People seeing you for who you are?

[Renz Envy]

Anyone ever have someone completely distance themselves after seeing you for who you really are?

For example, me doing lines in a room and my friend walking in on me. He seemed completely sick to his stomach and left. Afterward we've been very distant, only hanging out maybe once a month.

I try my best to keep my "other life" out of my "exposed life" but every day it gets harder and harder. Even using drugs in moderation seems to bubble to the surface some way or another.

 

[nuttynutskin]

Oh yea, and it's not even because of drugs necessarily... But once they see that I really do have problems with depression and such a lot of people don't want to stick around. A lot of people are real judgemental when it comes to mental illness, especially women.

 

[Renz Envy]

Oh yea, and it's not even because of drugs necessarily... But once they see that I really do have problems with depression and such a lot of people don't want to stick around. A lot of people are real judgemental when it comes to mental illness, especially women.

Yeah, for sure. I usually don't let those problems manifest themselves anymore for that same reason.

 

[SideOrderOfOpiates]

Even using drugs in moderation seems to bubble to the surface some way or another.

^ Although it has it has pros and cons, the truth will out.

Now, to answer your question, have I ever had someone completely distance themselves from me after seeing me for who I really am? No. Have I ever had someone completely distance themselves from me after seeing me use insane amounts of drugs? Someone? Try quite a few! Haha! Being a drug addict and/or alcoholic is a social risk. From what I have experienced, witnessed, and rinse, lather, repeated, what you are experiencing comes with the territory. I haven't the vaguest how long you have been using for, but I can promise you that the longer it goes on, the more you will see such behaviors occur with yourself and others. If you plan on using, plan on maintaining the strength to accept rejection from friends and family members.

 

[Renz Envy]

I will use anything as long as it's within a weekly or monthly length span. I won't even take my prescription benzos, because I don't want them to become a part of my life, I really only have them as a fall-back.

I wouldn't quit "using" unless the health of my family was at risk. (Like by taking something it poisoned them or some crazy shit.) On the other hand, one uneducated friend is not going to change my lifestyle. I will not resort to believing alcohol and caffeine are the only two "safe-substances" around

 

[Legerity]

It's true that many people will want to distance themselves if they are uncomfortable with drug use. I've ended relationships when I stopped getting high to distance myself from the drugs, and I've had people end relationships with me because of my own use. I still have thoughts of wanting to fix things up from the past that didn't work out because I wasn't willing to change.

It just seems to be part of it. Whether it's deserved or not there is a big stigma attached to drug use, or at least certain drugs.

I just try to judge the consequences of my actions independently of whether they are socially acceptable or not. I can destroy myself in completely acceptable ways, or unacceptable ways. I can life a satisfying life that others approve of, or disapprove of. The opinions of the masses are not always based on the actual reality of a situation.

So if you can be honest with yourself about whether or not your actions are causing problems for yourself, then you may be less stressed about what others think. I'm not saying you are fooling yourself or anything, just that it can be easy to. If you're able to honestly evaluate your own choices then that's what counts most, I would think.

 

[oliphill]

Becoming vulnerable, letting people in, allowing people to see know you is one of the hardest things to do, but the only way to be free from the bondage of self. Freedom, self esteem, self love, acceptance, all come from a lot of hard work. Gotta get uncomfortable to get comfortable!

 

[Jabberwocky]

Was he really reacting to seeing you for who you are?

It probably had a lot to do with his past experiences, images from movies, seeing the part of himself who could be a fiend, and if he had no idea previously about your usage he may have been reacting to thinking you were being sneaky.

Its not like he was seeing the real you in your entirety right then but he may have had a number of illusions or suppositions about you that were shattered. Admitted a single incident can carry a great deal of weight, sounds like to him it was a defining moment. I wonder if your looking ashamed or deer-in-the-headlights about it didn't give it some extra charge. I also wonder if you had been open about drug use in a conversational way could have robbed the surprise discovery of its status as a defining moment. I do realize though that drug use requires discretion.

There are two directions that might improve things in the future but they are both tricky. If you want to be a stealth user be better at being stealthy. The other, risky as it is, would be to trust more people with information about your interest in drugs.

Isolation and secretiveness probably aren't creators of addiction or maladaptive drug use but I think by many people's stories I have heard isolation & secretiveness can be big factors in one's use becoming more desperate and disruptive to a person's well being.

 

[ugly]

Culture is a container. You fit in it.

I don't.

I pretend like I'm fitting in by not talking about my "internal landscape" where I actually live my thought life. It's full of porn signs and dildos and my love of orgasms is the biggest tree in my "internal landscape" because I love porn and masturbation. <Do not romanticise drugs in TDS plz, this is not useful to posters here>Society has made rules. We are just passing through this earth a few short years. The culture dictates what we show, and what we hide, while we are passing through.

 

[Asclepius]

^^Enki gave some invaluble advise there!


Who you are and what you do arent he same thing , just as in the same way; they are not mutually exclusive either.


I dont think it is about who you really are, I think this is about: honesty, communication and respect. Or lack thereof.
Although the social power structures in relationships are never equally balanced all the time- it is important to maintain some degree of boundries and openness/acceptance to maintain a friendship.
He obviously feels threatened by use and/ the fact you had been hiding it from him. I presume-he was shocked, and evidently has his reservations(for reasons you may only know if you talk to him about it and he is honest in his answer-who knows?)

You see your drug use as part of your identity and perhaps feel personally rejected by him- the behaviour isnt the only thing that makes up the sum total of an individual IMO... but anyway... if you desire this to be respected then tell him such and see how it goes from there. Or else accept the fact he is put off by your actions and dont persue it any further.

-The choice is yours. Just bear in mind that as much as you have your reasons for using, he has his reasons for not agreeing with it.

 

[ziggo]

I express myself as myself in front of my friends fully and completely since a few months ago and none of them have any problems with it, they just enjoy me more so. Guess I picked real friends and got rid of all the fake bitches as I grew up.

 

[PsychedelicMoose]

I have always remained a hundred percent open about it and, effectively, those friends I now have do not care, some of them I know solely because we have it in common, and the people I may have known and who disapproves of it I never got a chance to know in the first place - they don't really make an impact.

 

[Mel22]

If I ever manage to let anyone see me for what I really am - I'll get back to you...

 

[suessmayr]

I will not resort to believing alcohol and caffeine are the only two "safe-substances" around

Hold on, I think you're confounding two separate issues here. I know better than most - as a former opiate addict and as a law student - how much bullshit there is surrounding illegal drugs today, but the fact that (1) a drug is not inherently or physiologically harmful or toxic, does not mean that, in the current legal climate, that drug is not going to fuck up your life. Opiates, for example, are non-toxic and basically happy-making and well-tolerated, and they are not really proscribed (it seems to me) for any good reason; BUT this does not mean that you can expect to be able to take them and not run into trouble. This is because everything operates within the context of our time (especially in Western countries where everything changes so quickly) and even if something should not be the case, the fact that it actually is the case makes fighting against it futile.

So, I have finally gotten clean, not because I have any problem with opiates as such, but because I see that it is almost always practically impossible to take them without fucking up your life - economically, emotionally, physically, aspirationally...(etc.). And it is practically impossible because we live in societies that demonise and punish drug users - rightly or wrongly - whereas less than 60 years ago you could buy heroin in product catelogues.

So be careful not to confuse the totally arbitrary character of our drug laws with the conclusion that, on account of all the arbitrariness, you can take any drug you want and live a happy life.

 

[malakaix]

Anyone ever have someone completely distance themselves after seeing you for who you really are?

I have a feeling it's more to do with him, you might of acted as a mirror to his own fears, some that maybe he'd rather not think about or become familiar with.. hence him distancing himself from you.

I'm open about everything in my life.. and I've realized no one is actually that interested in what you do, there reactions are the result of how they see themselves through you.. i find this to be rather liberating, but at the same time i find myself jaded by people, but it's this ever increasing lack of concern about what others might think of me that propels me to just be myself.

 

[Renz Envy]

You see your drug use as part of your identity and perhaps feel personally rejected by him-

I see it as a part of who I am. Drugs came about, because I've always been the person to search for answers even if they're prohibited. Drugs just happened to be one of the biggest misconceptions by middle-class society of all time.

Do I feel rejected by him? Not at all. He's the one who failed to step back and rethink things logically. Instead he relied on a primal human instinct to trust his pact-mentality.

That's the difference between him and me.