Post by primrose on May 7, 2011 13:21:45 GMT -5
About 6 years ago I had two very important friendships break down. It was an extremely painful time. I found the whole experience very overwhelming. These were recovery friendships and meant a great deal to me. My friends weren't active addicts but were both dedicated to emotional recovery. They were intelligent and self aware women.
At that point in my life I did think that I'd already gone through all the pain I needed to regarding letting go of friends. I'd done that when I first got into recovery and I really let go of most of my old friends then. But I had a lot more to feel! The friendship I had with my two friends was destroyed and it left me lost and vulnerable and very angry.
My relationships with women have always been much more difficult than my relationships with men. What I learnt from the breakdown of my friendships 6 years ago was that I still had some strong unresolved feelings from my childhood that were damaging my relationships with women.
I had this deep pain of being a child whose mother couldn't bond with her. My mother held me at arms length until I got so angry about that, I did the same to her. And for the rest of my life I acted that out with other women. I longed for the closeness, but the closeness I had was when I was an ear. I'd do that for a while and then my old fury about not being heard would be triggered and I'd reject the woman. Then I'd feel MUCH better for a while. Then I'd feel lonely and start longing for closeness. Over and over again. The classic love avoidant pattern.
Choosing women over and over again who were so self-absorbed, who had so much pain of their own, who couldn't look after themselves emotionally, that they were only too happy to have an ear.
And me, listening to very intense drama and emotion while keeping my own hidden.
The conversations I've been having recently with a woman who isn't in recovery have stirred a lot of those old feelings up for me. I've been "reasonable" "adult" "calm". I've been direct and rational and polite even though I've said what I think. And what's come back at me, to my mind, has been highly emotional and subjective.
And I wonder, really, why I bother with that. It's good to be civil and calm in a discussion, but I think being reasonable to a fault is a bit weird.
I think that reasonable-ness I have is not really real, and I'm going to drop it in some discussions. It's very useful for work situations though. Yesterday I delivered a piece of work onto a site where there were a team of men. They stopped their work to see my piece delivered and discussed it at length in front of me. The work I've done is amazing and unusual, so of course everyone did stop to talk about it. BUT that is really really difficult to cope with! Especially as part of the work has a crack that I have to put right and everyone focused on that and had a million ideas as to why it happened, what I should have done instead etc etc. It is tough doing my job sometimes, and having a very calm way about me and being very reasonable with people in an extremely stressful situation when they are criticising my work, is a great thing. It gives me a professional edge and means people respect me even if what they see when they first meet me is someone who looks young and gentle.
So, in work situations my calm way is really an asset, and I'm keeping it. But in personal relationships, I don't think I'm going to hold onto it. I developed it to "hold" my mother emotionally when she went into meltdown about my father. And really, why should I hold anyone who's an adult? Why should I be a buttress that other people can rely on in a conversation? I think the more reasonable and calm I am, often the nastier the other person feels they can get.
Giving up being calm will also mean being more vulnerable emotionally because it means saying what I think and feel. I wonder how it will play out in conversation?
At that point in my life I did think that I'd already gone through all the pain I needed to regarding letting go of friends. I'd done that when I first got into recovery and I really let go of most of my old friends then. But I had a lot more to feel! The friendship I had with my two friends was destroyed and it left me lost and vulnerable and very angry.
My relationships with women have always been much more difficult than my relationships with men. What I learnt from the breakdown of my friendships 6 years ago was that I still had some strong unresolved feelings from my childhood that were damaging my relationships with women.
I had this deep pain of being a child whose mother couldn't bond with her. My mother held me at arms length until I got so angry about that, I did the same to her. And for the rest of my life I acted that out with other women. I longed for the closeness, but the closeness I had was when I was an ear. I'd do that for a while and then my old fury about not being heard would be triggered and I'd reject the woman. Then I'd feel MUCH better for a while. Then I'd feel lonely and start longing for closeness. Over and over again. The classic love avoidant pattern.
Choosing women over and over again who were so self-absorbed, who had so much pain of their own, who couldn't look after themselves emotionally, that they were only too happy to have an ear.
And me, listening to very intense drama and emotion while keeping my own hidden.
The conversations I've been having recently with a woman who isn't in recovery have stirred a lot of those old feelings up for me. I've been "reasonable" "adult" "calm". I've been direct and rational and polite even though I've said what I think. And what's come back at me, to my mind, has been highly emotional and subjective.
And I wonder, really, why I bother with that. It's good to be civil and calm in a discussion, but I think being reasonable to a fault is a bit weird.
I think that reasonable-ness I have is not really real, and I'm going to drop it in some discussions. It's very useful for work situations though. Yesterday I delivered a piece of work onto a site where there were a team of men. They stopped their work to see my piece delivered and discussed it at length in front of me. The work I've done is amazing and unusual, so of course everyone did stop to talk about it. BUT that is really really difficult to cope with! Especially as part of the work has a crack that I have to put right and everyone focused on that and had a million ideas as to why it happened, what I should have done instead etc etc. It is tough doing my job sometimes, and having a very calm way about me and being very reasonable with people in an extremely stressful situation when they are criticising my work, is a great thing. It gives me a professional edge and means people respect me even if what they see when they first meet me is someone who looks young and gentle.
So, in work situations my calm way is really an asset, and I'm keeping it. But in personal relationships, I don't think I'm going to hold onto it. I developed it to "hold" my mother emotionally when she went into meltdown about my father. And really, why should I hold anyone who's an adult? Why should I be a buttress that other people can rely on in a conversation? I think the more reasonable and calm I am, often the nastier the other person feels they can get.
Giving up being calm will also mean being more vulnerable emotionally because it means saying what I think and feel. I wonder how it will play out in conversation?