Friend didn't want me to talk to her about my upsetting personal stuff

[Sparklybutold]

Friend staying for the weekend. I experienced an extremely toxic and abusive childhood filled with suicide, murder, severe mental illness, premature death, all forms of abuse, the list goes on. This is a relatively new friendship so we are getting to know each other so naturally stuff about my childhood comes up. Later on in the day when the conversation swayed that way again she commented along the lines how my stories are just so sad - I asked whether she preferred I stopped, she said yes - I did. I was left feeling hurt, confused, invalidated but also kinda empathised. The stories are awful and just so sad, so much so that part of me switches off from them and I struggle to believe they're actually true. Alot of my experiences are also filled with shame and I was silenced so much, so to then be silenced again because it's too much?

This experience makes me question how can I be close with this person if she can't tolerate the not so nice parts of me? Is this reasonable? I couldn't imagine switching someone off like this?

Op can I ask gently is this actually just mates or is this a romantic relationship? You call it friends but your behaviour indicates to me a romantic or sexual partner.

@Fushiadreams

Really interested take. Just friends. Although perhaps hints at the intensity of my communication which is something for me to reflect upon?

@LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet

Thank you for replying. I don't think you've read the update?

It was really interesting to read the thread; and OP, I am very sorry about your childhood. It seems you are in a better place now! Some post-thread reflections;

-of course, consent is key, but the idea that no one owes anyone anything is ridiculous. Humans live in societies and owe everything to each other. To imagine that we are atomistic individuals, all self-sufficient and self-reliant, who can be "fixed" by specialists if things go wrong is just a misunderstanding of the history of humanity.

-there is a lot of cultural habit here, stiff upper lip (I am saying this as a foreigner). Talking about your feelings and problems, even non-trauma-related, is still v v difficult for many English people (that I know)

-and last, I had a similar experience to you, OP. Trying to make a friend, it didn't go quite well, she found me too intense. And yes, I was intense, I was in a very difficult period of my life, objectively hard and nothing to do with my own childhood. We are still superficial friends, but we will never be deep friends, like I am with a good group of other people, because she has had a very sheltered life, is naive, and entitled (of the kind that her pearls are too small). Not that I bond with other people with trauma (I don't think), but the complexity of life experience seems to define ability to imagine other person's life and empathise which is key to friendship.

I wonder what kind of person your new friend, OP, turns out to be. It is a very specific and interesting thing you met on which marks her as someone trying to think about life in a profound and meaningful way

@microbius

I have loved this thread and the insights it has brought.

Your observation of English stiff upper lip I think is right (IMHO) and I was born and bred in England but have Spanish ancestory, which I think may contribute to my flambouyoncy and perhaps what is perceived as intense in the UK? (again IMHO).

'If I could relate to them in any way through personal experience I’d tell them that.'

Translation: I would look for anyway to turn it around and make it all about me again.

My god your narcassism really is off the charts.

@microbius

I have a memory like a sieve and had to go back to what you said. It's an interesting observation you make about the connections we make, how perhaps there is ‘something’ in connecting with those who have had experiences similar to us - a fact which I think is at the heart of culture and why support groups can be so inspiring and impactful.

I know personally I can kinda of sense when someone hasn't had similar experiences and I do feel because my experiences are very extreme, connecting with others is all the more difficult. Plus the best abuse and trauma has left me feeling like I am inherently ‘dirty’ or ‘wrong’. I have yet to meet anyone who has zero contact with any of their family of origin, even those I know who are adopted have family looking out for them. I literally have no one. Many attempt to remind me of my husband and kids, but this will never replace the hole that is left with estrangement. Birthday, Christmas, anything, and zero acknowledgement. This take a lot of resilience and strength on my behalf to just get on with things, as best as I can.

@microbius

And back again... 😁

Your comment about what we actually expect from others and how culture can inhibit perhaps what makes us human and a society? I do think there is a very mixed message about mental health and any type of trauma. The mantra of ‘its good to talk’ is silently wrapped in ‘in a set way within a specific timeframe’, anything external to this is either pathologised or the victim/survivor is left feeling more inherently damaged as they can feel ostracised and stigmatised (whether intentional or not). Hell I get it! My FB feed is filled with babies giggling and happy stuff and I literally delete anything that remotely upsets me! Abuse/trauma and how we communicate about it is complex but I do wonder how culture actually impedes any realistic resolution of the issue? I do feel child abuse and trauma is a public health issue and yet it remains massively not talked about and underfunded.

@mam0918

Personally what I feel ted is trying to elude to is about connecting and relating. I suspect (I forget whether they said it), but my experience as a abuse survivor is feeling like a leper, so connecting with someone else who has experienced it would help. This is why support groups can be so impactful, in sharing similar experiences minimises the sometimes anchor like feeling of feeling different? That something is inherently.wrong with you? That you are responsible for what happened to you. Abuse, especially childhood abuse thrives on silence and the idea implanted in the victims head that they are somehow responsible for the abuse or perhaps worse still they are lucky to be abused, and yet this complete conflict with what you were told and how it feels in your body can just leave you feeling so disconnected, disjointed and confused - emotions which just fester and multiply. So - yes, someone actually saying, yes - I experienced that too, and I get where you're coming from, can be incredibly liberating and unshaming.

Oh come on this is just wilful twisting of everything I wrote and conveniently ignoring all the ways I explained how I would support someone. If you’ve never had a conversation with someone and gone “me too, I know how that feels” I will literally give you my life savings because that’s just normal communication.

I agree thst connecting with people with similar trauma can be very helpful.

but i also now find it an absolute relief to sometimes hang out with people who had good enough parents. It’s a delight to experience how they see the world 😁

@Onandupw

I wonder whether this position comes from being at a place where you've got to some type of place of ‘acceptance’?

Tbh - only since this thread have I actually realised how intricately intertwined I am with my trauma and how much it still represents who I am. I have never actually thought who I could be external to my trauma. As my loving husband lovingly but astutely told me one day - no one would deny the crappy cards you've been dealt but you continue to pour salt in your own wounds. This was profound for me and made me realise how stuck in a loop I was.

@microbius

Oh - what's the ‘pearls too small’ comment mean?

OP I would definitely think about having some more therapy, above all else a good therapist should help you get to a point where you no longer feel broken or inherently dirty or unfixable. It's completely understandable that you feel that way, but you don't have to feel this way forever. I'm sure many of us on this thread used to feel that way but don't anymore, it really is possible to change how you feel about yourself.

I think there are a lot of people on MN who are completely no contact with family, do you think it would help to seek support here when you are feeling low about that?

@Sparklybutold
Thanks for your responses! I think what you are saying refers in general to the unrealistic expectations of modern society, which is about control and the idea of individual success/failure, not a failure of community or society and not about shared responsibility, solidarity, etc The whole idea that grief, and injury, and death are so abnormal they need to be talked about in a specialised way in a specific place is, if you think about it, very recent. There were no antibiotics a hundred years ago! This was part and parcel of our grand-grand-parents lives

And then, consequently, what we have is a society where, for instance, women feel it is their personal failure if their birth doesn't go according to plan, or they fail to reach a certain milestone by a certain age, or have a specific kind of life etc

I think, grief, and sadness are part of life. Of course some experiences shouldn't happen and it is our role as a society to make sure there are less and less of them. But to imagine one can skip throughout life and relationships only having pleasant conversations is ludicrous

Yep - hundred percent from a place of acceptance. I mean don’t get me wrong I still have major MAJOR issues and all sorts of relationship attachment disorders. But in the last year or so I’ve finally been able to really move on it from it

youre very fortunate to have been able tonnage established a good relationship with marriage and children etc. One thing I am vertraagd about is that I didn’t manage to sort myself out sooner. I’m 46 now and not managed a relationship. (Although I do have a shed load of eggs in the feeezer and am thinking of going for it solo in a couple of years when all set up for it - but I certainly don’t want to derail the thread with that - I’m much too scared to have a Mumsnet thread on that)

But I think my point is that you’ve actually managed to achieve functional relationships in important areas and you don’t need to keep creating dysfunction. You’re allowed to move on from it.

I don’t really know what made the shift for me. I mean I’ve had years and years of therapy - to be honest only which a bit of which was helpful and a lot was unhelpful. As totally awful as it was lockdown was actually helpful - I found out i actually I was totally okay alone and my experience of alone when it was because of lockdown was very different to my feeling of alone when it was because of my own dysfunction. And realised that my trauma was colouring everything that I experienced when it was entirely possible for me to experience things in a different way. Very liberating.

I think it’s just getting older and life experience too to be honest.

I agree with @microbius though that it’s not about every friendship being all about fun and good times. You can totally talk about bad stuff when you need to - but that doesn’t have to be the only or the primary foundation for a healthy bond

@TedMullins

I know you were addressing someone who accused you of something but now you've replied to them, could you maybe consider letting OP have this thread back this time rather than merailing for dozens of posts and calling posters with opinions different to you selfish / saying they aren't trauma-ing right again etc?

Just thought I would suggest it before it happens again...

@Sparklybutold
I don't know maybe it is not an English saying but there is something along the lines, some have nothing to eat and for the others their pearls are too small. My friend was complaining to me about how small her house was at the moment when I've been renting for years with little chance to buy. And I was the one who was intense!

Your thread also made me think about whether my childhood trauma, although very different from yours, bereavement, defines me and I think it still does. It was very interesting to read about the experiences of people who did put things behind and truly feel that they are outside of that history. I am a survivor, for me, life is very fragile and needs to be appreciated and lived in a meaningful way. I wonder if there are any "positive" outcomes from awful experiences that can be kept and other overcome? Like war survivors who really treasure life, they can't just go back to their previous understanding of life as if nothing happened

I also really recommend you, OP, this book: The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, 2014, by Bessel van der Kolk. He writes in detail how in other cultures people deal with trauma collectively, physically, i.e. women chanting together and holding each other, because one of the effects of trauma is a disconnect between the body and the brain, and talking therapy only might not be enough.

TBF to Ted Mullins, they were responding to a recent post which quoted their own post from further back in the thread, rather than coming along and saying, "And another thing".

So I think if people want Ted to drop it, then people need to stop referencing points Ted has made already, I think there are elements of "Cancel the cheque" continuing now.

I agree getting older helps a lot

All of that bad stuff just feels like a million years ago now. I think of it as a raft, floating further and further out to sea. At some point you might know it's still there but you can't see it anymore so why bother thinking about it.

@Onandupw makes a good point about allowing yourself to let go of trauma. To extend the metaphor, you take the rope off the raft and let it start floating away. It will still be around for quite a while but at least you are detaching a bit.

You can't rush it or force it, of course, but it sounds like maybe you are ready to start thinking a little bit about that separation. Just see where your feelings lead you. It's totally different for everyone.

Looks your transparent attempt at getting another dig in @TedMullins while trying hilariously to retain the moral highground didn't work.

If you want to stop derailing the thread stop derailing it.

I agree getting older helps a lot

Doesn't it just? I could list all sorts of things that have helped me but ultimately that is the biggest factor.

Stop tagging me then?