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?

I think you're very angry about what you've experienced, which you have every right to be, but you are taking it out on the wrong person. This friendship might not last, if you feel resentful you cannot be honest and she doesn't want to hear it.

I had a really shit childhood and I’ve had a lot of therapy. My expectations of friendships changed the more I built up my internal resources. I don’t need or want to intensely share details (I’ve done this in the past and wouldn’t do it again) and I’m not willing to be someone else’s therapist.

That doesn’t mean I don’t listen to, or care about, my friends at all. But I think there are different ways of sharing and different levels of detail. There’s a difference between telling a friend “I’m struggling with some aspects of my childhood right now” and telling them every detail.

In @Morello339’s example - of course it’s upsetting if someone says “do you remember this normative experience that other people had and you didn’t” and you have to say no. That sucks. But that will happen sometimes and it’s helpful - for you - to be able to meet your own needs in this situation.

OP, you asked your friend a healthy question and she gave a healthy answer. Your feelings about it now are not her fault or her doing. You already felt terrible because you had terrible experiences. She can’t take those feelings away for you, and it is ok for her to be unable or unwilling to listen to details of your experiences.

Are you familiar with the concept of an emotional flashback? This is another way of thinking about the idea of triggers. Sometimes our feelings feel like they are about the present but are about the past. Whatever your friend is triggering in you, it was already there. If you had an awful childhood, it’s hard to deal with anything that feels like abandonment or neglect or rejection.

I think it’s telling that, now I’ve had a crapload of therapy, I no longer feel the need to share details with friends and am no longer willing to be a captive audience for over sharing. I care about my friends. That doesn’t mean I am not a person who is allowed boundaries.

This.

You poor woman.

You are being used.

You clearly aren't helping your friend as this has gone on for years.

What exactly do you think you are modeling your children?

Please think of looking after yourself and pull as far away from her as is possible.

Yours is not a friendship.

Therapist - or write it all down and share anonymously here

This happened to me recently. I was fucking baffled as I know she had lots of friends and a partner. I disengaged from the subject. Like you I'm older and way past it.

That said I do think there is a difference between expecting a new friend to support you through a current trauma and expecting one to be okay with you mentioning past trauma you have largely dealt with.

This.

You're asking way too much from a new friendship.

This sounds extremely stressful, but I know I didn't do this.

I don't mind the feedback on aibu. I'm ok with reading all thoughts because it's all impartial. I just didn't think I needed to filter with someone I'm trying to connect with

It

Can you try reframing this, so it's easier to digest?

Your friend didn't want to shut YOU down. She needed to not hear some of the more traumatic stuff. You asked her if it was ok to keep talking about it - & she answered you! You cannot fault her for being honest.

If you can find a moment to imagine this from her perspective - she's away from home, on your 'turf', not expecting to hear about very upsetting events that you have endured. She may have felt kind of trapped (see PP's comments about her not being your weekend therapist), overwhelmed, unable to process, unsure of how to respond ... not knowing if the whole weekend would now be about your history ... but you offered her an 'out, & she took it.

You also say she's a relatively new friend.
I don't think you need to punish yourself by viewing her acceptance of your offer to not talk about it again this weekend in such black & white terms.
You may find that you are able to disclose a little more, over time, as your new friend gets her head round the extremity of your experiences. You alluded to this yourself - as the person it happened to, there is almost a numbness in recounting some events. People who have not been through them do not have that advantage, have no experience in processing & settling the disturbing feelings about awful things having been done to a friend they care about.

In short - your friend isn't shutting you off or asking you to edit yourself.
She simply could not cope with the barrage of feelings, & accepted your offer to not go there again this weekend. That doesn't mean she is unaccepting of you, or won't cope with allusions to your history in future.

Fellow survivor here btw. I'm sorry for what you went through - don't punish yourself, or be angry at your friend about it! Remember how absolutely shocking this stuff is to non-abused people, & have compassion for yourself AND your friend here.

And there's also a lot of harm done by people who are re-traumatised by those well-meaning people who get it wrong. I'm not saying you're one of them, but you can't just say that because people have been working with trauma for many years they're getting it right. I don't think it's a badge of honour to not be trained. As I say, many people are naturally able to say and do the right thing, but this is not a given.

I had a police present when I'd experienced a sudden bereavement and she was absolutely hopeless and made it much more upsetting than it might have been and haunted me for a long time afterwards. I've also experienced doctors and nurses getting it awfully wrong.

Those who do get it wrong never hear about it. But there are studies about it and I've read lots of anecdotal stories.

Anyway, this is nothing to do with the OP's issue, which is to do with someone new in her life, not an old friend or someone working in a professional capacity. It's doing her a disservice to say to her that any new friend in that situation would be expected to find it easy to listen to her trauma.

Posted too soon!

Your anger is palpable and I’m getting such a sense of injustice from you and this new friendship. That it’s not conforming to what you expected it to be.

I knew a woman, she was lovely and kind and fun and then one day out of the blue she told me about some heavy trauma and I was blindsided. I didn’t have anything to say, and I was so upset and I knew my tears were so selfish of me. I was annoyed at her for laying it all on me. It was too much! Our friendship wasn’t that deep and I felt she tried to move it on too quickly by over sharing.

To those saying you must be avoiding your own trauma if you won’t listen to the details of other people’s: nah, that’s not it for me at all.

I am a person with boundaries, healthy ones. I am neither able nor willing to take away your feelings about your trauma.

Often people in these situations are actually unconsciously trying to get their friends to parent them. If only someone would finally hear them and comfort them then maybe it would feel better.

In reality what needs to happen is a grieving process. And you don’t grieve by offloading all the details onto someone against their wishes.

to people not by people

Regardless of previous trauma, there is an unspoken sort of expectation / time frame for these sort of social interactions, and when it's appropriate to share something so intimate about your life.

Op do you usually struggle with social situations and find it hard to know what's appropriate and what's not?

Deep and heavy conversations about all of the horrific things you listed above are not something you share with a new friend over a girly weekend.

@Miffee I think your posts have been quite balanced and I've found it really thought provoking reading other views.

Key to all perspectives, I think, is shame. I don't tell people about my trauma (not just because I think it's irrelevant to me now) partly because I don't want them to feel sorry for me, or not know what to say. Just in the same way OP felt shame when she felt invalidated by her friend taking her up on the offer to stop the conversation.

I do feel that I've dealt with what happened to me and I work extremely hard to stop it influencing my parenting, which has been challenging at times. I don't see the need to share it though and I have stock phrases "oh we're not close" etc to explain away why I don't talk about certain aspects of my childhood. Just in the same way I enjoy telling happy stories, stories about unhappy times won't actually help me, but they may make the person I'm talking to feel like shit.

I would say that if anyone offloads on me, I am able to distance myself and hear about it. It's also partly why I'm so damn good at my job. If someone kept doing it, and it was one-sided, I would however set my own boundaries in terms of how often I saw that person etc.

@Miffee I used to work for a mental health charity and have come across many people who have been harmed by professionals responding poorly to trauma. Lots of people get it badly wrong. It’s not just a case of ‘being human’.

And some of this kind of training is - or at least should be! - about how to take care of yourself, avoid vicarious trauma and thus avoid compassion fatigue.

I personally received such poor care in hospital in a traumatic situation that the NHS accepted and investigated a complaint almost two decades later ie far, far outside the usual window. I think it’s idealistic at best to suggest that just being a decent human is enough to help people support anyone who is traumatised.

OP, you have my sympathy, both for what you've endured and the behaviour of your 'friend'. I've met a few like this. They're usually people who are uncomfortable with conversation that goes beyond the superficial. More importantly, they're generally very self-centred. This person in your house was unkind and invalidating.

Ah, this shit again. It is not self-centred to state your boundaries or to be unable to be someone’s therapist. You’re not actually helping the OP here.

It’s not her fault that you had a terrible time but you seem to be misdirecting your anger at her. I hope you are still engaging with counselling because in a nice way, you seem like you still need it. Very sorry you had a tough childhood, mine wasn’t the best either but probably not as bad as yours.

IT's not her job to validate you.

Its not about having to filter yourself. If this is a new friendship and you are getting to know each other, this could definitely be information overload - especially traumatic information. It can be just too much, too heavy, too soon. This can potentially be off putting. They are getting to know you, and it’s also about their experience of that as well. Maybe they have many problems of their own. Maybe they have trauma of their own, and perhaps the experiences that you are talking about are making them more uncomfortable, when all they want to do is unwind and relax.

Looking back, I’ve definitely lost friendships because I myself have been too intense in terms of talking about my past, about childhood and all the bad stuff that had happened to me. At one point, that’s all I was doing when meeting up with friends- just constantly off loading, going over some things. It definitely became one sided, and clearly it was draining for my said friend, who clearly was sick of being my unofficial counsellor. And this was in the established friendships! I think there is a time and place.

They're usually people who are uncomfortable with conversation that goes beyond the superficial.

Not at all. I love a deep conversation as much as the next person. What I don't like is someone oversharing traumatic things before we've got to know each other.

I don't think either of you are being unreasonable in this situation.

This is proper armchair psychology stuff but I wonder whether you feel hurt by this because as a child, you weren't able to voice what was happening to you, or to seek help. Or if you did try, no one listened. Now as an adult, you don't (I hope) need rescuing from an abusive environment, and you are old enough to have that voice, but someone you trust is still not willing to listen, so it brings back those feelings of not being seen.

From your friend's position, she doesn't see someone who needs to be rescued or 'heard' - she feels that in you she has found someone whose company she enjoys and with whom she can relax and have fun. When confronted with sad and traumatising stories about your childhood, that feeling of having fun and relaxing with a friend is extinguished like a light, and she starts feeling all the negative feelings any of us feel when reading a tragic story in the news. But unlike with news stories, she can't just switch it off, or say 'this is depressing, let's talk about something else'. That would be very rude and unfeeling. So when you offered her an out, she took it.

As PP have said, you are perhaps looking for different things from this friendship. So perhaps you need to just let it fade. Or alternatively you could take what she is offering and find someone more suitable to explore your trauma with.

For the record, I personally have to switch off from a lot of sad stuff because if I don't, it sends me into a spiral of depression and anxiety, or an existential crisis. For me this is usually stories about people being diagnosed with or dying from an incurable disease young - I immediately start feeling like it's going to happen to me or someone in my family. So I hide stories like this in my news feeds. This may seem selfish and uncaring, but it's just what I have to do to stop myself from wallowing in fear and despair. I also sometimes find myself unable to stop thinking about, for example, recent tragic news stories involving children being abused/murdered, and can end up sobbing my heart out. I have to remind myself not to borrow grief from others.

I'm so sorry for what you have been through. You deserve to be heard and I wish you luck as you continue on that journey.

I am a CSA survivor and I now work with children and young people who have experienced trauma. Some of the kids I work with cannot talk about their experiences at all. Some feel compelled to try to make sense of their experience by talking about it a lot, sharing graphic and harrowing details with many people, including those they don't know well or in situations where people would not expect it to come up. They often don't recognise the impact this is having on the people they are sharing with, and why would they? They're in survival mode, or in some cases they've normalised what happened to them. They may be so overwhelmed and confused by their own feelings around it all they can't notice, process and respond to other people's feelings in that moment. There's also something about needing to be 'heard', because there's a huge amount of shame and secrecy surrounding child abuse. The problem is, sharing in this way leads to inconsistent responses, so when you don't get the response you expected or hoped for (even if you weren't sure what you were hoping for exactly) it can be distressing. This is why it's so important they have the chance to make sense of their experience in therapy, or with a key person who is consistently available to them.

I don't like the phrase "trauma dumping" because it's an oversimplification of something very complex that many people who use the phrase simply do not understand. It also assumes that oversharing by traumatised individuals is a conscious choice, which it often isn't.

This is far to complex an issue to be categorised as YABU or YANBU. OP, you clearly felt a connection to this person and had high hopes for the friendship, you felt safe enough to share things about your past with your new friend, which is a big thing and so your disappointment in their response is understandable. But there are many reasons why your friend may have felt unequipped to cope with what you shared, reasons that are nothing to do with you and not a reflection on your friendship or how they feel about you. It may have triggered something from their own past, they may have panicked due to being unsure what was expected of them, or fearful of saying the wrong thing and upsetting you. If they've grown up in an environment where talking about problems was actively discouraged then they might struggle to know how to respond when someone else shares something deeply personal. None of that is your fault, it's not necessarily there's either. I hope you're ok 💐

I think, the thing is, we need to work on OURSELVES.
Yes, we can have therapy etc but then put it away. As I've got older, I realise everyone has their own crap, no-one goes through life without some trauma. The more you think / speak about it, it seems the more it gets a hold of you. Distract. Do other things that you enjoy. Read. Get out & about. Help other people (NOT with trauma!!)
All I can say is, it worked for me. :-)