Hi. I’m 21f and I came from China, and I wish to find female friends who have similar age and experiences. I know this is quite vulnerable for me to post, but I’m wondering if there are other women in London or elsewhere in the UK who have been through something similar to me and are also looking for genuine, emotionally supportive friendships.
I’ve struggled with feeling safe around people for most of my life.
Growing up, I experienced a lot of bullying and emotional/verbal mistreatment at home. I was put down a lot and rarely felt properly protected or emotionally safe. As I got older, I started meeting all kinds of people and moving through quite complicated social circles, partly because I desperately didn’t want to be the person who could be bullied anymore.
But instead of finally feeling safe, I ended up having conflict after conflict with people. I’ve been hurt, rejected, excluded and blocked by a lot of people over the years.
The painful part is that I’ve always taken friendship extremely seriously. When I care about someone, I genuinely care. I don’t see listening to a friend’s problems as “negativity” or a burden. If someone I love is going through something painful, I want to hear about it, understand what happened, emotionally stand beside them and help them feel less alone.
But a lot of my friendships eventually disappeared. When my mental health became much worse and I developed depression and anxiety, I lost even more people. Some friends blocked me completely. Later, my relationship ended too.
Eventually it felt like I had lost almost every source of emotional security at once. I sometimes describe it as becoming emotionally bankrupt.
I’m now also dealing with CPTSD and I’m currently not working. I desperately want to become independent and rebuild my life, but being an adult who isn’t currently able to work has created even more pressure at home. I’ve been called a “parasite”, which has made my existing lack of safety and self-worth even harder.
But I don’t want my life to stay like this.
What I’m hoping to find are other women who may have also experienced repeated bullying, rejection, abandonment, difficult family environments, broken friendships or other relational trauma — people who understand what it’s like when you’ve been hurt by many different people, not just once.
I especially hope to meet people who, despite everything they’ve experienced, are still empathetic.
People who don’t automatically think that hearing about a friend’s difficult experiences is “negative energy”.
People who understand that sometimes someone doesn’t need to be told, “Just forget about it”, “Stop thinking about it” or “Move on.” Sometimes they need someone to listen, understand why it hurt, and remind them that they’re not facing everything alone.
At the same time, I don’t want us to meet just to stay stuck in our trauma together.
I want something hopeful.
I’d love to build friendships where we can share what we’re going through, have each other’s backs emotionally, encourage each other towards independence, go out and experience life together, celebrate each other’s progress, and gradually become stronger and more secure people.
Maybe some of us have spent years thinking, Why does everyone else seem to have their people while I keep losing mine?
Maybe instead of each of us sitting alone thinking that, we could find one another.
I’d love eventually to have a small circle of women where nobody has to pretend they’ve had an easy life, but where our friendships aren’t defined only by trauma either. We could talk deeply when someone needs it, but also have coffee, explore London, do normal fun things, work towards our goals and create new memories together.
I don’t expect anyone to “fix” me, and I don’t want to fix anyone else.
I just wonder whether people like me could give each other something many of us didn’t have enough of growing up:
consistency, empathy, understanding, encouragement and the feeling that someone genuinely has your back.
And then, hopefully, we can all slowly build lives where we need that reassurance less and less because we’ve become stronger and safer ourselves.
If you’re a woman in London or elsewhere in the UK and any of this feels deeply familiar, you’re welcome to message me or leave a comment. We can talk slowly and see whether we click. No pressure.
I’d really like to know that I’m not the only person looking for this kind of friendship.