Graceful Endings For Friendships That No Longer Fit In Your Life

one really hard but ultimately positive part of healing your past trauma is when the friends who used to be a great match for you just don't fit anymore because you're changing now some people don't want you to change and some are okay with it but the way that they're dysfunctional will gradually start to be more visible to you as you heal your own dysfunction and it's easy to think on any given day that you know you're all healed now and maybe even you would look down on people who are still stuck in their trauma-driven behaviors it's okay to set your boundaries on behaviors you don't want in your life anymore but I want to show you a middle ground between codependently hanging out with people who are still dysfunctional even though they drag you down and on the other hand treating them like they're you know evil or you know treating them with contempt there's a place for them in your life but with boundaries so this often happens when people have begun to emerge from trauma-driven living but they haven't yet learned to set boundaries totally normal phase of healing so my letter today is from someone I'll call Riley and she writes hello Anna thank you for all you do for so many people I just broke off a four-year friendship with a friend who goes into a rage I ended contact with her two years ago and resumed contact with her a year ago assuming that we both had grown in our recovery all right I'm circling things with the my pink pencil here today and I'm going to come back to some of this let's just read through Riley's letter and I can see what's going on and then see if I can help what precipitated the final breakup was her raging at me and cursing at me because I had refused to pay the valet for her car she threatened to make me get out of her car and cursed at me I knew there was no point in arguing with her in the state she was in so I sat silently along the way said a terse goodbye then got out got into my car and left I texted her that night to tell her that I wanted to end the relationship and then blocked her phone number we still have a recovery meeting in common at this point I want nothing to do with her I want nothing else to do with her if I were to see her at the meeting I don't even want to acknowledge her presence not to punish her but to show myself enough respect that I decide who has a place in my life would you say hello to such a person I won't leave that meeting as I have a leadership role and a sponsee with whom I support but I don't feel any need to engage with this former friend either verbally or via technology please offer your thoughts if you're willing thank you Riley all right I love that you have a recovery meeting that you go to that's really positive so I want to tell you something based on my experience I know how it is when you are actively working on your healing which you are um you're going to go through changes but when you're in a recovery meeting by its nature everyone in that meeting has problems so I think there's this expectation sometimes when people get into a 12-step program or something they go oh my gosh you know there was this guy he hit on me what a terrible program hey you know people go to the they go to these meetings because they are struggling so a person needs to have boundaries at meetings and often when you first get there you don't have boundaries and you don't have a red flag detector so I see what happened here you got there and in your earlier phase of recovery you became friends with somebody who would rage at you and probably there's something in your past and your programming that made you think oh that's okay I can put up with raging and you just got to a point in your healing when you're like no I cannot put up with people raging at me I don't want to do it anymore and you set a boundary so that's good you got out of the car you ended the relationship great so here's the thing you are seeing each other in meetings now and you even have somebody you sponsor who is seeing how you act so I don't know about you but there's a pretty big emphasis in in 12-step recovery on dealing with resentment so when you um continue to see a friend who really made you angry you didn't like how she treated you it doesn't really have anything to do with respect I get that it feels like self-respect to give her the silent treatment but the silent treatment I there's a there's a middle ground here let me just tell you what it is I've had plenty of people you know burn me and I've had ice there was somebody I sponsored once who just she spread all these like nasty rumors about me it affected my reputation with people I was really offended I ran into her not that long ago and she's like hey how's it going and I was just like it's going all right and um I heard that she told people that we were all patched up and it's not patched up she never acknowledged what she did and you know it's still I still feel like oh danger person you know don't let this person into your life but I'm totally polite I'm totally polite to everybody I see in a meeting because a meeting is a place where everybody needs to be there for their healing and if anybody has made it that far they just kind of deserve a little bubble of um decency now that doesn't a boundary doesn't mean you have to give the silent treatment that's not a boundary a boundary is you don't hang out with them you don't maybe talk about personal things but I see no reason you can't go hello when you walk in and leave not to be a big drama show you know you don't want to bring drama into a meeting you don't want to Model Behavior that you punish people who are in a 12-step meeting because because they still have very very common symptoms of things that go along with 12-step problems I don't know what your fellowship is here but whether it's a A or Al-Anon or something yeah people fly into a rage that's why they're there so I encourage you to focus on your recovery work with your sponsor to deal with your resentment about this and with your sense that you don't have adequate ways of protecting yourself from treatment like this you do you have your awakened mind so that you don't get into friendships like that anymore you don't have to anymore and sometimes you know it happens it's so normal but that is one of the things that characterizes friendships um it's a terrific thing I know when I got into recovery I was so grateful to have a group full of people and instant friends and people I could hang out with and I went through these growing pains where you know sometimes people they were they would be really nice and then all of a sudden they would blow up or they'd or they would um I don't know just be gossipy or blame me it didn't happen very often I mean the ratio of like difficulty with people compared to all the great things I got out of it was small but I remember my sponsor told me it's like hey this is 12-step recovery this is why people come and I guess I had had this I had a fantasy I had this idealization that everybody there was all all recovered now and they had scooped me up but actually you know within a not that long amount of a time I became one of the people who was supporting other people and I always always tried to be polite and you know civil to everybody weird stuff happens right I had somebody in a meeting once she was she came in and was very disruptive she started interrupting everything that was said and you know demanding that she have the floor for all this resentment she had and I spoke up and I said hey you have to raise your hand like everybody else and a lot of people were really angry that I said that but that's what I thought was the right thing you know you don't get to just go in and start interrupting the whole thing and somebody will speak up with you that's just sane so just as an example boundaries you're allowed to have boundaries you're allowed to tell people to stop you're allowed to get out of the car you're allowed to block contact but I just would not give the silent treatment in the context of a recovery meeting you don't need to if you're fearful that that gives her the idea that she can come and attack you it's not so you have a boundary and I think what you said is I won't leave the meeting but I don't feel the need to engage oh that's what it is um I I want I don't want to acknowledge her presence not to punish her I'm sorry it is punishment it is but to show myself enough respect that I decide who has a place in my life I want you to respect yourself and I want you to decide who has a place in your life and giving somebody the silent treatment changes nothing about your difficulty with those boundaries your continued recovery always is going to depend on facing and getting free from um this the resentful ways that you've tried to protect yourself from difficult people you're just like us you know you're just like everybody it's normal but as you recover terrible treatment silent treatment that sort of thing it's um it's not necessary for you to have boundaries I hope that helps um if you love this topic I have a video very similar issue different situation and it's called can you keep old friends in your life after you heal and I've got that video right here and I'll see you very soon [Music]

Channel: Crappy Childhood Fairy

Views: 47,119

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Id: T0vHkjYKZxg

Length: 9min 29sec (569 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 17 2023