Quote:
Originally Posted by Melbadaze
I think we do what we do until we know better. Telling someone not to hang out with so and so may work for a few days but unless the internal chage has occured its pointless. I know through therapy and learning or at least beginning too learn what a healthy person looks like there are people I no longer "mix" with, I'm not rude to them but i
I am happy to keep it at a "hi glad your ok", its like going back to infant sch where the chairs look inviting until you go to sit down and realise how much you've grown and they haven't.
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Hi Melbadaze,
I am starting to learn what a healthy person is, and i definitely am looking for friends of that sort now. I'm taking it really slow and spending time to observe people and think about who might make a good friend for me.
What i see as my big problem now (and it has been a problem for me for "years," even in therapy), is in not being able to truly let go of these former friends in my heart. It must be true that as long as i'm feeling this intense draw/need to have them in my life, i really haven't done the "work" that i need to do in order to fill that huge empty hole that i feel inside from having having felt/not feeling loved by my parents and my attraction to people who violate my boundaries in exchange for what feels like love and security to me. What kills me, though, is that i have worked very hard in therapy. So i don't know why i can't get past this issue/problem?!
What makes it harder to let go is that they share my religious faith, and i run into them every 6 months or so at shared events we attend. For example, yesterday, our congregation met at a different time than usual. As i was entering the building, i ran into the second old friend, as her congregation was just leaving from their meeting. I came face to face with her. I think i handled it well. I said hello and inquired how she was, then gracefully made an exit. But as i was walking away, she mentioned again that we should get together one of these days. I smiled but didn't respond, and just continued walking away. But after seeing her, i found myself having a really hard time paying attention to the program. I felt thoroughly affected. I could feel that ache of loss all over again. It's so hard.
I feel like I'm doing the right thing by not getting involved with these two again. But a part of me really wishes the relationships could be restored and restructured, that the dynamics could be changed to allow us to relate more as adult to adult friends. With one friend in particular, we were normal friends for years without the unhealthy dynamics making things unbalanced. It was really when i sunk into my clinical depression that everything went haywire, in that I involved them in my issues and they over-reacted by trying to take over to solve them. Had i not gotten depressed and needing so much help, i think one of the friendships would have continued. The other would not have happened at all, as it started as a helping relationship.
But. . .hindsight.