(no subject)
My friends have a tendency to invalidate my feelings. They don't let me feel what I need to feel. Instead they pat me on the head and tell me to not worry my pretty little head about it. Or better yet, completely disregard them.
I'm not a secretive person by any means but I am private. And much of the reason for that is there are too many people I've shared myself with that have done exactly what I've described, to inner parts of myself that can't hold up to that blatant disregard. How can anyone invalidate the very who of you?
The past few weeks (read: months) have been the hardest of my life and the worst is yet to come. Finding someone to talk to openly about how I'm feeling is really difficult. I don't want someone to solve my problems--because you can't. I don't want somebody to help me--because there's nothing anyone can do. I just want someone to listen. That's all you need to do. Let me tell you how I'm feeling. Let me tell you when I'm scared. Let me be blunt about it. Angry, sad, ashamed, happy, whatever it comes out as. Don't offer up a solution, unless you really know it will help. Don't give me any advice. Just empathize. Is empathy that difficult a human emotion? You don't need to know what it's like to have your mother dying from cancer to try to understand how I might be feeling. All you need to do is imagine it's your loved one and you're already half way there.
In a few months time, I'm going to be in a worse place. If the past few days are any indicator of how my mind is handling things, I don't think it's going to go very well. And I'm going to need my friends, my support people, to be there. I'm going to need them to honor their promise.
Listen. Don't just hear me. Listen.
I'm not a secretive person by any means but I am private. And much of the reason for that is there are too many people I've shared myself with that have done exactly what I've described, to inner parts of myself that can't hold up to that blatant disregard. How can anyone invalidate the very who of you?
The past few weeks (read: months) have been the hardest of my life and the worst is yet to come. Finding someone to talk to openly about how I'm feeling is really difficult. I don't want someone to solve my problems--because you can't. I don't want somebody to help me--because there's nothing anyone can do. I just want someone to listen. That's all you need to do. Let me tell you how I'm feeling. Let me tell you when I'm scared. Let me be blunt about it. Angry, sad, ashamed, happy, whatever it comes out as. Don't offer up a solution, unless you really know it will help. Don't give me any advice. Just empathize. Is empathy that difficult a human emotion? You don't need to know what it's like to have your mother dying from cancer to try to understand how I might be feeling. All you need to do is imagine it's your loved one and you're already half way there.
In a few months time, I'm going to be in a worse place. If the past few days are any indicator of how my mind is handling things, I don't think it's going to go very well. And I'm going to need my friends, my support people, to be there. I'm going to need them to honor their promise.
Listen. Don't just hear me. Listen.