The Pot, The Kettle And Denial

This morning a friend rang, in a hurry as usual. She wanted to go to the cinema. It calms her. I said it wasn’t open and that I’d been trying to ring her, to share something important, insights into a common problem we have that I’d got from another person. She didn’t want to talk about that and I didn’t get a chance to ask about her weekend. She hung up, leaving me feeling breathless. Not long after, I got an email from her attacking me and telling me I talk ninety percent about me, don’t have listening skills and don’t ask questions about her.

My reply: ‘I think this is a case of pot and kettle.’

It’s my own fault. I left myself open. I tried to share something that’s painful to her. Well, it’s a shared problem. It’s painful for me too. Maybe it comes to ladies of a certain age -:) But I was grateful to the man who opened his heart to me on Sunday and shared his insights, however painful and challenging they were for me to listen to and look at – some bits of myself I’d rather not deal with; but I’m willing to. He reminded me about a few things I’d forgotten about relationships. I tend to rise to challenges. My friend didn’t want to. She prefers to blame other people, circumstances, and go to the cinema to escape her pain instead. But that’s after she delivered a dose of it to me by attacking me.

OK, I shared something important with someone I now know it’s not safe to share with. (I’ll write about appropriateness). I won’t be doing that again. For me, if it’s not possible to share with a friend, then there is no friendship. If a friend says, ‘I don’t want to go there,’ I respect that, and friends do at times. But if they attack or blame or accuse me, that’s not on, especially when they’re accusing me of exactly what they’re doing – in this case not listening. And, if you don’t listen to yourself, how can you listen to others. If you don’t admit you’re in pain, avoid it by running away (to the pictures, or the beach, or wherever), you will hurt others.

Pot and kettle: as it happens, she did me a favour. She enabled me to see where I am hurting myself – certainly by giving my power away, and then becoming a victim of someone else’s pain. The only problem is, I won’t be able to discuss this with her now. Her next email said, let’s move on. She was obviously not open for further discussion. But we can’t move on, because it will happen again, and I’m not up for that. That’s the sad part. If you deny your pain, you’re likely to push other people away from you. Your defences will stop them approaching. You deny yourself intimacy. That’s what the man on Sunday taught me.