To be fucked off at the fact that people won't talk about things?

[cailindana]

I'm a talker. I talk things through, sort things out, move on.

It seems that no one else in my life, bar perhaps my sister, is like that.

My parents won't talk about anything. Everything is passive-aggressive hints, sniffy one-liners. Anything that puts them in a bad light or makes them in any way uncomfortable is absolutely off limits and Must Not Ever Be Mentioned. My sister suffered a birth injury that caused her to be disabled. Did they ever once talk to her about it, tell her what had happened and what was wrong with her? Never, not once. They never ever spoke to their own daughter about her disability. When I tried to talk about being abused, it was all "you're making me feel guilty, get over it." It's never been mentioned since.

Two years ago, a long term friend and I fell out. I fucked up, I apologised, offered to talk it through, she ignored me. The friendship went very quiet. As usual, I made the first move towards reconciliation the other day, and offered to talk about what had happened. Oh no, lets not talk about it, let's just "move on." I will move on, but I am fully aware that her angry reaction was down to a heap of things she's angry about that she won't talk about. Those things are not resolved and I fully expect the friendship to go wrong again. If I don't understand what's bothering her, how can I help? How can the friendship ever improve if we don't communicate?

A different friend fucked up, I was pissed off, brought it up with him in order to get it all out in the open and sort it out. He responded briefly, then went silent. Is still silent, nearly a year later. Just won't talk to me. So, that's the end of that, years of friendship closed down.

My DH has kept silent about things for years, bottled things up. I got so fed up with it (and other things) I was on the edge of leaving. He finally opened up. Says he feels like someone has lifted the world from his shoulders. Side effect is, he cries a lot now - he can't get through even the opening credits of Call the Midwife without being in floods. But he says he feels like he's actually engaging with the world now, looking it in the eye. He talks about everything and I find his thoughts fascinating, it's like meeting a whole new wonderful person.

I see it again and again her on MN too - partners who simply won't talk to each other. It causes such misery.

I don't advocated endlessly wittering on about problems. But I do think that if something's bothering you, there is absolutely no point in storing it up and getting wound up about it - say something for god's sake!

AIBU?

Pressing someone to talk when they clearly don't want to is very intrusive behaviour Lying, I agree, and I wouldn't ever do that.

I'm a bit unclear about how you feel about the "talk to someone" campaigns - do you feel they're a good thing?

I think campaigns that raise awareness of services available are essential - but as Lying says they will not penetrate to someone who is not ready to seek that help - you have to want help. Same as CAB we would not need to help so many folks if they stoppped putting their credit card bills in a bag under the bed and actually opened them and dealt with them sooner... but that is not reality. Some folk will always wait till the other shoe is about to drop before they seek advice. That is not going to change in my lifetime.

Just to clarify, my mum thought that it would be 'best for me to talk', in her mind, she was just being a good mum but it would have come with instructions and fixes!

The "talk to someone" campaigns are a very good thing, cailin, if they save just one person and one family from grief, they're worth it. However, it's quite a few miles between 'encouraging talking/good to talk a la Bob Hoskins' and 'suicide prevention', which the "Talk To Someone" campaigns are about. Clear and distinct in my view.

I agree Lying. Oddly enough I think the "talk to someone" campaigns are utter shit. Campaigns to get people to ask for help from trained professionals, yes, they are positive. But random campaigns that imply that if you're depressed all you need to do is find someone to talk to and everything will be better, no, they are rubbish IMO.

It is too big a burden to be the one someone talks to. If you've ever spent time with friends with MH problems, I mean when things are bad, you realise the difference between a shoulder to lean on and a mental health professional. We all want to help (most of us) but I know I'm not qualified to help someone suicidal, not reliably

I think talking can sometimes help, where as sometimes it just brings all the feelings to the surface again and makes things worse. I think it is possible to come to terms with an adverse event in your own mind without involving other people.
Some people need to talk about stuff at great length every time they have a minor mishap. Some people feel they need a counsellor every time something bad happens to them.
Perhaps as you describe yourself as a talker (not a listener) your friends feel that when you say that they should talk about the issue you really mean that you want to talk about the issue and they think that would be tedious and would rather put the event behind them and move on than do naval gazing.
If you feel the relationship can't move on without discussing issues then the friendship is over.
Sometimes in a friendship you just have to accept you have different ways of dealing with stress and not try and push your way of dealing with things on to other people.
Sometimes you want a friend to have fun with, not to be your agony aunt.

I can't really comment myself on my listening skills, as that's up to others to judge, but many people have said to me I'm the only person in their life they can talk to, which I take to mean that I am good listener. I have heard the phrase "I've never talked to anyone about this before..." which again seems to suggest that people trust me and feel it's worth confiding in me.

I agree it's possible to come to terms with an adverse event in your own mind without involving other people. But that's not what's going on with my friend - I wasn't pushing her to talk about any adverse event, she simply stopped talking to me entirely.

There has been a lot of focus on that friend, which I was annoyed about, but she's one friend out of many and it's just because her behaviour relates so closely to my family's fucked up behaviour that it got to me and I mentioned it.

The other friend was very much in the category of not worth bothering with - he did annoy me but really I can't be bothered wasting headspace on him.

My main point in starting the thread was trying to understand people who won't talk about things, especially when those things affect other people. I said I was fucked off about it as it has affected my life in different ways. A few posters have seemed keen to put me down and imply I'm annoying, which isn't very helpful really. I've had a lot of "move on" which is also not very helpful, it comes across to me as "shut up"- it's not like I've set up camp outside this friend's door, I'm just thinking about and exploring something in my life, which I have every right to do.

I don't need to talk at great length over a minor mishaps. I don't feel I need a counsellor every time something bad happens.

cailin... I'm a person who will generally not talk about things. I would probably not talk about things if they wouldn't affect anybody else. What would it do if it would, I don't know. Perhaps your friend doesn't think that this affects you or would affect you so chooses not to talk about it.

As a person then who generally doesn't talk... what do you want to know about why I wouldn't? I'll try to be honest and open if you ask.

Why do I want to know? I suppose it'll help me to understand my parents a bit. I'm not saying you're like my parents, I think their behaviour is extreme, but if I can understand the motivation behind keeping things to yourself then it might be helpful, maybe, in it not getting to me so much.

Happy to illuminate if I can but, what things do people keep from you/not want to talk about. Let's start there. Make something up that would approximate if you like.

Hmm I'm not sure what example to give. I suppose my friend is a good place to start, although I'm loath to dissect that any further!

One example could be my mum, not talking to my sister, ever, about her disability. I suppose that's too extreme an example?

Do you mean in a 'head in the clouds/it's not happening' kind of way? If so, this would be my take on it (putting myself in your mum's position) - please excuse the assumptions:

If my daughter's disability was congenital, I suppose I would be feeling tremendous guilt. Did I do something in pregnancy? Did I hook up with the wrong man (going from you previous post), did I perhaps impart my misery at my failing marriage onto my foetus, preventing it from developing properly? (irrational), did I do or not do something when my daughter was born that could have prevented or alleviated any of her symptoms or pain? WHY COULDN'T IT HAVE BEEN ME? :(

Now, my other daughter, cailin, she's fine, she's physically 'perfect', she doesn't need me in the same way and she gets on better with her dad anyway, she loves his sense of humour. I'm going to focus on (my guilt and) my other daughter.

Why oh why does cailin want to talk about sister's disability all the time? I don't want to think about it, it lives in my head every day. I sure as hell don't want to discuss it. Perhaps if I don't talk about it at all then it's not having the impact that I think it has... and it was ALL MY FAULT.

If I don't see or talk to cailin that much, now she's all grown up - and with a daughter of her own (who is perfect), then perhaps I can come to terms with the fact that I was 50% a decent parent who did her best, I tried. In spite of all my trying, one of my children is disabled and it was ALL MY FAULT.

I don't want to talk to cailin about this if I can help it. Why won't she let it drop? What does she need to know? Can she fix this? No! It was my job as parent anyway to do that, not hers. All she's doing is rubbing my nose in the fact that her sister is disabled. I could have done better. I should have done better... and it's ALL MY FAULT.

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Apologies cailin, that's a wild extrapolation - feel free to ignore - but, if I had a disabled child - and a child who wanted to talk about it, I'd probably play that scenario in my head and try to present a smile to the world whilst dying inside.

If she's not talking to your sister about it... just insert your sister's name where your own is, cailin. It's the same, exactly.

Hmm - why don't people want to talk?

Example - to avoid unwanted tension/ misery. I got very skilled at steering mum away from conversational landmines as an adolescent - If we were in danger of dwelling on the misery of her life and the misery of the world my dad in general - that could end badly. Tears, shouting etc. etc.

As an adult I have a strong aversion to public/ witnessed by children - Anger tears and shouting - so while dh will get angry and deal with something when it comes up - I will avoid avoid avoid until I am comfortable with the circumstances. I am programmed that way and though I can overcome that instinct with effort it is very uncomfortable for me and invariably ends with me crying. I can only be rational when I feel safe to vent.

Also some people carefully craft a public persona and if that includes serenity/ calm the appearance of strength then the risks inherent in opening up - i.e. unschooled emotion means they will not easily get into very personal topics even with friends. It is not about the audience it is about the 'performer' - no matter how good a listener you are people who do not like to 'share' will not do so easily.

Sorry I wasn't clear in the question Lying, I meant my mum didn't talk to my sister about my sister's disability. So, my sister was injured at birth and has cerebral palsy as a result. My mother never ever talked to her about it, such that my sister had to go the library as a child and look up what was wrong with her herself. I don't care whether my mum talks to me about it, but what could be her justification for not talking to the daughter who actually had to live with the disability?

Lying Thank you for saying my posts have been supportive and not dismissive of Caillin. You are a very thoughtful (and patient!) person.

Caillin I haven't 'made things up' about you. I hope you get something positive or illuminating from this thread - something that helps you to control and alleviate the sadness you feel, specifically about your lost friendships. It would be a damn shame for you to cling on to current and historical thought patterns on this subject because it hasn't got you anywhere.

Has your sister ever asked her mum (and dad not sure why your mum is being singled out here) about her illness? If she's mentally capable of understanding it then if there is something she's unsure of she could ask. Maybe your sister understands that a birth injury left her disabled and doesn't want to talk about it further as it won't change anything, unless she's thinking of going down the compensation route.
You said your sister looked up her injury age 7 but that is a young age to explain some medical injuries so maybe your parents were waiting until she was older. It's not clear if she ever asked them for info.
Why does this bother you so much? I have no idea how much my parents have told my siblings about stuff that involves them not me. You do come across as a bit controlling in wanting to be involved in other people's discussions of problems not just your own.
If your parents have shown love to your sister and helped her overcome her disability then does it matter whether or not they had an in depth medical discussion of what went wrong. If your sister wants to understand more about her birth injury seeing her GP to look at her medical records might be more informative and accurate anyway.

No they haven't helped my sister overcome her disability rebecca, they just ignored it and then berated her when she did things like hiding her disabled hand under her sleeve. She did try to ask my parents, they wouldn't discuss it, they never have. Do you not think it's cruel to completely ignore a child's uncertainty about why she's different?

I agree it's unfair to single out my mum, my dad is worse in fact.

It bothers me because I love my sister and seeing how she's struggled with her disability with no support from my parents has been hard. Plus Lying asked for an example.

So is it absolute fact that I have a "stressful personality" then sucks?

Cerebral palsy isn't necessarily a birth injury. Sometimes it occurs whilst the foetus is in the womb for unknown reasons and the birth itself was straight forward so it might be that the reason your mother didn't discuss your sister's difficult birth was because the birth was straight forward and she had no idea why your sister was born with cerebral palsy.

Another example would be me saying to my mum that her friend sexually abused me. She refused to discuss it, would not help me in any way, told me not to tell my dad and said I needed to stop talking about it.

It was a birth injury, I know because I helped my sister to find that out as an adult.

Guilt - is very destructive - your Mum didn't want to deal with it - blamed herself? She was inadequate? I have given up trying to understand everything about my ancestors - they are who they are capable in some areas and inadequate in others. Avoiding things that you can't/ don't want to face up to is so commonplace it is only unique in the variety of things people don't want to face.

I agree that your parents should have tried to help your sister more with her disability and could maybe have told her that she has a weaker arm because it didn't develop as well as it should have when she was very small and tried to get her physio or something.