How do you find "social support"?

Thanks for this again. I have been thinking about it myself, and I think the problem isn't even these boundaries. The problem is something about my past and unprocessed emotions messing up my inner state and then consequently the interactions (even if it is not visible to others, if I keep all of it in).



Oh god. I'm not sure but this may have given me some bit of understanding on something. So do you mean, emotions are visibly running high? And the person wants/needs emotional support, like, outright consolation? And like, the person needs it for long hours for a while? Or like, the person needs to talk about their issue for long hours to a sympathetic listening ear? Is that what people think of when hearing the word "crisis"?



I will add more on the topic of seeking support in crisis but I'd like to hear from you first about whether I'm going in the right direction with this.



Err... Listening to me? Listening to what? Venting? Pouring out sad feelings?

I'm just trying to confirm that this is what you meant - if not then let me know.

As far as other support, she likes to feel for me a little sometimes (for a few seconds), she sometimes tells me let's go for a walk, or she is happy to cook a lunch for me or make a favourite drink for me. She's let me sleep over if too tired to go home & I had a period where I stopped caring at all and didn't even make food for myself so I moved to her place temporarily because I realised that was the responsible thing to do (ask for help, not do it all alone). It was the same with the suicidal feeling, I realised the responsible thing was to tell her/family so I wouldn't get even worse. Though, I probably was suicidal because the GP put me on Xanax 3 times a day for a few weeks (this was 2 years ago). It made me feel weird like that.


And I'm not sure really what else she has in mind but apart from her nagging me let's talk, (I am not sure what she has in mind with that, does she want to feel closer? or does she want to help me?), she keeps asking how I feel and also keeps telling me how good it is that I seem to be doing good - but it's only because I smile at her lol. Because she's important to me so I smile easily at her. That's really all it is. I don't think I can explain that to her and I didn't really try too hard at explaining. Because I know if I try to emphasise that no, I don't feel good, then she can also feel down (for a short time), and she can show pretty intense expressions and I'd rather stay away from that now. ...I understand it's just her getting emotionally involved but I'd rather not burden her and it doesn't help me either


Normally it's not a problem for me if someone shows negative emotions, I used to have a high tolerance for it, but after years of taking care of that "friend" and actually, another friend at the end of high school who kept pouring out her negativity on me, constantly venting, and sharing her negative thoughts, worries, everything, well yeah I just think I want to stop that pattern or something. Because it was just too much eventually back then at the end of high school too (when I was 18).

So I have low tolerance for it now, I need to get better first, until then it's really tricky, I just realised I was unable to fall asleep last night for 3 hours (until I took a xanax) because I took in some negative emotion from family too much. Yeah I had to ask, yeah, I was too tired to go home, I was about to go home, packed up my things and then I realised I was about to get knocked out (sleep debt). And realised the responsible thing for my most basic well-being (sleep, being able to function at all) was not going out and travel ~1 hour home at night. Yeah don't ask why it took me until that long to get ready, I was just simply too tired all weekend (sleep debt). So she was really annoyed and didn't really want to agree but did agree fast enough but it just still went over my threshold and couldn't sleep for 3 hours and that's gonna interfere with my day today lol. I am used to these little problems becoming bigger issues but I'm fed up with it also.

All this is why I want to really disconnect for now even from family. Without feeling low from it, like, I need to see it's temporary or something...

edit: Plus I need to see how it's "best friend" (plus the other person who first created the cPTSD for me) feelings that mess up things even with family



Anyhow I am going to try and do something with my day now.

EDIT: Sorry, I think a lot came out of me now, it's just,.... I don't expect consolation or whatever, I think I don't wanna think about this more until the end of today at least.



***

OK I didn't reflect on your list yet but this popped up for me now so I'll share real quick:

"within their nonprofessional skill set"

Yes that's OK with family

"within your regular frequency of asking"

I feel like that's OK too tbh, it's hard to tell, I don't know, do I ask "am I asking for help too often?" O_o My mother defffinitely doesn't spend 9 hours with me a week lol

"when you are in a pinch"

Yeah that's what I do, I ask exactly when I'm in a pinch and ...well yeah I've said a few things about that in my above post.

EDIT (added after I wrote all the rest of this post bc that's when I got these thoughts): Maybe I'm in a pinch too often but that's my condition, or what should I do about it?! The one thing I can do about it is disconnect from family too and just pay for services, food, taxi, whatever (Say taxi yesterday to take me home when tired and about to be knocked out) But it also just annoys me tbh and makes me lose trust more if I think of it that negatively. I dunno. I have to think about this part a load more. But it DOES make me feel negative if I think of paying through the nose for a taxi just because randomly I may receive a "no", when usually it's totally fine if I sleep over?? What's that randomness?? It makes me lose trust, because "best friend" got so random too especially near the end of the relationship. She ("best friend") used to not be randomly negative like that.... ?!?

I just know my instincts are SCREAMING at me "RUN!!!!" "don't risk more!!!!"

And then other instinct screaming at me "don't be open" and then "its gonna be ****ed up if I'm not open anymore ever with anyone else ever again"

It's a mess.

"when you are asking someone who (as far as you know) has time to help"

Yes that's OK

"when you are asking someone who has given you good reason to think that are okay with being asked"

That's where it gets messed up because it seems so random. Maybe she's just a moody person, I don't know.... She's usually happy but can also be intensely negative for short times like make these intense negative faces if she's in a bad mood. I really don't think she has a high capacity for internalising. ME EITHER LOL it causes problems because I have to choose between not sleeping for hours unless I take the xanax or externalising and who wants all that conflict if the goal was to have a nice supportive relationship (mutually supportive preferably). Dunno, this is too much for me while I try to just recover from the cPTSD : (

"when you are calm, or you know that they will be calm, and okay with you being upset"

YES this is SO random with her
I CANNOT predict her responses, absolutely not, lol

And I cannot predict or even READ MY OWN inner state like I don't know when it's going to be over my threshold and when it's okay! Sometimes I'm fine with it and sometimes I take it in too much

And I noticed I can see myself taking it in sorta.....but I have no idea what to do with it I just freeze on the spot and take it in

Maybe it's the cPTSD though

Btw you said that thing about them dealing with my upset. Nah I don't think I'm upset when I ask for x thing in a pinch like yesterday evening. I just ask like a usual question/request/anything, it's not me being crazy upset, I don't know but I just know I don't feel crazy upset or in a crisis or any of that. It's a simple practical issue to be solved in my mind and then it gets all emotional bc of their response and I don't need it to get emotional when it was a simple practical problem!!

To be clear the issue isn't the money. I'm capable of paying for a taxi, I considered just doing that, but then she said yeah nevermind I can sleep over. But she did the negative face and I was already about to be knocked out -> problem.

Until now we had the "repairs" easily enough, like when she was in a good mood again, and maybe I processed a little too while lying down, so it helped, but it also caused me lost sleep and lost energy and everything too often, while obviously she's not knocked off balance because she doesn't have cPTSD.

(BTW before cPTSD especially before "best friend" sh**, I used to read her negative faces as just fun drama Lol. She really does move on from the bad mood fast and I do too, or I did before cPTSD or when I'm not overloaded now, then I can still move on fast)


I would never try to explain that to her though lol.

I'm just FED UP because I don't need it to get in my way anymore. That simple.

That's the practical side of it, that's simple.

The emotional side of it is a mess, thanks cPTSD, but yeah. I can view it as, ok, yeah she doesn't know what she's doing, she simply doesn't feel like giving all that much, because, whatever, because, blah, ....at that point I have a loss of trust.

And too tired to try and process this again to get over it. No.



OK trying again. If I never ask her for anything again and I just pay for a taxi right away or... actually, AND THEN not even come over again then that's disconnecting from her & family and I'll have a loss of trust and it won't be magically fixed and it will pull me lower when I am trying to recover. It's going to be like the "best friend", karma or whatever. You know all that her giving it on to me. I know that's stupid ideas LOL but yeah. It's totally the shortest explanation

If I ask her again sometimes, I risk the above mess. I don't know how long I can keep it up, my dealin' with it

(Or I can default to how I was. Distant. Not totally avoiding her or family but...Asking and giving extremely rarely, not meeting often. She doesn't want me to be distant anymore, I know that much. Family overall doesn't want me to be distant like I used to be)


It's a fu**in big load of mess either direction.



And I was finally gonna have a good day today. I was all purposeful for doing today, working during the day and NOT at night. Lol that's when I slip over these banana peels and get hit hard !! Thanks karma or whatever it is lol!!

Thanks for your posts. I think I am getting a better understanding of what you are dealing with.

Well no I wouldn't call that a "crisis" but I would imagine that one would look at it from the perspective of our list of what makes for a less risky request.

I think we are groping forward and have not necessarily reached a final draft!

It sounds like a big issue is the unpredictability of your mother's responses. Let say that you ask to stay over ten times. Six times she might be lovely, two times she might be grudging, and two times she might be overtly negative about it, but there seems to be no way to tell beforehand which response you are going to get! And so what seems to be a basic, simple, noncontroversial request suddenly blows up, and because of cPTSD you take the blow up very hard.

How accurate is the that last paragraph?

You have mentioned your sister several times. It sounds like you are saying that your mother devotes more time to her than to you, those 9 hours per week. I wonder if you could describe what thoughts and feelings come up when you think about your mother's relationship with your sister.

Thank you too for reading I'm glad if it helps understand more.

What does a crisis look like in your opinion?


And specifically, what do people think of when someone says they are in a crisis and would like to talk? "Oh god he/she must be so desperate and I'm going to have to spend all my day helping them going deep in their soul and play therapist and get pulled down myself"? (Lol that was just one example)


Also what do people think of when they talk of listening like you mentioned above? I.e. "what she has been doing/proposing lately in regard to listening to/supporting you"

Listening to a vent, to sad thoughts, or something else or all of that...?


I am asking because I did notice some people before thought I was interested in something like "therapy" or like a lot of soul-related deep talks? I never asked what they really had in mind, though.



That's pretty accurate.



Oh she has 4 kids so I don't at all mind any of that. She does need the help.

I don't really have any thoughts or feelings other than a few memories like the one I mentioned about the vacation. I know I didn't feel good at those times with that vacation, like I felt intentionally ignored

But my sister doesn't really have anything to do with my issues, I only asked my mother about it because I wanted some more context about it all, I thought the more context I see the better.

Edit: a few hours later after I first read your post/question, I can think of this too now. As for thoughts/feelings, I mean. I always thought they can share better with each other. More intimately, but I don't actually know. Because my sister will do it with me too, i.e. will talk like that to me too, just not often. She talks a lot more with my mother. My mother I doubt she talks about too many deep things to my sister though, it's probably my sister talking like that, as she's that kind of person. But they do seem to be able to talk longer together than with me. And I felt left out of that a long time ago. But again I don't think this is relevant because I have my own ways to spend enjoyable times with my mother, it's just that for a long time I was distant from everyone, not just from family.

While writing this out, I switched to the positive in the middle of it. Because I've thought about that today, about positive ways to have interactions with my family. Or with anyone else really. It strongly relates to me finding my old/real self again.

Thanks for your response!

Here is a definition from Collins online dictionary:

A crisis is a situation in which something or someone is affected by one or more very serious problems.

If someone was told that their friend/relative was in crisis and needed to talk, three of the items in our list might come to mind:

"I won't be able to help"
"This is going to take a long time"
"That person is going to be really upset"

Plus they might also be thinking, depending on the situation:

"Not again."
"I really don't want to deal with this."

I think what this all means is that one needs to be judicious about who one approaches when in crisis. People can be genuine friends and nevertheless not feel willing or able to help out when there are serious problems.

Can you say more about positive ways to have interactions with your family, and also more about how that relates to finding you old/real self again?

Thank you too again!

Yeah, the psychological definition is, a situation where someone's coping resources are temporarily overwhelmed.

Hm well.

I notice you did not list thoughts of concern for the person in crisis.

Is there any particular reason why you didn't?

What emotions do you think motivate the thoughts in this list?



The IRL friends I had, they came to me with crises just fine. They were suicidal, or being deceived by a guy, or overwhelmed with financial issues and/or with total, complete hopelessness, and so on. There was a lot of that over the years tbh. I am talking about two friends or "friends", the first two issues were one friend (the more normal friend) and the rest were the other friend (the toxic one). The toxic one is who had a lot of it over the years, the other friend didn't have so much of it or so regularly. (Not the same friend as the one in high school)

Do you want to know what I was thinking each time?

Well firstoff, I never ever thought "not again" or "I really don't want to deal with this".... I just never thought any of that.

What I did think when these friends or "friends" came to me with crises was,

- "I would like to know more on their issue!!, see if I can help a little or be there for them at least".

As far as the rest of your list, I didn't think "this is going to take a long time", because I can set limits on time, but of course I did make the mistake of not really checking the time a long time ago. If it was now, I would pay attention to how long I'm spending on it though. I also didn't think "I won't be able to help" because I'm like, just being there and being attentive already helps, that's how I think about it.

- "That person is going to be really upset". Yes, I would think that too. No problem with that in my eyes.

Again, the psychological definition of crisis includes overwhelmed coping resources. Your friend may not temporarily be able to be "judicious". My friends or "friends" were also *not* able to be judicious in their crises. I never judged them for that.

What would make someone - who's a genuine friend - not willing? Do you have examples of this? I'm really interested in this one.

What would make someone think things like "I really don't want to deal with this"? (Variation on the question of, what emotions motivate the thoughts in the above list)

I'll get to this a bit later, it's late here now and have to pull the thoughts together.

We have been focusing on what make make a friend or family member more or less willing to agree to be helpful. I think that their closeness, friendliness, love would bear on the point "Asking someone who has given you good reason to think that they don't mind being asked, or even like being asked." Maybe the point you are making should be made more explicitly?

Possible emotions regarding wanting to help: love, affection, admiration, worry, fear/shame of letting someone down

Possible emotions regarding not wanting to help: fear of failure, fear of interference with other plans, resentment at being asked (or at too much being asked), shame at seeing relative/friend in crisis, dislike of one's own emotional state/anxiety, discomfort with uncertainty as to eventual success of effort and how much time will be involved.

Probably there can be more on both sides.

Not everyone is as good and reliable and amazing of a friend as you are!

Perhaps this was a lesson painfully learned?

Didn't your "friends" consistently know to come to you, that you would be there for them?

Maybe someone is drunk and the friend had an alcoholic parent and is triggered and simply cannot deal. Maybe the friend has a massively important family or career event in the next few hours. Maybe what is being asked is just too much (e.g. leave your child alone to come and stay overnight with me), maybe they don't approve of what is being asked (e.g. drive me to get vaccinated).

I think that there could be lots of reasons. Your definition of "genuine friend" might include doing all of the above but, again, not everyone is as good and reliable and amazing a friend as you.

Yeah, I think the emotions above cover this, or try to.

It sounds like, in general, you have a very broad, inclusive understanding of what you should be and do as a friend. Perhaps regrettably, not everyone shares that perspective. And in considering who is likely to be helpful in a crisis, my thought is that one needs to take into consideration how the other people view friendship, what they feel willing and able to do in response to being asked to help.

How did you eventually come to stop viewing those "friends" as friends?