I Am a Crappy Friend: Failing the Acid Test

failing the acid test

A new online acquaintance wrote a compelling blog post a while back about failing the acid test. This means, are you there for your friends through thick and thin? Are you supportive during bad times as well as being around during good times?

Sadly for me the answer is no. I'm barely there for good times. but let me explain about the bad times. I have a tenuous grasp on my own well-being, after having suffered/endured/survived what was an often chaotic, sometimes horrific, and frequently filled-with-filth childhood. Young adulthood was little better, including such events as domestic violence, stranger and relationship rape, poverty, and severe depression. By age 23 I'd had enough and began to build a stable life for myself. long story short! reason why I so frequently fail the acid test with friends and family is that their despair, whatever pain they are going through, often makes me feel right back there during my dark times of pain and confusion, both in childhood and young adulthood. I panic, literally panic at being confronted with their pain.

I really dislike this about myself. It makes me withhold myself in friendships...like I'm barely there for the good times, in large part because I don't want to be relied upon, called for help, etc during the bad times. or any time, really. I have missed the birth of 2 children! from two very close friends! because of this. I barely made it to the funeral of a good friend's boyfriend! I hung up on another friend who called me from the emergency room, right before she got sent to the psych ward! that one I just could not do, I could not physically go there (part of my childhood trauma included crazy siblings, one of whom tried to kill me when I was 8). Which she knew about and understood even in the midst of her breakdown, but I at least could have talked to her, you know?

I rarely call my friends and even rarer call them back when they call me. I hardly email. When a friend does actually get me on the phone, they keep me on forever because they know they won't get to talk to me for awhile. I write letters to friends and forget to mail them. I just found letters for people I wrote 2 weeks ago! underneath the seat in my car. I do this all the time, it's so crazy! I invite people over then forget I invited them, then act all cold and weird when they show up. I start fights sometimes about nothing. I ignore my friends sometimes when they talk. I act all weird when I meet their other friends. I'll make plans to go somewhere with them/meet them somewhere then not show up. If I do show up, I'm either very late or leave early. I am such a crappy friend!

In spite of all this I have been blessed, so very blessed to have good friends in my life. People who love me, support me, and care about me. Who listen to me during my bad times, who are there for me whenever I need a shoulder to cry on. When I think about how I have treated my friends so poorly, I feel so ashamed. I don't deserve friends like these.

I know a large part of my issues with friends is tied to my childhood, my family. Many in my family are still stuck in absolutely terrible ways of interacting with each other...in my family, 'being there' for each other means using each other and allowing oneself to be used. They will suck you dry, use you up entirely and expect to come back for more, stomp you flat. Then hug you and tell you how great being supportive of family is. I know none of my friends are like this, but a part of me freezes at the thought of 'the acid test'. I keep failing at being a good friend but to me that's preferable to being a used friend who lets people stomp all over her.

I am about to start therapy (I have had therapy in the past for depression, rape issues etc but obviously still have other issues) for this and other stuff and though I'm very fearful, I am excited and glad for myself that I am making this step. I'm giving myself a silent cheer. Already it's helped...I re-wrote and mailed those letters off and I called a friend. I feel...on my way.

(There are some other things going on but a big part of what prompted me to deal with this is that my very best friend is pregnant now. She has 2 children, one of whom died. My life has been changed in fundamental ways from knowing her and being blessed by her friendship and her support, and of learning from how she survived her child's death and the subsequent depression. She is a wonderful, beautiful human being. I cannot, will not flake on her, I have to be there for her. I would never forgive myself if I did.)

This blog entry written by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Positive Emergence!

Why Are We Ashamed & Full O f Fear?

I do think the world would be a fantastic place if we all acted out of love and pride instead of shame and fear. I think people feel ashamed sometimes because they feel it was their fault that they are in the situation they are in. Even if it is, they stil should have enough food to eat.

I know this was how I felt for a long time. I felt ashamed that I had not been responsible and had done things that led up to my being poor and it's fallout like being evicted, getting utilities turned off, etc. Or I felt ashamed that I couldn't do better for my kids, move them somewhere with good schools or shame that I couldn't afford private school. It took a minute for me to realize that economic status or not, my kids deserved to go to clean, safe, and academically competent schools just like the kids of the middle-class and wealthy. The shame wasn't that I couldn't afford to move to an upscale suburb (then) or pay for private schools, the shame was that this country does not provide equal public schools for all children regardless of the economic status of their parents.

In many ways when I look back on my life I feel a sense of shame that I allowed myself to be victimized by others, and didn't take responsibility for myself at an earlier age. But - I do think that we have a responsibility to other people as well. I feel a sense of shame that I have not done what I can do to help others.


This blog entry written by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Positive Emergence!