To be of good quality, you have to excuse yourself from the presence of shallow and callow minded individuals. –Michael Bassey Johnson
Can you even fathom putting an enormous amount of time into
someone that you care about just to have them bleed you dry? Can you imagine listening
to them cry about their countless problems, begging you for some sound advice,
and complaining about the mess they have somehow gotten themselves into just to
have them deny and dismiss it all in the next breath? Can you imagine caring
about a person so much that it is literally taking a toll on you? Caring so
much that you have actually exhausted yourself and lost sleep because you don’t
know how to stop absorbing their multitude of problems?
In going to school and studying my passion, I have learned
that love shouldn’t hurt; that instead of doing things for people, we should
empower them to do those things for themselves. I have learned that you shouldn’t
design goals for them, but instead allow them to realize their own goals and
give them the resources to accomplish them. Throughout all of this, I have learned
that there are some individuals that you’ve just got to walk away from; that
there are just some things, sometimes, that you cannot fix.
And maybe that will break your heart, but there is only so
much you can do. There are only so many times you can say something before it
is no longer heard. After a certain point, you’ve got to stop performing the
same act and expecting different results. And realistically, you’ve got to
remember to take care of yourself too, because self-care is unbelievably important.
I am a person incessantly guilty of this exact situation. To
be fair, I am going to school for this. I want to help people, I want to hear
their problems, I want to console them and offer support. I want to assist
people in developing healthy habits, alleviating the problems that ail them,
and accomplishing the goals they’ve set for themselves. And maybe because of
all of this, I’ve become too soft, too sensitive, and maybe even too caring, if
there is such a thing. I rely far too heavily on where my emotions take me and
maybe that’s a lot of where my problem lies. I let my heart lead the way too
frequently and more often than not, it causes problems for me. I am always the
one who is getting hurt, all because I care too much.
And I hate that that has become such a crime. Why are we
punished for trying to be good people? It doesn’t make sense!
My head’s under water
but I’m breathing fine. You’re crazy and I’m out of my mind. –John Legend, All of Me
Although my entire life is basically one colossal example of
this, there is one instance in particular where I was far more affected. And I
have to tell you, it is something that has been plaguing me for days. No,
months. I had a falling out of sorts, with a dear, dear girlfriend of mine and
ever since, it has been looming over me like a gigantic hedge. Despite the
events that had transpired and despite the enormity of pain she has caused me,
I cannot stop thinking about this. This argument, or perhaps more of a cease in
communication, has been literally haunting me since it happened. It has been
following me around for actual months, with the tension between us so thick it
could be cut with a knife.
Every morning, on the way to wherever I was going, I would
navigate my brain through a variety of courses and chronicle the events that
had taken place. I would like to say that she was my best friend. She
understood me and I certainly understood her, I thought, much better than most
people. We had a lot of things in common, we were derived from similar
backgrounds, and we had endured similar turmoil. We were both brilliant and
fiery, and probably too sensitive to be around other people.
But gradually, things began to evolve. Somehow. Or maybe it
wasn’t so gradual; more like I just was rather naïve to it at first. I never
really picked up on the fact that she was using me for my limited mental health
expertise. I didn’t want to believe that she was only using me to validate her
feelings. The more and more I reflect on it, however, the more I believe it to
be true.
So… tell me more
about your fucked up friends. I’m really interested. –My sister, in an attempt
to distract me from my chronic anxiety
There are so many
things that happened that quite frankly DO bare going into because they set the
stage for everything I’m currently feeling. Maybe like her, rather selfishly, I
want to have my feelings validated.
She had allegedly been through a lot, had been involved with
men who weren’t so good for her. She had been through things that made her
delicate and apparently untrusting of men. This uneasiness was something that I
could completely identify with because I had been there. I had gone through a
few not so great experiences of my own and because of that, I wanted to coddle
her. I wanted to absorb her problems and shelter her from those terrible
things. I, unlike some people who met her, didn’t want to fix her; I just
wanted to make her feel comfortable. I wanted her to feel understood and
welcomed. I wanted to warm her heart.
So I welcomed her into my home and I made her a part of my
family. I heard every detail of her life and I accepted her. And the more I
listened to absolutely every aspect of her life, the more I realized that I had
someone for her. He was sensitive and bashful, a guy who would never raise his voice
to her for any reason. I immediately knew he would complement her inability to
trust and open up right away. This whole thing was certain to be a match made
in heaven. I could envision it all, right down to the garden wedding with the
startlingly beautiful bride, the warm sun reflecting off her black hair.
But listen, friends. As with most things, I was wrong about
all.of.it. That’s one open bar that I’ll never get to take advantage of.
I set them up and in the beginning, my suspicions were spot
on. His politeness and sensitivity weren’t lost on her. At first, she
appreciated his gentle kindness. He was a rose among the thorns that she had
been acquainted with as of late. At first, she welcomed him with open arms
because he was unlike anyone else she had ever been close to. She endlessly
told me how perfect he was and how she couldn’t wait to meet him in person.
(They had Facebook messaged, texted and called each other, and Skyped multiple
times but hadn’t yet met in person.) She told me that she was nervous because
she wanted everything to go perfectly and she didn’t want to come off as crazy.
She wanted this to work out; she wanted it to be a caring, loving and lasting relationship.
Or so she claimed.
How often misused
words generate misleading thoughts. –Herbert Spencer
But suddenly, once she met him, it seemed like she had done
this complete 360. She suddenly had no time for us (even me, her best friend!)
because school was allegedly so taxing. But what really bothered me about all
of this was that this disappearance was so sudden. It couldn’t have been school
because it literally happened overnight. It was like she woke up one day and
was a different person. Someone who was once a permanent fixture in my house
was now so distant. It was like pulling teeth, trying to get her to come to my
house. It was like she just couldn’t be bothered.
And what hurt my feelings even further was when she finally did take the time out her “busy schedule”
(you would seriously think she was in medical school the way she behaved) to
spend time with me and the guy she literally begged to come to Florida, she was
quiet and cold. It was very obvious to me that she didn’t want to be there. It
was evidenced by the way she acted like she was doing all of us a favor, which
REALLY bothered me because this guy had just driven nine goddamn hours to see
her! But hey, we’ve all got things to do, right?
Moral of the Crazy: I guess I was hurt because she had
always kept in close contact with me, primarily because I was of use to her.
Maybe I made her feel better about the life choices she had made (although she
never seemed to heed my supposedly coveted advice) because I had made some poor
ones too. Maybe I had helped her heal because I understood her pain regarding
intimate partner violence. Maybe she saw me as some sort of beacon of a light,
a voice of reason who could provide her with guidance whenever she couldn’t recover
from something on her own. So when she didn’t need me anymore, or maybe when
she thought I would start disapproving of her lifestyle, she just sort of… cut
me off.
This was just a quick synopsis of what really happened.
There’s obviously a lot more to the story and I’ll continue it in the next few
blogs. For the time being, however, I just want to reach out to those of you
who know people like this. I know that I feel used; I feel betrayed and cast
aside. I feel like she purely reaped the benefits of my friendship and then
moved on when I didn’t tell her what she wanted to hear.
When I was no longer of use to her, she just quit answering
my text messages. But later, she claimed to have missed me and said that I was
never far from her thoughts. As if I believed that after the way she had behaved.
But I’ll get to all that later.
What has always been troubling to me is the fact that no
matter how hard you work at taking care of someone and being there for them,
sometimes it just blows up in your face. Sometimes, as I’m learning more every
day, they don’t care that you care. It didn’t matter that I was thinking about
this whole ordeal incessantly because despite what she may claim, she wasn’t
doing the same. It didn’t matter that I was worried about her and the current
(and absolutely ridiculous) situation she was in because none of it would
change. (And to be honest, I think she liked
that I worried about her. The DSM-V calls it “histrionic tendencies”.) None of
this matters in the slightest because she had moved on from it all, made her
own life choices, and was living this new life apart from the rest of us. And I
guess that’s just fine.
The thing is that while I still care about all of this, I am
beginning to lose the ability to be bothered. I can’t keep doing this; I can’t
care anymore. It took all of this for me to realize that if I don’t fix this
with her, it will be irreparably broken. She won’t be the one burning the
midnight oil, stressing about how I feel or why this happened.
The truth is that this doesn’t concern her; she could never
be bothered, and so the responsibility to act like a person was just always put
on me. And it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that I have to absorb everything and be
the only one worried about how my actions affect other people. That’s not a
friendship. That’s not how you treat other people.
My whole life I have worked to save things that aren’t worth
the time. And listen, it’s exhausting. I would love, just one time, to be paid
the same respect. I would love, just once, for my concerns to be validated; for
someone to turn to me and say, “I thank you for your sensitivity. I appreciate you.”
Not to sound dramatic, but I won’t hold my breath for that to happen.
I just think that being good to each other, sensitive to
each other’s feelings, is something uber important. And when you find that’s no
longer something you can evidence in another person, maybe it’s time to pack it
up and shower someone else with your concern. Because while they may have
stopped caring about you, there are plenty of other people who never will.
Some people are
willing to betray years of friendship for a little bit of the spotlight. –Lauren
Conrad
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