What Is A Friendship? Part Two

A discussion I had about last week’s blog post prompted me to write a Part Two about friendship. I want to begin by reminding everyone of this paragraph from last week’s blog post, because this is my goal in sharing my own growth experiences: I emphasize here that I am stating this from the viewpoint of how I let people treat me. I am not saying I am without mistake in these matters. Although the abusers who lost their power over me as I healed would like to scapegoat me (and anyone they lose power over) to make it look like something else, my mistake was usually being such a doormat that I allowed people to treat me badly. This is important, because when I understand the mistakes I’m making, I can change them for a brighter future. Abusers will often try to transfer their behavior onto their victims. Since this is not the reality, the victim will have no power to change their future if they buy into that, because they have no power to change another person. Once we recognize we are allowing ourselves to be a victim, we can change that unless we are in a dictatorship where that would create physical danger for us.

Last week I described three situations friends had witnessed and helped me see how badly I was starting to let people treat me again, because long-term caregiving and grief were making me vulnerable enough to regress and be drawn back to an old familiar. All of those situations happened after I had some healing under my belt. I want to share two other situations this week -- situations that happened when each of my parents passed away. I chose these stories, because the balancing of needs between a dying parent and the things people selfishly tried to make more important emphasize how badly I used to let people treat me. I think telling these two stories might help those in the early stages of healing better understand how selfish some people can be and why boundaries are so important.

My Mom passed away on December 8 – just five weeks after Halloween. It doesn’t take much to understand how sick she must have been on Halloween if she passed away five weeks later. During the summer before she passed away, I had promised a friend I would go to a Haunted House with him on Halloween. I was unable to go, because my Mom was in the hospital and it was already becoming apparent she was likely to pass away soon. If you weigh those two needs, it is very apparent that my Mom being in the hospital at death’s door was the priority over going to a Haunted House. A true friend who had the ability to do so would have come to the hospital to see how we were doing. If he were not able to do that, he could have called, spent some time in prayer for us, or found another friend to go to a Haunted House with instead of sitting home harboring an attitude that I didn’t go with him. He chose to harbor an attitude. A few weeks after my Mom passed away, he gave me a big speech. He said he understood that my Mom was dying at that time, but I needed to step out of my own selfishness and imagine for a minute how he felt when I didn’t go to the Haunted House with him, especially since he didn’t have a car and was accustomed to me driving him where he needed to go. Our friendship ended on the night he gave me that speech, because he was so angry he ended it. I imagine he is still telling people that our friendship ended because I was too selfish to keep a promise to him. The sad part is that I felt guilty for letting him down until I was a lot farther along in my healing than I was then. When I think back on that, I get mad at myself for allowing him to make me feel guilty. If that happened today, I would end the friendship, because I would not desire to be friends with someone that self-centered and ego-driven. Part of the reason I was able to get to that point was that having such an extreme between needs did help me more easily recognize that I hadn’t done anything wrong to make my Mom the priority when she was dying.

Sadly, a similar thing happened when my Dad was dying. I am happy to report that the way I handled it showed that, even though repeated caregiving and grief was making me vulnerable, I was still growing. I had someone in my life who was a drug addict, alcoholic, and had mental illness they were choosing not to treat due to their desire to hang onto their addictions. I had grown enough that I would not have let her in my life in that condition except she had children that I desired to help. I remember watching her act in a way that a person with mental illness and addiction had acted when I was a child, and I recognized the look on her children’s faces while she did that. My own twelve-year-old face was looking back at me. I chose to let her in, so I could help them. Even though she turned those kids against me when I was finally forced to reject her, I do not regret one thing I did to try to make their lives a little easier. Every bit of time my father and I spent with them and every present we bought for them was done out of love, so I must believe that at some point in their lives that love will allow something good to blossom in them even if that hasn’t happened yet.

In similar manner to the situation surrounding my Mom’s death, this person tried to make herself the priority over my dying father. She had a habit of threatening to commit suicide when someone wasn’t giving her as much attention as she wanted. She told me she was going to kill herself if I went to the hospital to be with my Dad while he passed away. When I tried to call the Mobile Crisis Unit to get help for her so I could go to my Dad, she slapped the phone out of my hand. She admitted she wasn’t going to kill herself, but she needed some attention. I got in my car and drove away. When I came home for one hour at 4AM the next morning to get a shower and a few other things I needed, she had once again left her children alone to wander the streets in the middle of the night. She was sitting on my steps waiting for me. She threatened me with physical harm for putting my father first. I pushed past her to get in my house, got a shower, and returned to the hospital. A couple of days later when she found out my father had passed away, she tried to hug me. That is a moment that shows my growth. I didn’t feel guilt for not putting her above my Dad like I would have in the past. I felt anger and revulsion that she had threatened me when my Dad was dying. When she tried to hug me, I ran away from her. She chased me down the street and forced a hug on me, and I honestly felt like I was being raped as I stood there stiff-armed refusing to return the hug. I felt no guilt – I was growing and healing.

I once had a boss (other than Rosemary) who told me to stop being so kind to our clients, because desperate people will do desperate things. She was right. Although people can take advantage of each other in all walks of life, all financial brackets, all institutions, etc., I think there is a higher risk if you live in a poverty area where needs are great. People get used to being on the take to survive, and if you are an empathic person who is willing to help, you will become one of their victims. It will be all about what you can give them, and you will be seen as public enemy number one if you encounter a situation in your life where you need to take for a while instead of give – or even if you need to slow down on giving without taking anything. I think the risk is greater if you are a woman, because socially woman are taught to be the ones who care for others. All I can say is be careful if you are in those situations. If your finances or some other factor will not allow you to get out of a bad neighborhood, a bad relationship or whatever situation you are in, try to find a support group outside your immediate environment.

This may be a slippery slope. People are drawn back to the familiar. I know I often have been. If you try to make new friends in the workplace, church, etc. you may find that you are developing friendships with the same types of people you knew from the environments that made you vulnerable. That is why I used the words support group in the last paragraph – a support group may be the safest place to start. I’ve been in many support groups (sometimes as a leader after I achieved enough healing and proved myself), and I have grown in all of them (even in one where I was hurt very badly I achieved enough growth first that I didn’t accept that hurt). Most support groups know that vulnerable people will be in attendance at their meetings, so they have strong ground rules to protect those vulnerable people. It is egregious to gather vulnerable people together and not protect them. It is common to have two leaders, so one can take the reins if the other acts inappropriately in any way or so one can keep the group going if the other one needs to excuse themselves with a member who is acting inappropriately. Those support groups can be a great starting point for learning how to set the right boundaries with people -- they can be a great practice ground for using what you learn about boundaries. I have been in Alanon and National Association of Mental Illness family groups to help me deal with those around me struggling with addiction and mental illness. I have also been in chronic illness support groups, caregiver support groups, grief support groups, and religious abuse recovery support groups. I have been strengthened by all of them and was only handled inappropriately in one of them. That is a great place to start learning how to create a new familiar you can be drawn to. If you are in a situation where you are becoming vulnerable again like I did when I was a caregiver and grieving the loss of those I had cared for, these are a great place to help you regain any boundaries your vulnerability allowed you to lose.

I have told the story in the past of how my old boss, Rosemary, told me that healing would happen in layers like peeling away the layers of an onion. I can’t say step by step exactly how I got to the point where I now have mostly good friends in my life, because it did happen in layers. Some key points were practicing the boundaries I was learning by being involved in support groups where boundaries were part of the culture. One major key point was when I met my friend, Linde Grace White, who was a counselor. She taught me by her example of being a good friend how to practice what I was learning. Another key point was the story I told in last week’s blog post about the woman who triggered on me in public. Friends, including a counselor friend, used what they saw to show me in detail exactly how I needed to better protect myself when I was vulnerable. I probably experienced more short-term growth from what that situation taught me than any other situation I’ve yet experienced. A similar situation happened recently that expanded on that growth. I’m currently in a hobby group. An ultra-religious man felt the story I told in my book “The Blood Moon Sealed My Fate” should not have been told, and he triggered on me in a meeting. In that case, it was not friends outside the group that came to my rescue. The people on the board who witnessed pieces of his outburst recognized that triggering on another member was never appropriate and triggering on them due to political or religious differences could not be tolerated. They set strong boundaries right away without accepting any excuses or justifications from the guilty party. This expanded on my healing. It emphasized that my counselor and I were not wrong to be frustrated with the other group when they didn’t take action against someone who triggered on a member in an environment designed to attract vulnerable people. It also taught me that I am continuing to grow and surrounding myself with healthier people all the time. This group proved how healthy it is, and I am a valued member. One layer at a time with more steps, layers, mistakes, etc. than I can map out right now, I got to the point where I have mostly good friends. I’m still growing and am not yet confident that I will never let another person abuse me, especially if I’m facing situations that are making me more vulnerable, but I do have confidence that I will never be surrounded by addicts, alcoholics, abusers, or dysfunction as my main source of friends again. That is growth.

I wish you all could have witnessed even a video of the friendship I had with Linde Grace, because that was the epitome of a good friendship. We gave to each other equally. When I was a busy caregiver and didn’t have time for her, she offered understanding and support. She never pressured me to give more than I could give. She always expressed gratitude for everything I gave, especially when I gave it during times of trials. She expressed to me many times when I was a caregiver that my needs were greater and made me the priority in the friendship, and I also recognized when her needs escalated and she needed to be the priority. If we had a disagreement, it stayed minor, because we sat down and talked it out with the goal of finding a resolution. We knew the friendship was way more important than either of us holding onto our need to be right. We were both writers and thus introverts who needed time writing, and we always respected each other’s request for time to write. We always complimented each other in sincere ways, and since neither one of us had an ego that needed to be fed, that led us to helping each other be the best each of us could be. She was the first friend I truly had that with, and I will always cherish her for giving me the practice ground to practice what I was intellectually learning as I healed. Now, I have several friends that I have this type of respectful union with. I also have the knowledge that there are only so many hours in the day, and that makes it impossible to be this with everyone. Therefore, I need to create an inner circle of the people it is working with and make them my priority. That is what friendship looks like, and I thank God I am finally experiencing that more often than not. I believe that can happen for everyone reading this blog if you stay the course, keep peeling away the layers of your onion, and keep looking for healthy environments where you can practice what your healing teaches you.