Whhoooooo… Opened a big ol’ can o’ worms with my last post.
First off - thank you so much to everyone who’s reached out asking about their own situation. I’m loving all the engagement! Keep it up!
An interesting offshoot of my Survival Mode and the Toxic Friend post has been the folks who recognize that they’re trapped in a cycle with someone from the other side of it - they’re being the needy friend focused on themselves instead of supporting the person in their lives who’s having the hard time. Coming to that realization is remarkably brave and honest and I’m so proud of you for wanting to take the steps to rectify it.
Second - we can all do it, so don’t beat yourself up too much. Remember those survival mechanisms around relationships and friendships I was talking about? How we tend to hyper focus on the approval of others when our Survival Mode kicks in? It’s easy to get stuck there.
I want to assure folks that if you recognize that you’re doing it and want to stop it - that’s actually indicative of someone who went through some sh*t of their own and so are missing a skill set or two and this is just the only way your brain knows how to get what it needs. That’s a VERY different situation from someone who does this on purpose with zero insight into the damage it causes, what they’re doing, nor wants to fix it. You’re not a bad person because life happened to you. You’re taking responsibility for your behaviour and seeking help to try to fix it. That’s really all we can expect from each other when friendships go off the rails. That’s not the same as someone who pathologically doesn’t have empathy and is manipulating people for their own personal gain. You’re not broken. Just a little bruised.
So, what’s happening and why are you flipping out at someone you care about when you know they need you to be a support person right now?
This is where actual therapy comes in - here are some resources to get that process started:
https://novascotia.ca/mental-health-and-wellbeing/
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/mental-health-services/mental-health-get-help.html
But, in just a general overview, here’s what’s going down and how to try to stop it.
Approval is a hell of a drug. Seeking the approval of someone else over your own approval of yourself tells me that either your relationship with your parents or your friend-group during those critical times of survival behaviour pattern formations was a bit unbalanced and unhealthy. But! We CAN actually learn to deactivate that and learn better and healthier ways of interacting with others in our lives.
What’s going on in your own life that’s got you in Survival Mode of your own? If you’re hyper-focusing on this other person, you’ve got to be going through something that’s got you tweaked.
Why is their approval so important to you? Who/what does this person represent for you? What abuse-cycle are you re-living here? What are the ways that you can bring the focus back to yourself and your own approval of you, rather than needing this other person to validate you and your existence for you?
Recognize how unfair it is that you’re asking this person to do that for you - they’re going through something. They don’t need the responsibility of validating you, approving of you, or just about anything else to do with maintaining your self-esteem and self-worth for you right now.
Recognize that you’re also clearly going through something right now, which is why you’re seeking their validation, and maybe go deal with that instead.
Remember that Distraction Mechanism I talked about way back in my Understanding Survival Mode post in this series? The folks who go ‘sure, there’s a bear, but this poisonous flower is really the thing I have to worry about’. That’s what’s at play here, but it’s a slight variation of it. In this case, you’re trying to win the approval of the person you think can actually help you defeat the bear in your own life. Somewhere along the way, you weren’t taught how to do that for yourself, or were taught that you couldn’t or shouldn’t. So yeah, of course that seems like a big deal and like they’re failing you right now. Your survival is at stake. This bear is a big, serious problem. But you’re both fighting bears right now. It’s not your friend’s fault that you were never taught how to defeat your own bear. But it IS your responsibility to learn how to do that for yourself now.
The thing about anger is that it also tends to get displaced. You’re not actually mad that your friend can’t slay your bear for you. You’re mad at whoever didn’t teach you to do it yourself and mad at yourself for avoiding learning it until now.
The thing that happens is that this Survival Behaviour programming is a bit like steps to a dance. You were taught a dance. You expected that you were taught the correct steps to that dance. So when you come across another person and you start to dance with them, you expect the other person to follow that dance with you. When they don’t, you notice. One of you has got the steps wrong here. Maybe you both learned slightly different variations of the same dance, maybe they’re totally different, maybe this just requires a little negotiation to figure out whose dance moves you’re going to follow for this specific dance, etc., etc. If you’re dancing with someone who knows what they’re doing and you don’t, it can become painfully obvious that you learned the dance wrong. That creates insecurity and a fear of judgement. Now you have to prove to this person that you can dance, or force them into learning your wrong version. But there’s a third option - you can learn the actual correct steps to it.
Point is, regardless of which situation it is, it’s not cool to take that out on your friend or make them responsible for teaching it to you. So thank you for recognizing it and reaching out for some help with it.
So, what do you do with it?
Therapy. Seriously. You’re missing some skill sets and you need to learn them. Find someone who has a developmental psychology and/or rehabilitation practice and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you learn them now. It’s just you taking the responsibility to learn the actual right steps to the dance instead of forcing everyone into your own wrong one or sitting there feeling ashamed that you can’t dance. It’s dance classes for your brain. That’s all it is. No need to get all weird about it. (And it doesn’t have to be me. This genuinely isn’t a ‘so come see me to solve all of life’s problems’ kind of post. Just had a bunch of questions today from folks and figured this might be helpful for the greater group as a whole who may not have been so brave as to reach out but had the same questions.)
Focus on you. Heal your own self-esteem stuff and get to a place where the only approval you need is your own. It shouldn’t be up to anyone else to validate your existence for you. You’re here. You matter. No one else gets to tell you who to be or how to live your life. Start focusing on figuring out who you are, not who you think you should be so that people will like you. That’s why it’s important to be okay with leaving a toxic friendship, relationship, or tribe. Find your people. You can only do that when you know who you are. But believe me, once you do, magical things start to happen for you.
Fix your own problems. Refocus on what the bear is in your life and handle it. It’s up to you to do that, no one else. People can help support you through it, but they are not responsible for doing it for you.
Seriously - therapy. There are professionals who teach you these dance moves for a living. Don’t feel weird about it. No one learns all the dances there are to learn in childhood and adolescence. New ones are made all the time. Taking a few classes doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or that you’re broken or any number of other reasons people avoid therapy. It’s you taking responsibility to learn the moves you’re missing so you become a better dance partner for the people in your life instead of making it their responsibility to teach you when they’re busy with their own stuff. Trust me. Learn how to dance and everyone will want to dance with you. It’s the only way to actually fix your insecurities around dancing and actually get out there on the dance floor and have the time of your life.
So, take a step back, ask your friend what they need from you, and don’t get upset if what that is is a little time and space so they can fight their own bear. You focus on learning how to dance so that when they’re done fighting, you can be a better dance partner. I may be using too many analogies/metaphors here, but you get the idea, right? You heal you while they’re busy healing themselves and you’ll stop taking it so personally that they’re not healing you for you. That’s not their job. That’s yours.
Drop me a line if you’re totally lost. I wrote this quickly. It may or may not make the most sense… :)
I swear I’m going to actually finish this series…Next post - repeated and prolonged trauma responses. That post really will help make this make more sense. Promise.
Till next time, folks!