Sorry in advance for the long post, I’ve tried to trim it down.
I’m trying to understand what is happening to a friend (assuming that what’s between us is still a friendship). Background story:
I’ve known her for a couple of years, but the friendship really only got started about a year and a half ago, it started more as an acquaintance with a colleague. She was always really open - she talked about how she’s not super stable psychologically, is in a toxic fwb relationship (her own words, not mine), and a whole bunch of difficulties she was dealing with mentally. Having had a lot of difficulty with my mental health, having been in an abusive situation myself, and having learnt a lot about toxic/relationships in general, I’ve noticed I listen to people’s mental health difficulties very differently, where they open up to me in ways that they don’t open up to anyone else. And a lot of what she was dealing with was people being inconsiderate with her. She wanted the same consideration she gave other people - a fair ask, in my opinion.
Eventually, we started developing quite the friendship. I got to know her as a very empathetic, relatively open person with whom you can talk about everything. Qualities I look for, whether it’s friendships, relationships or even just the parts of my family I chose to spend time with. Thing is, at some point, she said she thought she was developing feelings for me. That “thought she was” turned into “she was”. And honestly, I was never expecting it to go in that direction, but when I started looking at her that way, I could slowly start seeing it. Long story short, this toxic fwb was a major obstacle that fucked it all, literally. We ended up saying things would stay as a friendship, and I’m fine with that (even though I had the impression she wasn’t super happy with it, even though it was her suggestion, but that’s a longer story). Things have settled in that regard, at least from my view, in the meantime.
In the same time span, I had encouraged her to go to a therapist. I had talked about the mostly positive experiences I’ve had with therapists, her GP had also recommended she get one, and eventually she called me out of the middle of nowhere saying she was legitimately considering it, and she then did go see one. Thing is, from her descriptions, he seems to be quite the oddball. He’s a depth psychologist - not a problem, but some of the things she said about him seemed off. On top of that, after sessions with him, it was like a time bomb had been set off in her, that would detonate about a week later and then she would not be doing well at all. With weekly appointments, that means she was feeling pretty shitty. The psychologist’s “answer” was: I do depth psychology, not CBT. Like, I get that psychotherapy can make you feel unwell in the short term, but help in the long term. I sometimes feel pretty shitty after walking out of my psychologist’s office, as well. But in her case, it seemed like (and she even said that’s pretty much what it’s like): here are your sometimes pretty difficult realisations that make you question everything about yourself, what you do with it, figure it out or your own. Maybe I’m off here, to me that seems kind of irresponsible.
Now we’re on a trip we planned a year ago, and something really isn’t right. Where before it seems like she was a boiling pot of emotions that you could see, now it seems like the contents of that pot have been poured into a pressure cooker. You don’t see it boiling anymore, but hear it hiss every once in a while, and I feel like I’m expecting it to explode. I’ve noticed this in the last few months, but this trip really cemented it. I’m almost kind of afraid of addressing things, this was never an issue before. She barely talks about how she’s doing, she always says everything is fine. Sometimes I can manage to get into conversations about deeper topics with her. And in one of them, she said the main goal of her therapy now is autonomy. Which - at first glance, makes sense. She was always pretty worried about other people and what they though of her, and often did things to avoid a bad conscience. But she continued explaining. What that means for her. That, for instance, if there’s someone who fell while skiing, she doesn’t stop because she’s worried about that person, she stops because it’s part of the ski hill rules. There were a couple of other examples, but you get the idea.
Honestly, I was shocked. I had a feeling things were going this way, but to this extent? This person who I once knew as an extremely empathetic person has now turned into someone who doesn’t care all too much about the people around her. I have no idea where this is going, but a part of me is afraid she’s turning into a monster. I know I shouldn’t feel bad for this, but I feel like I made a mistake in recommending therapy. Suddenly, a bunch of people she does stuff with aren’t friends anymore, but people who are useful for doing things with. I asked if I’m one of these people. She said yes. And then later said she’s always available for me if I need something (one of many weirdly contradictory things she’s said or done recently).
We had a disagreement the day before yesterday and talked about it yesterday, really talked the whole thing through, about our emotions in the whole thing, why we acted like we did, and were really honest with each other, something that hasn’t happened in a while. After that, she seemed a lot more relaxed, we had found a solution for us both. But then, this evening, I have this feeling something’s in the air again.
I’m at a loss. Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this?
There can be a pendulum effect. If she has been open and empathetic to the point it hurts her, she might go through a phase over overcompensation. She’s new to doing this a different way and will stumble as she learns how.
I hope that’s the case, and that the pendulum swings back, at least a bit. It’s frustrating, it used to be so much fun to do stuff with her, on this trip we still have a couple of days ahead of us and I’m already worn out, which was never the case before.
A comment like this might help OPs friend “I think it’s great you are learning to live for yourself, and I totally get that you might need to overcompensate to unlearn pass behavior until you find your middle”
I like that approach, thanks! I’ll try to work that in somewhere.
There are shitty therapists like there are all types of shitty professionals, though sometimes it is a matter of going too deep too fast which can also back fire. And I have noticed a lot of people weaponized psychological concepts they learned in a half assed or half remembered way. All I can suggest is this friend try different types of therapy and/or different therapists until they find something that works for them.
The difficulty is getting to her. Since she’s not nearly as open, it’s much more difficult to talk about things like that. And she refutes that something is off, it’s like she’s doing everything to bury her emotions. And I’m almost ready to believe it, and then something happens that makes me go “hold up”. Like that statement about being there for me after saying I’m more of a person who is useful for doing stuff.
Yeah that sounds like a sociopathic way of viewing other people. No way a licensed therapist would be advising this sort of thinking.
OK, then my gut feeling isn’t too far off there. Another example that she mentioned: we’re different in regards to our time planning. I will plan to get the train almost exactly by the minute, but I also have a fairly exact sense of time so it’s never a problem. She’s completely different in that regard, she always wants to be there 10 minutes in advance, and gets panicky when things get close. So when I’m doing something with her, I try to get at least 5 minutes in so she doesn’t get too nervous. Well the one morning I had forgotten something and ran up quickly, things got fairly close, and she yelled at me that we would miss the bus because of me (but apologized later, even though it was honestly fair on her part IMO). She apparently talked with her psychologist about it, and he said “he’s not your responsibility, you should have just gotten on the bus without him”. Which sticks in my mind because I wouldn’t even think about doing the same to her or any of my friends, for that matter (and I did, in fact, miss something because of her once). And there were many times in the past that people acted like that with her and it hurt her.
Unfortunately, he is a licensed therapist. In fact, back when I was looking for a therapist, he was one of the people on my list, and was fairly high on it. In retrospect, thank god for his long wait list, at least I got a psychologist who is much, much better and who has seriously helped me and accepts that I have values that I will not abandon. (Unfortunately, my insurance is clawing back therapy sessions - ugh…)
It can. Sorry that it happened with you.
There’s a former therapist on yt, who quit the industry because of the evil “therapists” & the toxic culture.
AND people change.
Please look around you, at the someones in your life, & see if several are changing in a drastic unhealthy way: our current zeitgeist is … doing something profoundly-strange to some people.
If you see it, then please invest in your autonomy.
_ /\ _
Yes, I’ve noticed the same thing. I’ve already pretty much lost a good friend of mine (someone else, not her), which makes things that much more difficult.
I am doing what I can to “invest” in my autonomy, but unfortunately my therapy, which has been helping me in that regard, has been clawed back, which is not good at all.
C’s get degrees.
