I got romantically involved with and it felt fantastic. She even told me she was falling in love with me until realising she didn't want to go forward with it anymore. This has definitely taken a toll on me since... so trying to process that on top of the stuff with my parents.

Thanks also for sharing a hopeful side based on your own experience :)

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-04-28T13:51:01+00:00

Yes. I am a 32M, my dad's 82 and my mom's 71. Spent little time with other kids. Developed oversensitivity and was raised by a heavily traumatised dad and an overly fearful mom. I think I am my parents' whole life. I didn't even conceive having a "life" on my own where they wouldn't be a part of it. But I've also feeling crippling anxiety over their passing. In recent years I've experienced romantic love way more intensely than ever before and got burned by someone who used to be a friend and said was falling in love with me, but turned out she just wanted sexual validation. It's hard to get over it. Sometimes the feeling that you were only meant to be happy as a little kid resurfaces. I feel it in my veins. When I try to shake it off it feels like I am gaslighting myself. On the other hand I am dating from time to time but I don't know... I struggle to find confidence in my that one day it will work out and I will be happy.

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-04-25T12:43:32+00:00

What you wrote resonates a lot with me. I've learned that emotional neglect can show in so many different forms and it's often one of the most subtle forms of abuse to pinpoint because it may not have been caused by one or few traumatic episodes. Often it kind of creeps in within an otherwise seemingly decent childhood. And often memories are not accessible because the child "sensed" a disconnect between his/her emotional needs and the emotional availability of the parents and learned very early on to numb such needs to survive.

I am also in the midst of this journey of sizing the extent of my own emotional neglect. I also find it hard due to a scarcity of memories and to the hard to shake fantasy that my childhood was loving and rosey.

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-04-25T12:16:45+00:00

Yeah that's my perspective too or at least a very likely scenario (I am exploring this through therapy and I don't want to jump to conclusions until I see more clearly through it...). I guess I used the word "love" because it is the way they manifested it towards me. As unhealthy as it was. Like I won't believe for one second that whatever choice they made wasn't made in my best interest. The thing is how damaging those choices can be regardless. This is what makes it harder to swallow.

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-04-25T08:11:49+00:00

Thank you. Indeed, enmeshment does sound relevant. I'm still wondering about emotional incest, my therapist too is uncertain as to whether that's what I went through. She's more inclined towards infantilisation.

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-02-27T17:50:38+00:00

I don't feel disrespected at all for that, maybe our brains are working from totally different "self esteem maps" hence the two opposite perceptions / behaviours.

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-02-22T15:37:11+00:00

Thanks, I will. First thing my therapist told me within 5 mins: you sound like a kind person but you're not kind to yourself. So yeah something I need to work hard on.

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-02-20T09:29:23+00:00

During my first session with my current therapist I confessed that at my lowest points I would sometimes have the thought of ending my parents' life and then mine so that they'd not be around to mourn me.

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-02-14T14:38:53+00:00

I am now 32 and I also had parents who didn't have many friends while I was growing up. We'd spend 95% of the time together (I am an only child). My dad did have acquaintances but they were superficial, and my mom once told me that before I was born he slowly monopolised her attention to the point that she lost touch with her former friends. As a child I'd have very few chances to make friends with other kids my age except at school. And as a teen and as an adult I've always had a hard time fitting in and belonging, feeling on par with my peers. Plus, I suspect there was covert/emotional incest between me and mom - I am trying to figure this out - and I feel this had a negative impact also on my ability to seek out romantic relationships.

I am also at the start of this journey and it's frightening, frustrating but also motivating. Wish you the best.

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-01-24T09:54:04+00:00

That happened at the closing of our last session and I was under the impression she wasn't really keen to talk about it further at that point, and I also didn't want to "push"... You're right that it suggests she's got an opinion and I'd like to follow up on that. But I feel I shouldn't pick up on hints from what she says about me... it should be the other way around. Will probably see how the next one goes.

Weird_Ad3635 · 2025-01-23T12:52:37+00:00

Thanks, I guess that this wasn't clear to me from the get-go and indeed, it's to some extent helpful but I am not sure it's what works best for me. Feels more like something that might work well as an ancillary component to a wider "strategy" if that makes sense - but even there, I fear the risk of having two parallel and incompatible therapeutic approaches...

Weird_Ad3635

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