friendships

Friendships are a complicated thing. Sometimes I wish I could do without them but of couse the human rase is built on the wants and needs of people connecting with each other. It never stops amazing me how problems in friendships arise. I have DID and at one point I felt I was very alone in this so I asked my therapist if she had any clients like me. She said yes so I asked her to ask them if they would be willing to meet me. One said ok. so My therapist introduced me to the person and her roommate. These people and I started forming a friendship. But then as time went on I noticed one of the women wanted more of a "take care of me" type relationship. She was constantly suicidal and actively looking for ways to go into hospitals and I was at a point where I want nothing to do with hospitals. She wanted to use her problems to get sympathy, attention and a caretaker. I was at a point where I wanted to fix what was wrong with me and take care of myself. So I started pulling myself away from this person. She did land in the hospital.a couple years went by and I joined a depression group and the first person I saw was this persons roommate (no longer her roomate I later found out). So I figured ok this can be uncomfortable or the two of us can see where things are at. Outside of group time I watched for this woman and found her. We talked and set boundiries. We both wanted to remain in the group, we both shared a mutual friend. We talked about where this friend fit into our respective lives. And we respect each other views. We both know that at any point we can discuss our problems with each other but we leave our friendship with the other person at the door. We do this because we both care for the third friend in different ways and we don't expect each other to choose one or the others way of liking the third friend. Everyone is treated like an equal regardless of disorder, likes dislikes and so on. This is one of my best friendships in life. I have many of these type friendships and these are very healthy type friendships.

But occasionally there comes some very different types of friendships.

Theres the "give me give me give me" type where one member feels they cannot be friends with someone unless that person is giving them something be it material objects or physical or mental care taking. I usually end up on here have this side of the friendship That is until I ended up in a mental health unit for suicide because I gave so much of myself that there was nothing left for me. I had a friend who came to the hospital not to take anything from me but to GIVE TO ME something of herself and a fantastic book called the giving tree. A simple story about a boy and a tree. The tree gives everything to the boy through out the boys lifetime until the boy is an old man and there is nothing left for the tree to give. he had been shade in trouble and leasure, swung on in play, carved into in love, shopped down in marriage and now all that was left was a stump of himself and he glady gave up that too. Thanks to my friend Susan M and that book I learned in order for me to be a good friend I had to first take care of myslf, and that meant not giving everything I had away to take care of others to the point where I like the tree was reduced to nothing.

Another kind of unhealthy friendship that I have encountered is thse where one person moves faster than another on a healing path. I had a friend who was the world to me. Our friendship lasted 7 years and we were so close that her hiuband joked with her children on night as he was going to work and kissed them goodnight - have fun at mommy number twos. My friend is also a rape survivor. we both had trouble sleeping at night and have for quite sometime been keeping each other out of panic mode during the nights by meeting at eachothers houses. Heres when her husband worked days and mine when her husband worked nights. We would tuck the kids in bed and play cards until we couldn't keep eyes open any longer. Another friend frequently joined us. So anyway tiem went on. she got divorcesd and got into drugs and alcohol. everything was fine as long as I took care of the children and kept my mouth shut. but then a situation happened involving my son. And I realised that somewhere along the way I had slipped back into being the giver and I had to set some boundries on this friendship before I lost myself comepletely and not be any good for my son in the process. So I told this person I can no longer be there for you for this this and this. For those things you need to rely on a therapist for those topics are therapy related and I am not a therapist. First she pushed to see if I would budge past my boundries. But I did not. My life and sanity was at stake here along with my son's. This was not an I need some coffee ok here you go type situation. My boundries were not up for discussion. I firmly planted them. So then the friend used other tactics based in guilt - I did this this and this for you and you do nothing for me and if something happened to me suicide murder whatever you would feel so guilty. This then changed to anger I hate you type stuff and then she pulled out all the stopsigns by using my abusive past against me. I was not a good daughter because I did not give an inch with my abuser and in doing so he had died from the stress of my so called boundries and I was doing the same thing to her if she died it would be my fault and then later on I found out she did try to kill herself because I was planting boundries. Did I feel guilty when I found this out - NO it only makes me plant my boundries even firmer and lets me know that she no longer respects me as a person. To her I am an object to be at her beck and call. Which is what my abusers did to me. Therefore her actions, and words only sent her status of my friend down to her being one of my abusers and I have no place in my life for abusers. That unhealthy friendship is gone and will never be again.

In life everything comes with boundries from what time we have to get up for work and what standards we have to go by in order to keep our jobs, to how we raise our families right down to our likes and dislikes. Without those boundries nothing would get done, no one would be repecting each other.

Friendships are no different. They need boundries so that all in the relationships are treated as equals and with respect.

great material to consider. there have been many threads over time about boundaries and friendships in different forums. your situations are clear examples about the dangers of not setting or not respecting boundaries within friendships.

the Shel Silverstein book you mention was one of our favourites. we returned our beautiul copy to someone who needed the message more.....ironically we gave it back (years later) to the person who had given the book to us as a gift!

Thanks. My copy has on the inside cover a list of who the book has been passed to over the years. Right now its in my son's hands. I gave it to him when he felt he needed to give all of himself to please and take care of me. He has the main copy on his bookshelf here and we make copies for him to keep with him. Last time he was in foster care I made so many copies because he found people who needed to learn to take care of themselves.

To add to my above post:

The reason I wrote the above is because right now I am faced with a very unhealthy friendship where one friend keeps asking that I consider her side when dealing with a third friend.

My love of this friendship for both people is unconditional. I accept both for who they are - two separate people who I like.

In a healthy friendship

friends don't ask one to choose them over the other.

A friend does does not ask a friend to question what the other says or does.

A friend doesn't ask another to "read into" what one friend is talking about so that the third friends side "sqwuished into" that first friend opinions, feelings and so on.

In a healthy friendship all sides are equal. everyone is accepted for themselves and what they alone say and do.

A healthy friendship is where those that have a problem with the other they talk directly and do not ask the third to read into or choose sides.

A friendship without boundries and repect is abuse.

I have no place in my life for abusive friendships and I have no problem dropping the friend who is being abuse to me by asking me to participate in an unhealthy friendship. I have wrote to this person expressing my boundries so the next step is enforcing my boundries by either keeping her as a friend if she is no longer abusing the friendship or dropping her because she remains abusive. In life there are hard decisions to make but I learned long ago friendships need boundries and these are mine. Be it in real life or on line. I have to take care of myself in order to be a friend to others.