letter to another friend

[Blueberry]

Dear T.B.,

You list many positive attributes to our friendship that I never mentioned in my previous email. I feel that my trying to explain what's been bothering me in our friendship has been pushed out of the way. Yet you asked me a number of times to please try and tell you. It's possibly not what you expected, but I can't help that and begin to be true to myself simultaneously.

I can imagine that my previous email might read as if there are no positives in our friendship. I'm sorry if I came across that way. That's not what I meant. However, dragging up and listing positives from several years ago negates the possibility that some aspects of the friendship might have changed or deteriorated, or just that with my own continual healing process I'm beginning to notice problematic aspects I never noticed before. Yes, that's it. It really is the latter explanation.

On the one hand you seem to accept that I say I have trouble looking after my own boundaries in contact with you. On the other hand in the very same email you semi-ask/semi-state that we've always been able to tell each other when one of us ran over the other's boundaries, haven't we? NO. As I said, it is very difficult for me to do that and you seem to have an easier time with that, including repeatedly telling me last year that something I said in a previous phone conversation ruined your whole evening, or even the fact that the conversation got too long or I spoke too much. When I write that, I realise we should have been having a conversation on this issue last year! That, or one or the other of us ought to have been taking concrete steps toward change. If my phone conversations were that hard on you, it would have been good on your part to initiate less contact. So it's just as well I've initiated less contact this year. Probably you weren't able to last year or didn't want to maybe, still getting enough out of our friendship.

I admit, I wasn't able to due to dependency. I have a lot of trouble setting limits or even just stating my wishes. The legacy of gaslighting and complete rejection of me by FOO members still loomed very large last year. I know I often allowed you to go over my limits on the phone. Sometimes I switched off a bit, drifted in my thoughts and got pretty close to SH while you talked or else I made a concerted effort to put my own problems and troubles aside, akin to putting them in a bank vault the way I do with troublesome memories, to give my attention to you and your problems from last year. They seemed at first to be temporary, maybe, but those legal issues went on and on for months and still I held out. My mistake, mea culpa. But Idk it seems when I write that in retrospect I see I should have protected myself better and set limits earlier, you write justifying your neediness as if you don't even acknowledge or maybe just can't see that my health and well-being should have a place for me too. I can understand that it's unfortunate for you that I'm finally putting myself first, but it's the only healthy route for me.

I can read your email  in one frame of mind and think to myself or to you: "you're right, you have a point" but in a different frame of mind I'm thinking "Wait a minute... This isn't all my fault". The latter is what I thought when I finally got out of FOO geographical sphere of influence after Horrendous Event no. 2. So this makes me think that I'm somewhat enmeshed with you. Presumably due to your and my problems, there's a fair bit of unhealthy going on in our friendship.

End of for the moment __________________________ Blueberry

I think my own letter here is getting into a circular discussion and I'm pretty sure if I try and justify myself any more to this friend, we'll just end up in a circular conversation of non-comprehension, possibly on both sides. Coincidentally when reading some news websites this evening I came across a lifestyle article on what to do with a conflict with your BFF. One of the points made was the importance of clearly identifying and naming the problem (I'm trying to do that here) and another point made was that once you realise what the problem is you might have to do a lot of soul-searching and 'work on self' to move forward. I'm no stranger to work-on-self though sometimes quite frankly I get sick of it and in the last little while I've been trying to prioritise. I'm not prioritising the sorting out of this conflict with this particular friend! I have a never-ending To Do list in my head of healing topics for Screen Processing, for EFT, for T appointment, for writing on here, for waiting while healing takes its time etc etc. Trying to learn to put myself first and not on the back burner is an antidote to the way I put myself on the back burner to help her through her problems last year. I hurt myself last year emotionally (my fiddling with my hair even if not necessarily pulling it out while on the phone to her is a very strong sign and I was conscious of doing that last year), now it's time I made a well-worn path of neural network called Prioritising Myself.

Another massive long post from me. Kudos to anybody who reads it or part of it - hope it helps you too in that case. But really it's about me writing for myself in a way I can't in my paper journal and coming to my own conclusions.

[radical]

Hi Blueberry,
It isn't clear, do you intend to send this or another such email to your friend, or are you clarifying your thoughts here?

[Blueberry]

I'm clarifying my thoughts.

[Blueberry]

My thoughts continued to clarify as I lay in bed tossing and turning, so I got up again. It's still a bit too much 'night' for me to be charging around in my apartment cleaning and tidying, though that might be more beneficial atm and it's certainly necessary. Some Little Furries are being brought today for me to look after for 2 weeks and I wouldn't want their owners to equate Messy Apartment with Neglect of Furries and get all worried prior to their holiday or even worse for me decide at short notice they need other pet-sitting arrangements. But still I need to take neighbouring apartments into account.

Dear T.B.,

I don't feel heard. I feel as if my opinions don't count. I have the impression that you equate your own wishes with normalcy. You stated a few times what would be 'normal' e.g. discussing by phone, making arrangements by phone. You write in your latest email as if you're making a big concession to me by discussing via email. If we discussed by phone, you say, we could clear up problems and misunderstandings immediately. Um, no. That would only work for me if I feel we're on an equal footing, if I feel heard. Because when I don't, I can't talk about these things and feel at the same time. The gut feelings, my emotions, my reactions to what you say come with several hours' or even days' delay. So I would end up agreeing with you, going along with what's good for you, not what's good for me. Done quite enough of that already in my life - in contact with you and with others.

It might not be normal for you, but it's normal for me to have a delay in my emotional reactions. I also think it's relatively normal or at least not unheard of for cptsd, my diagnosis. I don't know what your diagnosis is. I remember once I asked you way before I came up with cptsd for myself, asked you if you had a 'real' diagnosis other than 'chronic depression/anxiety' and that kind of symptom stuff. You said you did but you didn't want to talk about it, which is fair enough. I admit I'm curious though. However I digress. And anyway, you are working on your issues.

So anyway, it took me a while in February or whenever it was exactly to realise that it's not necessarily abnormal to discuss plans/arrangements via email, even if you don't like it. In fact with friends C. and S. I do so regularily and with acquaintance K. as well. So we had a misunderstanding then because you refused to answer my email, wanting to phone later and 'discuss' which actually meant overriding my suggestions completely. Except you never got to take it that far because I made completely different plans in my own town, leaving you out completely. But you admitted after the fact that you had no intention of giving me any lee-way, so I was very glad I had changed my plans.

Now in your last email you state that you have no problem with visiting me in my own town though for years you refused to do so. You state you thought the town you always wanted us to meet in and from which you refused to budge is halfway between your place and mine. Really?? Please check a map  Unfortunately with years of FOO gaslighting, I developed a memory like the proverbial elephant for these kinds of details and I know that isn't true, you used to give quite different reasons for not coming closer to where I live. Financial reasons (to your own advantage of course), the town closer to you is nicer, more picturesque, you were exhausted etc. I went along with it. But I realise now, it's like with FOO. You overstepped your luck, you pushed it one time too far. Of course, I need to be accountable for setting my own limits. But what's so hard for me is: when I did finally set a limit you didn't want to accept that. In your recent email, you justified this non-acceptance with all your exhaustion due to those 8 months of legal problems followed by your M's death. You did give a kind of blanket apology in a previous email and in this one you ask what else you can do. Well one thing would be: don't continue to justify not having accepted my limit. I wrote in a previous email that I had put my own feelings aside for months to support you going through these difficult times but at the point where our plans to meet up went so askew, I broke and realised how I'd been supporting you and neglecting myself. I couldn't then ignore this realisation of mine and I didn't want to either! But it sounds as if somehow you still think I should have, as if your problems and limitations were somehow more worthy of my attention than my own. This is all very triggering for me because that's how it was in FOO for years too. Over the course of several generations. GrM had it worse than me, M had it worse than me, B1 had it worse than me. I suffered under all of them and nobody wanted to acknowledge that though I did talk about it in FOO.

I realise I won't get acknowledgement from you on any of this because a) you have a different opinion and b) you've obviously stored different memories of this. I also kind of know that rehashing all this stuff in my head or in an Unsent Letter is probably a bit whacko and probably a waste of time and energy
[oh, my abusive M just popped into my mind. She'd say it's a waste of time. Maybe it's not after all? Aha! Now I remember maybe about a year ago on one of those therapy retreats one of the Ts (who I've known a long time) asked me why I felt I had to say I hated M. Why couldn't I just let her go and let that hate go too? A few others nodded around the circle. They were wondering that too. Answer: I feel a need to be able to speak my truth after years, decades of being shouted down, of not being heard, of being ridiculed and contradicted and told I'm imagining things. The therapist understood right away. A long time ago other therapists told me in a different context that I needed witnesses after being ignored, belittled, gaslighted all those years. So here too: I need witnesses which I feel I have on OOTS even if nobody actually reads this post due to length ] A problem for me going forward with you, T.B. after all this is trust. So I need to take a break.

______________
And now it's close enough to day-break for me to go back up into my apartment and get on with cleaning and tidying, or falling asleep again.

[Blueberry]

I finally sent a real response to this friend. Not exactly what I wrote above, but just what I could manage. I got a parcel from her today, actually something from her deceased mother that she had wanted to leave for me or something, I'm not sure.

My friend wrote, prodding for an answer from me, that she is tired of waiting. Partially I can imagine that waiting for a response for a long time could be tiresome. But mostly, I have got used to moving on with other things and waiting passively for someone like friends or family to get back to me, although I might write about it on here too, or go off and work on it in therapy. Or if it's a legal thing, get help! But in this instance this friend feeling "tired of waiting" doesn't bode well. That reinforces my feeling that it's all about her.

[Three Roses]

I too prefer emailing over discussing things by phone when there needs to be clear understanding. It's too easy to misunderstand something/be misunderstood in a conversation and never realize it. Putting things in writing gives things detail, clarity, permanence. A narcissist would dislike that, having the opportunity for manipulation removed. It's so easy to say, "I never said that." If it's in writing, it's plain to see that they did.

[Blueberry]

She dislikes this written contact and seems to think going out of her way to accommodate me in this respect is a huge deal. She's rewriting the past too, pretending that such and such were never connected though she connected them at the time. I'm not bothering arguing with her about it, except one rather pointed comment. I discussed some of the issue with this friend on Pete Walker's blog entry and he certainly gave me valuable food for thought.

I think this friendship is fizzling out or rather that I've realised I've been giving way too much, which she doesn't realise and so still expects from me. I can handle it fizzling out, she doesn't seem to be able to. Well, she's losing somebody she can use, lean on, manipulate.

[Blueberry]

A card came from this friend yesterday. It says something like she can't even begin to find words for everything and she hopes I'm OK to well.

I propped the card up where I can see it sometimes, but I don't have any big impulse to send a response.

[Three Roses]

I think I'd be tempted to prop it up in the fireplace.

[Bach]

Blueberry, I have just read this whole thread.  I can relate to it so well in the context of one of my relationships.

now it's time I made a well-worn path of neural network called Prioritising Myself.

Good heavens, yes.   

[Blueberry]

Thank you so much Bach for validating and applauding the plan of Prioritising Myself! It's not that easy as you may also know but other people like you affirming the validity of doing so is very helpful.

[Blueberry]

I think I'd be tempted to prop it up in the fireplace.

  Maybe that will be the case sometime, but not quite yet.

[karbon]

From what I've read you've put a lot of thought towards how to re-prioritize yourself and being honest while still trying to not cause any unnecessary pain, which can be difficult. I so appreciate the choices we get to make in friends and to be able to finally have healthy comparisons on good natured individuals who do demonstrate healthy boundaries and are low stress and bring a lot of enjoyment into my life and where setting boundaries with them is much simpler than friends I made in my teenage years still suffering quite a bit from C-PTSD symptoms.