For as long as I can remember, people have sought me out for help, for advice, for aid in a troubling situation or in just general counseling. I’m a coach. It’s what I do. It’s very flattering that people seem to think I have it together, or at least together enough to help, or to advise someone in a situation where they’re struggling.
Recently with Covid, I’ve spoken to a lot of people who are really struggling financially, emotionally, obviously physically with health concerns and just feeling like they’re constantly fighting uphill. I want them to know that I’ll always be there to help. But the last few years have, probably through some fault of my own created a series of one-sided relationships in my life, wherein the only time I hear from people is when they need help. When they need a ride, when they need advice, when they need me to talk to someone, when they have career problems and they would like to know a strategy to help them cope.
I always want to help a friend. It’s human nature. And more to the point, it’s MY nature. But then as soon as the help is provided I often don’t see these people until they need help again.
Ghosting ..It makes me feel used, taken advantage of, and taken for granted. And that is the cardinal sin with me.
When I reach the point where I feel people are attempting to manipulate me or use me for their own good, like a dime store narcissist, I’m done. I feel hurt, angry, frustrated. I frequently lash out, and eventually I walk away . I’ve gotten a little better at not lashing out, but I’ve walked away from my closest friend of over 50 years, many members of my immediate family, and people I’ve worked with for years as a result.
When you reach a certain age, you start to realize how very much you need your friends. They’re the spice in a life that hasn’t had much diversity, because you’ve been so mindlessly busy with grown up things: kids, house, work, spouse, or the crisis du jour. Then one day you look up and discover that their are no more ladders to climb, the children into whom you’ve pumped the lions share of your life are grown and on their own, your partner may or may not still be by your side.
And what remains? With any luck, a good friend or two…and if those friendships wither and die, so will a part of me.
The common thread here as always, is me. My willingness to help has created a dynamic that leaves me feeling used and then cast aside. So I’ve had to come to grips with the fact that I haven’t clearly established boundaries, and I probably don’t command the respect from people I think I deserve.
Unfortunately I know my self-worth, and it’s at great odds with the current conventional wisdom. Im no longer in the prime friend making stage of life. I should be in the friendship-enjoying stage, basking in the glow of relationships that survived as I grew up. This makes them rare and precious and irreplaceable, and worth saving at almost all costs. Losing a friend takes a piece of my history with it, the shared experiences, the knowledge and advice shared, the greater sense of wholeness and validation that the friendship provided.. they all perish as well.
And my deepest secrets, the things so important to me that I only dared share them with my closest friends feel so unprotected and available. Losing a good friend creates a profound sense of vulnerability. But long and deep and true friendships themselves are the exception, not the rule, and most die from apathy and distance and the changing of circumstances between the players. The great myth we tell ourselves as friendships fade is that we have time. And so we downplay these setbacks, back burner them until they no longer seem worth the effort. But time lost can never be recovered and time in the future is never promised.
Obviously this is not everyone. I’m really proud of the friends that I’ve had for years. I’ll defend them, protect them, help them, and go to the wall for them. And I think they know that. I like to think I’m a good friend, loyal and trustworthy and willing to ride shotgun on a moments notice. I’m also overly sensitive, prone to feeling slighted, and chock full of abandonment issues and anxieties. But I believe my friend-meter needle points firmly in the positive zone.
I think I’m a pretty good judge of character. But every once in a while one sneaks past my radar and into my realm of close friends, only to cast me aside once all I had to offer them was given. I don’t have a solution. And unfortunately I develop feelings for friends and I have a great reluctance to ever give up on people, so I stick around too long, feel like a fool, and it ends badly. Lather, rinse, repeat. I’ve made it a point in recent years to cut people out of my life who no longer fit the bill as a “friend“.
People who just need a favor that I’ve mistaken for a friend … That’s on me. People who entered my inner circle under false pretenses to take advantage of the things that I can offer… That insincerity is inherently cruel and emotionally devastating.
I realize I’m just like everyone else. I have problems, I struggle, and I put my head in my hands and weep privately from the heart. And apparently, I’m a slow learner because I’ve repeated this on numerous occasions. It’s amazing to me that people think I have it all together and can help them, but sometimes I pray that I find someone in this world willing to help me on that level. It’s probably the only thing in the world keeps me going. The idea that I’ve risen above some really poor and all-to-common human behavior. It’s been said that “tomorrow’s another day”. It will just have to be with other people.
Friends can break your heart sometimes.