One of the things I noticed about myself is that I tend to be caring and understanding when it comes to the emotional challenges of others. Unfortunately, I ended up with individuals who were themselves not the same way. I had friends that would call me to ask me how I was but what they really wanted was to talk about THEIR emotional challenges and needs. For the longest time it was very hard for me to share my own personal challenges and I just began to feel so vulnerable like it was wrong. I had not realized that the reason I feel that way is because of the people around me in my life that needed to dump their emotional issues on me, and yet could not do the same for me and even would actually get short with me, even say "keep it short", when these very same people would not feel that applied to them. Yes, I have had friends where I really had to keep it about THEM and be very careful about how I would respond other wise I would get their anger dumped on me too.

I had a friend that I helped a lot and when I was really struggling she tried to be helpful but did get impatient. When I developed ptsd, this friend could not understand WHY conversations simply could not completely revolve around HER. What I finally discovered in the worst way was how angry this friend would get when I helped others and talked to them too and respected their feelings too. I went out for my birthday with her and we sat at a bar and there was a nice couple I had met before and we all started talking and my friend began to need the entire conversation centered around her and her feelings about things. She began to get political and it started to upset this other couple and my friend just would not take the hint to let go and talk about something else. I managed to pull the conversation to a newer topic thinking that would get things back to being pleasent again. I thought it went fine, however, the next time I went out with this friend she literally blew up at me in front of other people while we were out to dinner at a nice restaurant. She blew up at me for not allowing that conversation to continue to revolve around her. She even said I ignored her and that evening she had really been the center of attention for most of the time. She was mean to me and loud in front of other people I ended up walking out. I actually saw that couple again to ask them if I ignored my friend and they clearly remembered that was not the case and that my friend insisted on controlling the conversation.

I have learned that some people you can trust with your emotions and some people you just can't. I have also come to realize that I need to be a bit careful in that I am very good at helping others with challenged emotions, however, I can also end up having to deal with a person's need to dump their anger on me too if I somehow failed to respond exactly the way that person needed me to respond.

I think the key is to learn that when you interact with certain people they may not respond to you exactly the way you need them to. The friend that I described above, is not someone I can share MY needs with and have her respond to me in a way that actually contributes to my feeling BETTER and that it was SAFE to actually sit and share my personal emotional challenges with. This friend ended up teaching me something very important about her in that when I have challenges myself, she is simply not the right person to share with, gotta keep it "short" unless it's all about HER. And I really have to remember "do not talk about me AT ALL, and keep the conversation focused on HER". I found that the best way to have boundaries with this person is to "keep it short" when I talk about myself otherwise I will end up being talked down to and condescended to.

Often boundaries are not so much about changing the other person, but, instead changing what you ask of that person that can leave you open to the very behavior you don't want to get from that person. And sometimes, it can mean recognizing when someone comes to you for an emotional dump and maybe it's not such a good idea to get that person too comfortable with expecting that of you. In the end, when it comes down to having a friend that can be a real good friend where it's safe to give and take in a healthy way, those friends are few and far between.