What happened to the good old days when everyone had a great group of friends and loving and caring families? Are you blaming your family for your lack of friends? Or is there a deeper issue at play? Nowadays it seems like everyone has a my family hates me and I feel alone story or I have no friends story
Let’s look at the step you can take when you are faced with both issues, being hated by your family and on top of that having no friends, ouch.
7 Things you can do when your family hates you and you have no friends
Separate the two issues
You know the saying kill two birds with one stone? Well, that doesn’t apply here, you have to separate the two issues if you are going to have a chance of any success. Never deal with your family issues with the tools that you use to deal with your friendship dilemma. So ask yourself the following questions: Why does my family hate me? Or Why don’t I have friends?
Dont bring your friends around your family
If your family is the reason that you don’t have friends, it’s safe to say don’t bring your friends around your family. If you know that your parents are not the most welcoming people and your friends will feel out of place and unwelcome, then meet them outside of your house. Friends are very understanding people, you can tell them about your family, the kind of people that they are, and that you don’t want them to negatively influence your friendships.
Be honest with yourself
I hate to say this but you are the common denominator in both of these scenarios, now hang on a second before you scream at me, listen to what I have to say. Sometimes we have to take a hard look at ourselves now I don’t know what type of family you come from or why you do not have friends but more often than not there are a variety of reasons for this. Has your family had problems with you for a long time? If so, your former friends also had a problem with the same issue as your family.
Why is it hard for me to be honest with myself?
It’s human nature to run away from anything that is uncomfortable or will make us look like the bad guy. I say this because it could be that you have an attitude problem, maybe you don’t like to be told what to do, or maybe you like telling people what to do, you never take responsibility for anything and you are not a reliable person. Now, these are only examples, so the same problems that your family has with you will spill over to your friendship. Maybe you once had a friend or a group of friends but because of the issues we have just listed, they decided to no longer be friends with you
Don’t be in a hurry to make friends
Why do you want to make friends? Is it because you know you would make a great friend or is friendship something that you want because you are having issues with your family?
How could being in a hurry be a problem?
To put it bluntly, no one wants to be friends with someone who has obvious baggage and family baggage counts. You don’t want to make friends only to heavily rely on them for support because your family as you put it hates you.
Making friends when your life is in chaos can create an even more chaotic situation, you might strike it lucky and meet a wonderful group of friends but the friendship won’t last.
Why won’t the friendship last?
Because you will be operating from a place of desperation the need to have people in your corner so that the void your family has left will be filled.
What you can do is sort out your issues with your family, even if they are not completely sorted, do enough so that you don’t carry family drama into your friendships.
Try family therapy
If your family issues are deep try and convince your parents or siblings to go to group therapy with you, it can only work in your favor. Do your best to be respectful but also keep your parents accountable for some of the things that have happened to you. But I know that many families do not like to do this and that is fine.
What can I do if my family is not interested?
Attend therapy on your own, it’s your life at play and your emotional stability on the line so do what you have to do. If you are shy about going to a one-on-one session there are plenty of online and offline group sessions that you can attend. These sessions often involve different individuals who have the same issues as you. It’s a win-win situation for you, firstly you get to solve your issues and secondly, you get to meet people and who knows you might make a friend.
Change your environment
Sometimes you have to leave it all behind, if you have done everything in your power to have a good relationship with your family and you still end up saying to yourself I m the black sheep of the family and I have done everything to make them love me then a change of scenery might do you the world of good.
It’s not a good idea to change your environment in the heat of the moment this is something that should be done after you have tried everything and I mean everything to make things right with your family.
Letting go of a toxic family can be hard but the effects of growing up in a toxic family can influence the way that you come across to people and yes, this can be one of the reasons why you are finding it hard to make friends.
How will changing my environment be positive for making friends?
Well this break will give you a chance to start over and think about the person you want to become, it will give you the freedom to also form interpersonal relationships without carryout family baggage around and you will learn how to work on yourself as a person
Keep a gratitude journal
Journaling is a fantastic way to get all your thoughts on paper without having to talk to anyone, I am a big fan of gratitude journals because they can be a reminder of how far we have come, it hits differently when you can see all that you have to be grateful for on paper. If you are starting you do not need to be like Shakespeare, you can keep a 5-minute gratitude journal, once you get used to the process of journaling and you feel the benefits of this, you can always increase your frequency.
In the end
Making friends is never an easy task, it can be worse when your family hates you because you feel like you have absolutely no one in your corner, your family issues do not have to impact your ability to make friends so deal with the two issues separately and do your best to work on yourself every day.