Do you know what I mean by "toxic" people? Its kind of hard to explain to someone who isn't in recovery yet. Toxic people pull on you emotionally. They hold your relationship ransom. If you do not act or respond the way they want you to, you will pay for it from now on.
They will remind you of any fault or misdeed every chance they get. They will hold it over your head, recount it, and tell everyone else of how you have failed them in some way. They will whine when you do not perform the way they imagined you should. They will pull on you emotionally and psychologically, forever wanting something you cannot give. They badger you, call incessantly, ask why you haven't called them back, and wonder why you don't want to call them back.
I have a limit to how much I can handle, and how much of my time I spend with these type of people. I actually begin to feel angry when faced with a toxic person now - and that's okay. Anger is a warning signal. Anger tells you to be careful or afraid of something or someone. Listen to your anger.
Before getting into recovery I did not know these people were toxic. I grew up with toxic parents. Our home was a stew of unrealistic expectations, hurt feelings, dashed hopes, and always, there was the never ending revenge to exact.
Sickness runs in familes. Until one gets some help, and "you" discover you are toxic as well. If you have an inkling that you are a toxic person, please talk to a counselor. There are even books on toxic people. Check one out to see if "someone you know" is a toxic person, and learn how to cope. If you discover you are a toxic person, think about this, "Maybe you wouldn't get your feelings so hurt if your expectations weren't so unrealistically high."
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Friendship - No Strings Attached
I have an acquaintance who I have never really gotten to know very well, but I like as a person. Our friendship is kinda different. He is the husband of a "lost" girlfriend of mine...long story. Anyway, he is concerned about us becoming closer friends, since my girlfriend and I are astranged right now. I have told him not to be concerned about our being friends, in connection with my friendship with his wife, nor her new "significant other," also a "lost" friend. Our friendship does not hinge on either of these two people liking it, or on their feelings about the situation.
His and my friendship can exist outside of my friendship with other people. I hope I am more mature than to allow someone to control who I am friends with, and I hope my friends are more mature as well. He can have his feelings and opinions - from his personal point of view, and I will have mine from my point of view. We can always agree to disagree if necessary. And that is the mature way to handle such things.
I love my lost girlfriend very, very much. I love and care about the other lost friend very much as well. Their behavior does not change the fact that I love them, care about them, and want the very best for each of them (separately). I do not have to agree with the decisions they have made, to continue loving them and considering them friends, whether they feel that way about me now or not.
Feelings are fickle things, they come and go, they can change based on circumstances. They can change based on someone's own feelings of guilt and embarrishment. Love, real love, does not change, no matter what the person does. I still love my ex-husband very much, and will probably never find anyone else that I will care as deeply for, or have as strong a connection with. But that does not mean that I can live with him. He is a very emotionally and psychologically sick person, as I was at one time.
I got the counseling and help that I needed to move out of that sickness, and I cannot subject myself to that sickness any longer. He did not get the help he needed. He felt he did not have a problem (denial), but when I speak to him even today, I can tell he has not grown emotionally or psychologically, and still has a very sick way of looking at life and people. It saddens me that he is stuck in that place.
There are people who are sick and/or toxic, and without help, will never find peace and happiness. That does not mean I cannot still love them, even in their sickness. I pray for both these lost friends almost every day. I pray that they will seek the help they need to move out of their sick thinking (stinkin' thinkin'). I pray one day God will be able to push through the blanket of denial they are both hiding under. But it is easier to hid one's head in the sand that to sum up the courage to face one's faults, wrongdoings, and sick thinking, and face one's "self." It hurts a great deal, and it takes a very long time to work through all of the hurts from the past. It is not an easy road, and many people cannot muster the courage it takes just to get started.
The hardest step is the first one, and people are so afraid that they won't even chance taking the first step. If they do, and it begins to hurt, and they begin to feel worse about themselves, they quit.They don't realize that its always darkest before the sunrise, and that if they will just continue forward, however slowly, they will begin to see rays of golden light on the other side of the darkness, and that will give them the courage to continue onward and upward.
I made a valuable decision in 1988, and that was that no matter how much it hurt to face myself, my faults, wrongdoings, and failures, that the process of healing would never be as painful as the life I was living. To continue living in the emotional pain I was in would have resulted in death for me. I had to move towards healing. I did not believe in suicide, and believe it is a sin against God to just check out, give up on myself and on life, on othes, on God. I refused to consider it, so I had two choices, stay where I was emotionally, or move towards healing. I chose healing, and that meant intense counseling for years.
It paid off. I am a different person than I was then. I am happier, and I am continually stretching myself and looking to improve myself. I am not stuck in sick thinking any longer. I can face myself and my faults on a regular basis, and it no longer hurts to do that. It even feels good, refreshing...healing. Healing has become a way of life, a "lifestyle" so to speak, and I am so grateful to God for being there and him helping me through it all.
Sorry for the sermon! I just feel so very deeply and intensely about counseling and healing from our past, that I beleive the world would be a better place if everyone would get real with themselves and deal with their own "shit," so to speak.
Okay, sermon over. As I said, my friendship with this guy has nothing to do with his astranged wife, nor with the male friend that she has "hooked up" with, just as my firendship with other people in this tangled web of deception and deciept has nothing to do with anyone else.
Friendship shouldn't have strings attached.
His and my friendship can exist outside of my friendship with other people. I hope I am more mature than to allow someone to control who I am friends with, and I hope my friends are more mature as well. He can have his feelings and opinions - from his personal point of view, and I will have mine from my point of view. We can always agree to disagree if necessary. And that is the mature way to handle such things.
I love my lost girlfriend very, very much. I love and care about the other lost friend very much as well. Their behavior does not change the fact that I love them, care about them, and want the very best for each of them (separately). I do not have to agree with the decisions they have made, to continue loving them and considering them friends, whether they feel that way about me now or not.
Feelings are fickle things, they come and go, they can change based on circumstances. They can change based on someone's own feelings of guilt and embarrishment. Love, real love, does not change, no matter what the person does. I still love my ex-husband very much, and will probably never find anyone else that I will care as deeply for, or have as strong a connection with. But that does not mean that I can live with him. He is a very emotionally and psychologically sick person, as I was at one time.
I got the counseling and help that I needed to move out of that sickness, and I cannot subject myself to that sickness any longer. He did not get the help he needed. He felt he did not have a problem (denial), but when I speak to him even today, I can tell he has not grown emotionally or psychologically, and still has a very sick way of looking at life and people. It saddens me that he is stuck in that place.
There are people who are sick and/or toxic, and without help, will never find peace and happiness. That does not mean I cannot still love them, even in their sickness. I pray for both these lost friends almost every day. I pray that they will seek the help they need to move out of their sick thinking (stinkin' thinkin'). I pray one day God will be able to push through the blanket of denial they are both hiding under. But it is easier to hid one's head in the sand that to sum up the courage to face one's faults, wrongdoings, and sick thinking, and face one's "self." It hurts a great deal, and it takes a very long time to work through all of the hurts from the past. It is not an easy road, and many people cannot muster the courage it takes just to get started.
The hardest step is the first one, and people are so afraid that they won't even chance taking the first step. If they do, and it begins to hurt, and they begin to feel worse about themselves, they quit.They don't realize that its always darkest before the sunrise, and that if they will just continue forward, however slowly, they will begin to see rays of golden light on the other side of the darkness, and that will give them the courage to continue onward and upward.
I made a valuable decision in 1988, and that was that no matter how much it hurt to face myself, my faults, wrongdoings, and failures, that the process of healing would never be as painful as the life I was living. To continue living in the emotional pain I was in would have resulted in death for me. I had to move towards healing. I did not believe in suicide, and believe it is a sin against God to just check out, give up on myself and on life, on othes, on God. I refused to consider it, so I had two choices, stay where I was emotionally, or move towards healing. I chose healing, and that meant intense counseling for years.
It paid off. I am a different person than I was then. I am happier, and I am continually stretching myself and looking to improve myself. I am not stuck in sick thinking any longer. I can face myself and my faults on a regular basis, and it no longer hurts to do that. It even feels good, refreshing...healing. Healing has become a way of life, a "lifestyle" so to speak, and I am so grateful to God for being there and him helping me through it all.
Sorry for the sermon! I just feel so very deeply and intensely about counseling and healing from our past, that I beleive the world would be a better place if everyone would get real with themselves and deal with their own "shit," so to speak.
Okay, sermon over. As I said, my friendship with this guy has nothing to do with his astranged wife, nor with the male friend that she has "hooked up" with, just as my firendship with other people in this tangled web of deception and deciept has nothing to do with anyone else.
Friendship shouldn't have strings attached.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Sons and Daughters
If my luck is bad and his aim is straightI will leave my life on the killing field.
You can see me die on the nightly news
As you settle down to your evening meal.
But you'll turn your back as you often do
Yet I am your sons and daughters too.
In the city streets where the neon lights
Turn my skin from black to electric blue
My hope soaks red on the gray pavement
And my dreams die hard for my life is through.
But you'll turn your back as you often do
Yet I am your sons and daughters too.
Maya Angelou (excerpt)
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