As I spoke with my mother at my son’s birthday party at an adventure park just before Easter, we touched on my abandonment issues stemming from the fact that as I child I craved companionship, company and attention… much more than my mother had to offer. It’s not that I was abandoned. I am close with my mother, she never walked away, although there were times when I am sure she thought about it! It’s just that those emotional needs to feel loved, delighted in, played with, spoken to and included went unmet.
As a solution to this problem, my mum did her best to make sure I always had a friend to meet this need. She liked to make sure I had someone to play with. It wasn’t always possible, and sometimes she thought the older kids we hung out with would include me, although they most often told me to go away too.
This feeling was pervasive my whole childhood, the only people who WANTED to spend time with me were my friends, and soon into adolescence, as a result, they were the only people I wanted to spend time with too. My friends met an emotional need for love, connectedness, emotional intimacy and feeling seen. They validated me. I felt they liked me.
During those years though, as a girl, I was not immune to the relational aggression that carries on. For me, and maybe for all teen girls, it was a fate worse than death. It consumed me when a friend had stopped speaking to me for some reason, and I lived in absolute fear of losing the only people I had who seemed to acknowledge my existence, and even welcomed it. Because I lived in fear of this, I actively tried to avoid it at all costs. This meant trying my hardest to be liked. Never being disagreeable. Telling people what they wanted to hear, and most often being who I thought they wanted me to be rather than who I am.
For example a few of my friends went above and beyond to protect my image and defend my honour against all the swirling rumours about my budding lesbianism. They were adamant that as people who spent the most time with me in the world they would surely know something so big about me. But they didn’t. They didn’t really know me at all. They all praised me on what a good friend I was and how lucky they felt to have me in their lives, but they never noticed I only played a supporting role. That I never talked about myself, but listened to them. That I never made a suggestion or request, but went along with whatever they wanted.
And on the odd occasions I did let someone down, I paid the price as they never hesitated to tell me how disappointed they were in me and how hurt they were by my actions, often times pulling their friendship away. If it was a tactic to gain my attention – it worked and I tirelessly chased them and apologised and tried to make it up to them. This was true even if the only thing I had done was invite one friend for a sleepover instead of the other. The minute I did what I wanted to do for myself, there was a price to pay.
As I mentioned earlier, I was always too much for my mother. She couldn’t handle my need for attention, and when I would get angry or upset about it, without fail, she laughed. I know this was her coping mechanism now, as an adult and an attempt to calm the situation down, however it was invalidating and taught me that my feelings were a joke and I was better not to ever expose them to anyone because everything I felt was wrong. She would respond when I said “You don’t love me, you only love my brother.” She would sit me down and tell me she loved me but explain that basically she liked my brother better. (They shared a sense of humour, he was more pliable and obedient than me, he was smarter, less needy, more mature being 6 years older, and quiet. They had more in common. He took after her whereas I took after my dad.)
On some level, as a result of this, I learned that I am too much, that I am not likeable. And I realise I have carried that with me into adulthood and into my friendships.
I wasn’t dumb as a doorknob, although many people in my life have assumed that I am, because I have a tendency to make myself smaller so other people can shine. But I was no Einstein either. I wasn’t winning awards every day, and although I was the top science student when I graduated, nobody seemed to notice or care particularly. I wasn’t a supermodel (although when I starved myself people did start noticing me for a change.) I wasn’t really the best at anything. I had no talents like playing a sport or an instrument or being artistic. I am messy and disorganised (on the surface anyway) and I frequently heard how I was boring and lazy.
I now know that I was scared, hiding, and facing worlds of rejection. Didn’t seem to be the daughter my mother had prayed for, wasn’t the academic success my father hoped for, wasn’t thin and attractive, didn’t like to read, and was fairly sure I was gay. I wasn’t what anybody wanted me to be. Except a good friend. And being that met a need. I could not live without my friends. If it was a choice between being loved and ignored or liked and included, I would choose like every time.
Now, I had a good childhood, and I can only imagine the horrors other people faced, so I am not asking you to pull out the worlds smallest violin. I am merely explaining how friendship came to be like my fulltime job, and how I have learned to be a good friend at the expense of being myself. And actually I am coming to learn that this alone, sometimes makes me a bad friend. I say yes when I mean no, and hold quiet resentment. I try harder when really what I want is for them to try harder. I give my time and energy so they don’t have to and I make it easy, beneficial, even to have me as a friend. And I do all of this out of the belief that they will leave if I don’t.
But it costs me true vulnerability. Which I am learning that I am terrified of actually, and that I hold people at a distance in order to have them hold me close. It costs me those feelings of authentic closeness that I have craved. Because it’s dishonest. I am not the worlds nicest person or the best friend anyone could have. I will be, if you want, but it isn’t who I am.
I learned early on that in order to have good friends, you need to be a good friend. Except I heard that in order to have friends at all you need to be the worlds best friend. And it just isn’t true. I didn’t care if my friends were good or not, just that they were there! Added to which the problem I soon encountered is that when you are a super good friend in high school, people want to include you. But after they have partners and jobs and life moves on, the formula isn’t quite so effective…. More on that next week!!
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
