Could it be that your emotional detachment is a way to cope with anxiety that may cause trigger you? Seems to me that you have a lot of stress from people who are not being supportive. Maybe bit of the flight part of fight or flight? If you can step back and look a the situation. I had a similar situation and detached from people but now that the situation has simmered down I can know see that the situation triggered a flight or flight response and I decided to detach from this person (flight) so I did not have to deal with it. It was just too painful at the time. I also realized today that my response to a class I am not doing well in is also a flight repsonse. I was considering dropping the class. I am running from it because it is challenging my criticial thinking skills and I lost those skills when I crashed due to PTSD.

Hi Lady.

Listen, if or when people get into your business, without you inviting them in, then they are just busybodies, in my opinion.

Some are not happy unless they are criticizing, judging and cutting down others.

I actually feel sorry for the pathetic life they must live, to feel the need to stick their nose in where it doesn't belong.

You pretty much can find these types everywhere, so it's hard to totally stay away from people like that. I don't necessarily think detaching (from toxic people) is a bad thing. Their negative energy can really effect you, if you are not careful.

I know it's hard, but I hope you can rise above them. Just remind yourself that their life must be pretty dang lousy if they want to stick their nose into yours.

I shoot for passive acceptance of the people I need to detach from. Simple is better. They are what they are and they ain't what they ain't. It is not my job to judge them or what they do, one way or the other. I don't get to change them (or what they do) any more than I get to change the weather.

That's my goal, anyway. The times I have made the goal were incredibly peaceful moments.

Hope ya find what works for you, ladydi.

Well said, arfie.

My long-crafted philosophy about people is ... the ONLY person I have even a PRAYER of changing is ... me.

I've never had any luck "changing" others, and ... when my expectations OF others are unrealistic ... everybody loses.

I wish you peace, health, and strength.

I lack balance in drawing boundaries. Either I fail to draw obvious ones and suffer the consequences of allowing my privacy or my trust to be violated, or I build wall and dig moats when a simple "no" would have sufficed. Ha! So my strategy in therapy for years has been to compensate for that, cope with it, call it what you will.

Coming here really helps--sometimes when I'm overreacting or have realized I've underreacted and just woke up to that fact, I can still have my say here regardless of whether I do it right or not out there in the world.

Why people want to mind other people's business escapes me, common as it is. I can barely mind my own. Same with lying. I try to avoid that not just because it's wrong, but because I don't know how people can keep track of their lies and remember to keep up the charade. My PTSD won't let me concentrate like that. Ha!