Protecting myself

[Blueberry]

A friend with C-PTSD phoned today. She's not a really close friend. She wanted to let me know that she'd put a letter in my letter box. Public holiday here today and tomorrow, so I wouldn't be looking in my letter box. So in her eyes it's urgent, otherwise the letter could wait till Thursday. And also it's probably something along the lines of "You hurt me then with what you said there". It is better for me when I get a letter with that type of information than a phone call. I am not averse to communicating on this type of thing i.e. on trying to clear up problems in a friendship, but now would be a bad time.

Then she proceeded to ask where we can send refugees, since she bumped into a couple outside my door when delivering the letter. So I said "Whatever Street but look I'm just back from 4 days of intensive therapy and my brain isn't functioning that well" to which she answered something like "I see, but can't you tell me where to send the refugees?" So I answered "Whatever Street and Whichever Road; Whichever Road must be quite near where you live. Whatever Street - I can't tell you where that is right now. As I said I'm just back from intensive therapy and I can't deal with this right now. I can't think. My brain and my feelings are dealing with quite other things."

So she did actually drop the subject. 

Also I felt her request inappropriate - there's a letter waiting to be read probably telling me I was hurting her or something, but then she tries to use me to get some information about something totally different. Go find somebody else to give you this information! Or check a town map, the Internet whatever!!

But then I asked her if she's sure her letter can't wait a few days! Repeated the "intensive therapy" and came back from it realising that I'd just been about to collapse, because I often don't realise that I'm on the verge of collapse in my day-to-day life. So she actually agreed that I shouldn't read her letter till I feel more stable.

I realise with that last paragraph that I'm still JADEing when I set a limit. This friend (or more likely just acquaintance really) can set limits much better towards me than I can towards her. But even while JADEing I did set a limit to protect myself, and I did find out information (the letter can wait) to give myself more time.

to myself.

[Andyman73]

Well done Blueberry!!! 

[Three Roses]

[Blueberry]

Thank you both 

[Andyman73]

You're quite welcome! 

[sanmagic7]

well done, blueberry.  maybe you're not all the way there yet, but you're getting much better at it.  that certainly deserves a celebration.          

you're really doing great.     

[Blueberry]

Acutally the content wasn't that triggering or worrying. A bit, but not as bad as I had envisaged. I read it quite a while ago in fact. But I've continued to protect myself from overload by not replying. She was actually replying to a note I'd put in her letterbox months before asking her to leave me in peace about a particular triggering subject for me. She hadn't seen the note till the day before she answered when she found it by accident. She didn't understand my original request though I think it was pretty clear. I guess not. 
Anyway I'm continuing to protect myself by not answering because dealing with FOO in Unsent Letters and all the pain that is bringing up is quite enough! Today eg I finally turned the washing machine on, the towels etc had been sitting in it waiting to be washed for a week.  Now they're sitting in it wet, waiting to be hung up. Today after turning the machine on I finally had the wherewithall to put the previous dry wash away. It had been hanging on my line for Idk 10 days maybe. It wasn't exhaustion that was preventing me, it was more an inability to start a job and finish. An inability to work at all methodically. I get like this in bad phases. It used to be all the time. I put some of the dry wash away last week but was unable to complete.

Such is my life in bad phases. So  when I put minor projects / people on the back burner for a while.

Same with the 'friend' who objects to "always" having to tiptoe around me checking for eggshells, though it's not "always" that's her interpretation due to her inability to listen. Anyway if I answer it doesn't have to be now.

[Andyman73]

Blueberry,
I understand about not starting even simple things like laundry. I look at some things and feel like they are bigger than the Great Wall in China. Even if they are really just an hour or two's worth of effort.

[Blueberry]

Blueberry,
I understand about not starting even simple things like laundry. I look at some things and feel like they are bigger than the Great Wall in China. Even if they are really just an hour or two's worth of effort.

Thank you! It's nice to be understood.

...just an hour or two's worth of effort.

Or even half an hour!
The problem for me with running the washing machine when I don't have the wherewithall for it is: the laundry would then sit wet in the machine for a few days. In the long run that makes more work, because you have to re-wash everything. Been there, done that.

[Andyman73]

Blueberry,
I understand about not starting even simple things like laundry. I look at some things and feel like they are bigger than the Great Wall in China. Even if they are really just an hour or two's worth of effort.

Thank you! It's nice to be understood.

...just an hour or two's worth of effort.

Or even half an hour!
The problem for me with running the washing machine when I don't have the wherewithall for it is: the laundry would then sit wet in the machine for a few days. In the long run that makes more work, because you have to re-wash everything. Been there, done that.

Yeah, I find it odd that mowing the lawn or clearing the snow off the driveway don't seem to have that effect on me. While less physically strenuous things really set me back.
Maybe it's the things wife would criticize and judge me for, that cause the most problems.

[Blueberry]

I finally wrote an answer to this acquaintance last night and put it in her letter box today. I re-read my original letter to her before I wrote (since she included it with her reply) and it is quite clear! I stand by it. She didn't understand, but I can't help that. 

No sooner had I got home from my delivery tour around town ( a number of letters, cards and other written info), I discovered this acquaintance had spoken on my answering machine. Not about the letter, she hadn't noticed it yet. No, we'll be at the same Christmas celebration Christmas Eve in the evening and she would like us to sit together because she tends to get triggered when she doesn't know the person sitting next to her. She'll be there nice and early tomorrow and will save me a seat. Asked me to phone back to arrange. It didn't take long for me to decide "No." I acknowledge that that is her wish but I don't have to grant it! I know other people going to the same celebration, I haven't said I'll sit next to them either, but I could choose to. Also this acquaintance would like me to sit next to her, because it'll do her good. I can understand the desire, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with wanting me as a person. Just me as a 'safety net'. Yeah, I am a pretty safe person for her because I know and remember what her triggers are and don't usually make a mistake and do/say something triggering.

The thing I do occasionally is talk too much. But then she'll say "Can we be silent for a while." She says it, she doesn't ask  Well, of course, we can be, and we do so. But it is hard for me. When I last had more contact with her, I started saying that I was going to leave, or put down the phone before she came up with this request. That made it easier for me. Because I was deciding and it didn't feel so much as if I was being 'shut up'. Oh, great, now the FOO images are coming. FOO went in for shutting me up, not just when I was trying to be heard about the family dysfunction.

I don't particularly want to sit next to someone at a Christmas celebration who is likely to say "Can we be silent for a while." It's not even that I talk that much. Nothing like what I write  When she requests silence, I feel, well, apart from 'silenced', somehow corrected, admonished. I've done something wrong. I've been bad. OK, my reaction is an EF. Good to know.

Nonetheless my feeling is: I pay attention to her triggers, but she doesn't to mine. Her written reply to me at the end of October showed me that she'd never absorbed the fact that the thing she kept trying to get me to talk about is triggering for me. She wrote that the information is totally new to her, I'd never said that before. Unfortunately for her, I happen to know that I had said it before, quite a few times in fact. One time she even asked me if I could explain why it was triggering. I said I couldn't! It was actually before I knew why. There you go. I remember her triggers, she doesn't remember mine. IRL some of us with CPTSD trigger each other. RL doesn't have the rules that a forum like this does.

[radical]

I'm hesitating about writing this.  I wonder if i've become seriously hard-hearted.  I think I have. 

This isn't a criticism of you.  it sounds like you are doing well in managing this acquaintance.  My question is: do you need to manage her? ie both of you having CPTSD is something in common, but does this person give you anything? sensitivity, kindness, rewarding friendship?

I feel hard-hearted when I read this, but not of you.  You give a lot, I already knew that from your contributions here.
I became hard-hearted about people who took a ton but gave me nothing, when I was on the brink of suicide, because spending my time with people who didn't show me kindness or respect, didn't make me feel less lonely, they made me more lonely and closer to despair.

There are many social and personal reasons for perservering with different kinds of relationships.  Not all relationships are equal or fair.  I'm responding entirely from my own life circumstances, and i may well be overidentifying here.  In my life, I wasn't doing anyone any favours by 'nursing' people who found it impossible to consider the feelings of others.  I quit, not unkindly to them, in fact as kindly as I could, but I did it out of kindness to myself.

Please let me know if this is hurtful or unhelpful.  I may need to know about what is appropriate.

[Three Roses]

This post made me think about love and friendship.

Here's my opinion -
Friendship needs to be a two way street. You need to receive and you need to give - and so does the other person. If all these are not happening, it's something besides friendship.

It's okay to outgrow a friend.

[sanmagic7]

ditto both radical and 3roses.  i've outgrown many friendships, have also had realizations that i was the giving one and it was not being reciprocated.  not that i was doing what i was doing in order to get something back, but like 3 roses said, there is a two-way street to a friendship, and reciprocation is part of that.

i think you're doing really well analyzing this and seeing it fully and whole, blueberry.  well done.  big hug to you.

radical, i didn't see anything hard-hearted in what you wrote.  i saw realistic evaluation and self care.  good for you.

[Blueberry]

radical, your reply is neither hurtful nor unhelpful! On the contrary, really useful feedback.

I'd say this person was giving me something up to about 6 months ago, although it was still difficult too. I suppose I'm outgrowing her. Not so surprising really. I'm in trauma T and on here, after all, and she's not!

"You give a lot, I already knew that from your contributions here." Thanks for writing that. Hard to believe, but I'm trying to. FOO's messages sit deep and they say the opposite. But yes, you're right, I gave this 'friend' a lot. I'd be OK from now on with just seeing her about town and saying 'hello' but not much else.