Avoid the emotional quicksand of confusion by keeping away from those who are ruled by their unchecked insecurities.
What do I mean by this?
Well many of us have in our lives some very wonderful individuals to whom we consider close friends, the unseen tragedy masked in these friendships is that they contain a hidden source of major energy drainage because YOU have to cater to their major insecurities!
They are not aware of it and would never consciously or purposely stress you out at all but this in fact makes it harder for you to make them aware of the effect they are having on you. And for the most part we, in attempt to NOT hurt their feelings usually do not say anything about it.
We just grin and bear it.
But in a sense it is inadvertently disrespectful to you to be a constant drain on you with their unchecked issues and it is somewhat a sign of weakness on your part not to bring of what discomforts you in your friendship with this person.
If you trust that your friendship is truly strong and will stand the test of time, then you should NEVER fear speaking your mind to them because if they cannot handle it then it wasn’t a strong friendship in the first place.
Now we all sometimes may be guilty of avoiding a phone call when we might be running late for an appointment as we look at the caller I.D. and mumble under our breath: “Dammit, this is the wrong time! I’m sorry I can’t talk now but I am running late and will call you later on tonight when I get in, but I just don’t have the time”………
But when it becomes a habit that you would rather NOT hear from this person even though you cherish their friendship dearly, then it is time to take stock of their positioning in your life and figure out if they have become a draining entity of your precious life force.
There are many annoying ways in which you have to “tiptoe around the tulips” in many normal life situations that would have been otherwise pleasant if you didn’t have to babysit the hangups that they refuse to deal with.
I had a friend a long time ago growing up that hated anyone who lived a homosexual lifestyle. Now although when pressed on this issue myself I would have to say that I do not approve of it because of the scriptural proof that is a well documented Biblical fact, but on the other hand I do not feel that any law abiding citizen should be denied any of the rights afforded all human beings.
I don’t think one should be threatened or harassed because of their lifestyle choices as long as your private business is not put all out in the street in a lewd way to provoke disgust in those who may not be into it. Let God be the judge and this goes for heterosexuals too!
But to get back on point, our friend would get highly upset if he encountered anyone in our midst in public who may have been homosexual and we all would be tense because we didn’t know what obscenities or insults would fly out of his mouth at any given moment!
So therefore when we planned a trip to a restaurant to enjoy a meal together as friends we felt that we were literally on pins and needles whenever that door swung open because we knew how he would react if the patron appeared slightly effeminate in their mannerisms.
So now WE had to cramp our style in order to squeeze out some enjoyment in a meal that was now ruined even though it was deliciously prepared. Our focus was not on the wonderful conversation that could have taken place but now on attempting to prevent a situation that in the past had always gotten out of hand.
Is this any way to live?
NO!
You HAVE to speak up even if that person can’t take it. If this is THEIR issue then why should YOU have to bear the weight of it?
There IS no imaginary chain holding you in bondage with this person in this lifetime. True friends choose to walk along the overlapping path in life together because they WANT to and because they love the person unconditionally, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of YOUR peace of mind!
Either they begin the process of healing themselves and acknowledging their issues or they must face not having your dysfunctional support of their draining insecurities. It would be an injustice to oneself to continue feeding in to their denial of their issues.
Would you continue to dine at your favorite restaurant even though it has recently incurred many serious Health Department violations?
No!
……..Because l though you absolutely LOVE the food you just might make yourself sick if you continue to consume that Good food prepared in an UNHEALTHY manner, just as we are connected to GOOD people who possess UNHEALTHY issues!
Understand the analogy?
But most often those who are approached in a loving manner about their dysfunctions are severely insulted as many hold near and dear their hang ups close to them like a scared little girl in her darkened bedroom clutching tight her teddy bear after hearing a bump in the night.
They have lived so long in this manner that it has become “normal” for them to navigate through life in the way they do…..even to the point of rejecting healthy situations that would advance their lives in a very positive way because that situation wouldn’t bend to adapt to their offbeat habits and adopt their idiosyncrasies with open arms much like the people they have already well trained in their personal lives.
Are you a well trained “monkey” to a person who is spoiled and forever stuck in their strange ways?
Many of us just roll with it and say to ourselves “this is just the way they are and will probably always be!” But when they piss you off with their retarded ways you wish they would get some professional help!
These entities will often act out to put you back “in line” whenever you allowed them to feel the sting of “normalcy” when dealing with a much bigger situation like the crisis that accompanies a funeral or an unfortunate family medical emergency. You purpose in this persons life when you are well trapped in their emotional quicksand is to “buffer” them from any accountability for their eccentric ways and explain away their odd behavior even to the point in sharing in with the shame that THEY should be feeling because of how they are acting!
I’ve witnessed personally a woman who rejected a very high paying job that had great benefits and a wonderful retirement plan only to return to her former minimum wage job with NO benefits and NO type of retirement plan whatsoever just because she felt that the coworkers at the new job “weren’t her kind of people” and “didn’t seem to like her” after only two weeks of working there!
Amazing!
The truth was that she probably couldn’t get away with the abnormal crap that she could get away with on her old job and would rather lose out on such a great opportunity for advancement than face the fact that there probably wasn’t a thing wrong with her former “new” coworkers at all!
She refused to exist on a plane where she had to be removed from her very familiar dysfunctional comfort zone and arrive into a situation that would in essence become an emotional “boot camp” of forced growth!
Imagine how frightened she must have been?
Like that little kitty cat that your folks brought home from the animal shelter for you when you were a child but stayed under the couch for three days because it was scared of the new environment.
All new “friends” into this well trained inner circle must be indoctrinated into the unseen “ways” of what is acceptable behavior in this cult-like clique. The funny part about all of this is that it is all non verbal! No one speaks on it yet they all fall into place like the pigeons that dot the inner city urban landscape that know how to fly in a “V” formation.
In many of these “membership only” scenarios I have witnessed the major dysfunctional entity wielding some type of power over the rest of the group. Whether it be knowledge of an addiction of sorts or some type of immoral transgression that could be a potentially embarrassing or career threatening situation for the friend that puts up with the bizarre behavior, it is always some kind of power that they yield as a potential threat over the rest of that inner circle or individual involved if they seem they might break the unspoken and secret code of conduct.
If it is not that then it is some type of shared co-dependency that holds the same embarassing results over all of those bound by what they consider a friendship. Here are some personal situations that I knew of and I am quite sure you can add a whole lot more to this list!
How about the arrogant domineering teenage daughter who ALWAYS gets what she wants from her father in the cash department because she knows how many women he has slept with behind her mothers back and he dreads the thought of being found out by his wife because she would surely divorce him and bring shame to him because he is also the pastor of a very much well known church in Queens New York!…….
And what about the none productive crackhead employee who never gets reprimanded for his constant “no call/ no shows and lateness’s by the top boss on his job because he knows the drug addicted gay prostitute that the very same boss pays to indulge him in his obsession to dress up in huge baby diapers and get verbally abused and whipped for being such a “bad bad boy!”…….
What about the local house of prostitution that never seems to get busted because a good many of the police brass also happen to be the most loyal customers to the “much in demand” carnal services rendered there…….
How about the sins brazenly and openly indulged in by the church choir when they go on out of state trips never to be reprimanded by the pastor because not only are the choir members some of his most diligent tithe and offering contributors but also have the knowledge of pastor jumping from hotel room to hotel room to visit the church sisters privately in the wee hours for a little hands on deliverance from the stress that they carry in their blood engorged and well exposed moistened loins!
Hallelujah!
When one who may call themselves a friend to you also has potentially damaging knowledge of YOUR conundrums then you MUST jump to their requests or be made to endure their strange behaviors that will keep you caught up in that doomed state of “emotional quicksand.”
…….and the funny part is that like quicksand, when we first step into this wonderful relationship, we don’t even realize how “trapped” we will become as the “friendship” works its way up our ankles up to our legs after we “lean” our body weight into that situation…….
We often put ourselves in a bad situation as new found friends with these people because many times they have come to our aid to help us out of a traumatic situation unconditionally above and beyond the call of duty even eclipsing the help of our more established friendships and therefore leaping to the top of our personal rankings of being a “Godsend” in our lives. But what we do not realize is that this person KNEW that they could get in your good graces immediately and on the spot if they “appeared” to be that angel of light in leading the way out of your personal turmoil……..
Unfortunately, this knowledge of the low point in your life will always remain on the tip of their tongue and hang over your head in a threatening manner always able to be thrown up in your face if you do not comply with the imbalanced dynamics of what they call a friendship!
It could have been that you fell behind in your mortgage to the point of almost going into foreclosure and they came to your aid miraculously by paying all that was owed or they took you into their home to live for a time until you got back on your feet after the constant beatings you received from your ex-man/ex-husband and had no other place to go.
Its always a price to pay and it is the closest thing to making a deal with the devil as you have learned to sometimes dislike this persons place they have hijacked in your life and even regret taking their aid in your time of great need!
Always be careful when someone is so quick to offer you help and they don’t really know you from JACK!
One of the ways that will help us in this situation is to trust in the advice of an outside friend who will give an honest assessment into the sorry state of affairs that you are in under the guise of being called a friendship. Like that low lying branch that the person on the television show used to pull themselves out of the deadly pit of quicksand, they are independently rooted and can give you the outside untouchable support that you so desperately need to pull yourself out of a bad situation.
This is why your controlling friends who behave in these strange manners hate to see you spend time with anyone “out” of their inner circle without their stamp of approval. You will only hear bad things about their character and “why you need to keep away from them” from the lips of your dysfunctional acquaintance in order to manipulate you away from their very refreshing and healing influence on your life.
Wow!
I hope that someone has gotten something from these shared words and would love to hear of your experiences and feedback as I could go on literally for days about the lessons learned from my own personal experiences which for the most part has been the absolute BEST teacher!
If truth be told, this kind of stuff you just can’t learn from a book!
