Hi AF, I'm sorry all that is happening and that it gives you even more personal frustrations.
To answer your question: no, not really. If anything, I'm sometimes prone to feeling the opposite, that too many care about me, that people are sometimes intrusive, and damn just leave me alone. But I have a bit of a schizoid streak
It was much worse when I was young and I've had to work on this a lot to actually be able to take caring and help in, especially when it's unexpected.
I do sometimes have intense desires to just hook up with specific people, do something together, or have a discussion on something that interests me in the moment. Or just want to feel their presence. I typically initiate these connections then, unless I see a very good reason why not to do so. But I do sometimes feel awkward expressing directly that "I've been thinking of you, and just feel like talking/being with you, no particular reason". It would not keep me from initiating, but when I was younger, I would always make up a "reason". Like, call my best friend and tell him about a complicated scientific question I'm thinking/working on, and what's their view. Then the conversation would often shift to more personal areas soon, and I'm happy.
One of my good friends in the past picked up on this issue/habit of mine, and tried to get me drop the habit of making "excuses" why I call him. Kinda worked, not always. My therapist (the one I was seeing before the current one) also picked up on this, and had some cool strategies to try to get me be more direct about my needs regarding communication and people. He told me many times I could call anytime I need help or just an opinion, but I kept failing this. So he started doing it himself: would ring me up sometimes out of the blue between sessions, just to ask how I was doing. At first I had no clue why, and kinda started thinking "wth do you want, this is weird, we just spoke yesterday" etc, but I realized soon what it was about. Then we discussed it directly. I have even better opportunities to practice the lesson with my current therapist, who is brilliant at dealing with all sorts of tricky interpersonal stuff. For example, instead of starting on some complicated and pseudo-sophisticated subject to discuss when I meet him (either in person or on Skype), the challenge is to drop the layers and go straight to the core of what is bothering me. Or bothering him, for that matter, about me or our relationship -- he lets me dig into that using his own methods. Again, really cool experiences, and so helpful. I find that I am definitely able to just directly approach people with my
emotional need (or deal with their similar demands and expectations) much more easily now. Still find myself falling into my old habits, but there is a significant improvement. If nothing else, I've become much more directly aware of my own needs.
The reason I'm telling this story? To suggest that when you feel this way about people, seek them out yourself. Far, far better than drowning your needs and feelings in alcohol, as we know. If the convo does not turn out good, cut it politely if possible, and look for someone else. I see this similarly to getting sober in a way: something that requires action on our part, instead of purely thinking and wishing for it to happen. I think that we alcoholics and addicts very often have problems with expressing our desires and needs adequately in the interpersonal worlds, and instead, we turn to our substance of choice...
And yeah I've seen the flood on the news, it sucks. Glad you are OK though, relatively speaking