I hate when people are nice to me

Ask a Therapist Is This Normal?
1

everytime someones nice to me, i just assume they have an ulterior motive? that theyre trying to manipulate or lie to me? or sometiems, i feel like theyre trying to contain a threat or maybe they just pity me.

i get irrationally annoyed at kindness and its sounds contradictory but i get hurt when people are kind to me. i dont even get angry at people overstepping my boundaries. When people do stuff thats meant to hurt my feelings, i get over it pretty quickly. so its quite ridiculous how i feel when people are nice. i know its illogical but thats just how i feel i guess. i guess it just feels really threatening and anxiety inducing for me.

i feel like my entire life would just be filled with connections that aren’t fulfilling or geniune.

i think this is also one of the few reasons im too scared to go therapy. its like im always going to question the therapists’ intentions and then my brain will keep repeating that this is a transactional relationship and im literally paying someone to be nice to me and that outside of therapy, they might just not care about me at all?

i know im probably being close-minded and unreasonable but this is just how i think i guess.

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Hey @user0239 ,

Reading what you wrote, it feels like you’ve had to stay alert for a long time. Like kindness hasn’t been neutral or safe before, it came with strings, expectations, or some kind of cost so now your system reacts first, before you even get a say in it. That irritation, that sense of threat, it doesn’t read as you being cold or unreasonable. It reads like something that learned early on: don’t let your guard down, because that’s where you get hurt.

It also makes sense that outright hurt doesn’t shake you as much. When someone is unkind, at least it’s clear. There’s nothing hidden to decode. Kindness, on the other hand, asks you to be open and that’s exactly where things feel unsafe and anxiety starts to spike.

What you said about therapy, your perspective fits into this same logic. If care has always felt conditional, of course your mind would question it there too. Paying someone, having set boundaries, knowing the relationship has an end, it can easily reinforce that old belief that care only exists in specific contexts, and disappears once you step outside them. That doesn’t mean you’re close-minded. It means you’re being consistent with how you’ve had to survive.

I don’t hear someone who doesn’t want connection. I hear someone who’s been protecting something very vulnerable for a long time, in the only way that’s felt reliable so far.

There’s no need to change how you think right now. Even noticing it, putting words to it the way you did is already a lot. Maybe for now it’s enough to hold this gently: that this reaction had a reason, and it helped you once, even if it’s starting to feel heavy now.

There’s no rush to trust, no need to force yourself into believing people’s intentions. For now, even just noticing that reaction, without judging it, might be enough.

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Hey @user0239, I actually don’t think that this is you being close-minded or unreasonable at all. Rather, I think these emotions are coming from a place of hurt. Maybe people you were comfortable and vulnerable with hurt you in the past, causing you to develop an ‘aversion’ of sorts to kindness? Perhaps you may have come across someone that used their kindness as a tool to gain benefits, instead of showing genuine kindness? If neither of these apply to you, maybe you grew up in an environment where kindness was not shown unless there was a hidden motive at hand? These are just some scenarios to think about. I think that your strong apprehension towards others’ kindness may likely be related to unprocessed emotions from your past. I hope that you are able to unpack this slowly, but surely :heart:

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I try not to get mad at people i know people are nice to me but i take the wrong way i think i need help with this i be happy not bothered anyone I just mind my business all of a sudden feels like when they be nice I end up getting mad for sometimes I’ll be thinking they be bluffing or trying to get me mad I don’t try to be mad at no one is it best for me to be by myself

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Yes that’s all people want for way of life

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What about you? Do you feel the same?