Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Friendship Moments: good or bad
Hopalong:
Had a great conversation with my wise 80 y/o friend, who is never afraid of the stickiness or darkness of any topic or question, ever. She is a treasure.
Anyhow, I got another layer peeled down to take to T next week. WHY do I get so triggered by a frantic desire to rescue/fix her (or anyone)? Aha. It happens more for me in relationships with women. Cue: lifelong baggage fear of women's rejection. Present baggage about how excruciatingly important friendships are w/o having family. Ahhhahahahha. So, if I choose to no longer repeat the pattern of: Poet dumps heartrending stuff, I take it straight to heart and become myself very distressed by her distress. Then I try to find the answers for her or, if she has directly asked, advise her what to do. Then when the cleanup email (la la la, it's all better now) arrives the next day, I feel used/drained/and even pissed.
So my own work, my question can be: Does this (like everything) mean my fear of abandonment by female friends come from my earliest Nmom stuff? Even if it does, can facing that help me unhook my present response choices from child-Hops' vulnerability, so I stay secure in myself no matter what Poet's reaction is?
I think it'll obviously be a Yes. That feels good. Insight is worth everything. And I also am thinking when Poet and I Zoom on Sunday, I need to own my half of the experience with her, and let her dance away if she must, but also give her the opportunity to own that the reason it's so hard isn't due to her initial reaching out in distress (I never want her to feel she can't) -- but mostly due to her cleanup messages afterward, which are full of denial and lacking in serious followup plans.
She's got a right to take her own time and energy to heal or not heal (leaving when the pain of staying is more than the pain of letting go), as Lighter mentioned. But I've lost track of my own right to protect my equilibrium by finding enough detachment to ask the classic healthy question: "Gosh, what do you think you're going to do?"
I may be deluding myself, but feel as though I might be on the edge of a breakthrough. It's not serving either of us for me to join her in the repeated "game" as a willing accomplice. I don't have to go cold or anything like that, but do have to face that being her closest friend through this cycle has a cost, unless I get a grip and learn how to practice more distance.
Plus, wise friend said: If you join her in the pattern: She panics over being abused, you rush in to urge her to SEE and SEEK a different way, she replies with a pastiche of ego and posing to cover her feelings of vulnerability and shame, and then becomes distant for a while while she copes with those (which triggers YOUR feelings of abandonment), and then all is well until it starts again. And if you do keep cooperating with her pattern, you are helping her stay stuck. (Because she's not having to face the consequences/realities of not choosing a new path.)
I knew these precepts of codependency but think it got through to me more clearly this time, because the idea of hurting my friend or participating in a dance that keeps her stuck feels terrible. I am more motivated now to try a different approach. Even if I have to stick a note on my monitor to remind me during our next chat, that's fine. Because I'm not in charge of her but I am in charge of my own health. And I recognize that this pattern is not helping her and is harming me.
Whew.
Hugs
Hops
lighter:
Hi, Hops. I'm glad you have your very wise friend in 3D to bounce things off of.
It seems to take as much time as it takes to identify patterns without fight or flight shutting down logic and reason. I'm amazed when managing to sidestep survival mode making it possible to see so much than before. I'm experiencing something similar.
I hope it's possible to remain outside your Poet friend's spiral to remain as responsive and able to respond in the most helpful way possible while sidestepping reactivity and familiar rabbit holes of your own.
It's perfectly to fine to hold space for the Poet's distress so she can feel it and, hopefully, process it into clarity and knowing.
You can't want something more for the Poet than she wants for herself.
Your willingness to carry her distress with her likely relieves her discomfort enough she can put it away, until next time, when you're there for here again, or maybe just holding space for her to be safely IN her distress.
I'm shocked at all the choice and possibilities opening up when fight or flight is calmed so our entire brain comes online. Like flipping a switch.
You aren't just protecting your equilibrium when you sit with her distress without reacting. You're opening up possibility to sit with and experience your own distress and abandonment issues......me too.
I had to figure out giving space, instead of trying to save others, isn't giving up or being cold or lacking compassion.....its healthy and ya, creates distress at first, but therapists are there to guide and inform.
Allowing others to feel their distress and save themselves doesn't equal the behavior of a sociopath. It can feel that way, ime.
I try to remember the difference between helping someone heal or helping them stay where they are is everything. I have choices. Helping feels better than enabling, ime. Not at first, but it doesn't take long to show up then gets easier, ime.
I like the phrase....
"Let me know how that works out for you" when someone I care about is processing painful emotions.......it puts the weight of their choices squarely with them.
You're a good friend to the Poet, Hops. I think you're definitely have a breakthrough.
Lighter
Hopalong:
Thank you, Lighter. I really am confronting what I allowed to happen to myself. And your examples of counter-behavior ("Let me know how that works out for you") are great. What is helping most is I hit a threshold I've been wanting HER to hit. A sort of this-is-enough kind of moment. Not abandoning her or the friendship, but not wanting to go through this particular dance with her again.
I'm better. Zooming with Poet this afternoon. Or rather, listening. She's calm now and I am too. But what I want to notice is all the ingredients of the triggered tailspin I went into for a couple days. My T will help too, Weds. Ingredients are:
1) Poet sends helpless/hopeless/frightened email: "I'm shaking inside and can't sleep, I can't physically take this, I'm going to have to leave home, partner calls me selfish and evil for saying No to son who'll scare me and steal, and what should I do???
2) I launch into an answer. (You aren't the obstacle to remove from your own home, change all the locks, talk to the police about a TRO, see a lawyer, this is enough, your partner is manipulating/abusing you...)
That was when I lost my way. Feeling compelled to answer her question. I have a choice! (Duh.) Instead I needed to answer her question with a question. Gosh-what-are-you-going-to-do? And not email. I think a call/Zoom is better, let her own what she's saying in the present and just "be" present/empathetic. Not FIX IT FIX IT.
3) She talks to him and he backs down and after lots of "resource" info from me, writes me one paragraph about it's all better now, she's set a boundary. (Ummm.)
4) I'm upset for two days. Really freaking out. Recognize my fear of losing her (closest friend, age 74, not all that healthy). My own codependency on steroids.
5) Tripped over a cord and fell (no harm, just a near miss from a table edge). Ate half a huge pizza. Needed to talk to older friend to calm down. Got too stressed over a deadline for my last OLLI class prep which wasn't hard -- fear of Pres' disappointment etc (she was fine when we met--fear losing that friend too). Let kitchen/laundry pile up, etc.
Just, wow. I think T will advise me not to judge myself. I can feel myself not wanting to. Having friendly thoughts like: You're vulnerable to this pattern but you do see it. You have a plan for the next time. This was triggery because XYZ, so you can pay kind attention to XYZ (only "phamily" friend, fear of loss of connection, need more friends, can't give her anything she doesn't want for herself, okay to detach a bit and not confuse her giving up with my own fear that I'll give up, etc., aging alone fear, etc). Lotsa stuff that I get to continue working on like an adult, on my own and with T, and here, that don't need to mess up friendship.
I swear to god it's okay to continue growing up. I'll be having a learning experience on my deathbed one day. And that'll be okay!
Pooch is sleeping on her chenille and everything about her body is saying: I love my morning naps curled on your bed, this is peace.
I am a lucky human.
hugs
Hops
lighter:
--- Quote from: Hopalong on March 12, 2023, 07:53:32 AM ---Thank you, Lighter. I really am confronting what I allowed to happen to myself. And your examples of counter-behavior ("Let me know how that works out for you") are great. What is helping most is I hit a threshold I've been wanting HER to hit. A sort of this-is-enough kind of moment. Not abandoning her or the friendship, but not wanting to go through this particular dance with her again.
You KNOW the Poet would benefit from exiting an abusive relationship creating suffering in her life. That's a truth. I think that knowing leaves no space to just be and allow the Poet to be in her suffering..... just have it in your presence withou trying to save her or move her OUT of it, which is her work.
I posted a little about Eckhart Tolle's podcast on STORY...... there's knowing and then there's knowing AND allowing space for being present without knowing everything. I think that shift is what makes it possible for my girls to listen and be mmore responsive, less reactive, in my presense. I think it's something similar with your Poet friend, Hops.
I'm better. Zooming with Poet this afternoon. Or rather, listening. She's calm now and I am too. But what I want to notice is all the ingredients of the triggered tailspin I went into for a couple days. My T will help too, Weds. Ingredients are:
1) Poet sends helpless/hopeless/frightened email: "I'm shaking inside and can't sleep, I can't physically take this, I'm going to have to leave home, partner calls me selfish and evil for saying No to son who'll scare me and steal, and what should I do???
2) I launch into an answer. (You aren't the obstacle to remove from your own home, change all the locks, talk to the police about a TRO, see a lawyer, this is enough, your partner is manipulating/abusing you...)
That was when I lost my way. Feeling compelled to answer her question. I have a choice! (Duh.) Instead I needed to answer her question with a question. Gosh-what-are-you-going-to-do? And not email. I think a call/Zoom is better, let her own what she's saying in the present and just "be" present/empathetic. Not FIX IT FIX IT. My mother used to say "You can be too right, Lighter" and I think that's a real thing. KNOWING and bring right, without considering what one doesn't know..... leaves no oxygen in a room or space for being present with others, IME. I hope that makes sense. I'm still wrestling it to the ground; )
3) She talks to him and he backs down and after lots of "resource" info from me, writes me one paragraph about it's all better now, she's set a boundary. (Ummm.)
4) I'm upset for two days. Really freaking out. Recognize my fear of losing her (closest friend, age 74, not all that healthy). My own codependency on steroids. Can you identify your earliest memory of feeling this way, Hops?
5) Tripped over a cord and fell (no harm, just a near miss from a table edge). Ate half a huge pizza. Needed to talk to older friend to calm down. Got too stressed over a deadline for my last OLLI class prep which wasn't hard -- fear of Pres' disappointment etc (she was fine when we met--fear losing that friend too). Let kitchen/laundry pile up, etc. Just noticing those thngs, without judging yourself or fearing into the future is progress, Hops. For me, it feels like unlocking the doors beyond the rooms I've been confined to...consciously and unconscously. The next doors have sunlight and pleasant sounds and scents I didn't know existed. Those doors hold easier flow and being....... not bc of mechanically DOING and acting, but bc of what I've dropped and what I've picked up..... creativity and reason appear... usually unexpectedly and then I connect the dots backwards to see how the machine was buit and THAT I BUILT SOMETHING new withoout understanding what it was I was building.
Just, wow. I think T will advise me not to judge myself. I can feel myself not wanting to. Having friendly thoughts like: You're vulnerable to this pattern but you do see it. You have a plan for the next time. This was triggery because XYZ, so you can pay kind attention to XYZ (only "phamily" friend, fear of loss of connection, need more friends, can't give her anything she doesn't want for herself, okay to detach a bit and not confuse her giving up with my own fear that I'll give up, etc., aging alone fear, etc). Lotsa stuff that I get to continue working on like an adult, friendship.
I swear to god it's okay to continue growing up. I'll be having a learning experience on my deathbed one day. And that'll be okay!
Pooch is sleeping on her chenille and everything about her body is saying: I love my morning naps curled on your bed, this is peace.
I am a lucky human. I love imagining Pooch sleeping on her chenille..... chennille reminds me of my Grandma on the farm. Such comfort: )
hugs
Hops
--- End quote ---
Hopalong:
I zeroed in on the Tolle thing on your other thread Lighter, so I'll respond here rather than here and there...knowing while allowing space for NOT knowing. Wonderful stuff, so apt.
Just used more of it happily in a Zoom with Poet, who's all sparkly with relief. I did address it all directly, making a distinction between her vents, which I have no desire for her to stifle, and what I'm responsible for with myself...not lurching into rescue. It was a really good converation and made the last couple days' struggle very worthwhile.
It amazes me sometimes that once I learn something, or get an insight, I can apply it immediately in any relationship. Not perfectly, and practice not perfection is the point, but it felt great. We both celebrate and value our friendship, and I'm saying out loud that I intend to return to celebrating her doing HER own process in her own time. We got to laughing.
She analysed him a lot and talked more about her way of being with him. And I recognized how quickly she moves through distress to a new story. But she's been making statements about how she WOULD cope if they ended. She says she'd sell her house and move in with her D. I know that HER future lifestyle (living alone or with family) is right for HER and found my resistance melting away.
I do think her personal dependent nature is a natural result for her of experiences she's had. And she has every right to live as she wants and there are blessings and benefits in the idea of her not having an individual homeplace. Family means a great deal to her and she's got a great D and grandD.
I wound up feeling at ease and glad for her. And for me! Learned a lot during this episode of re-encountering my own work. Whew.
So glad to hear how much your hard work in therapy is benefitting you too, Lighter.
hugs
Hops
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