Friends are good

Just been over to a friends (I’ll call her Pickles) to chat, sit on the sofa under a blanket, watch a movie about a talking pig and eat melted chocolate, cornflakes and smarties (Don’t tell MrC!). It’s good, and it was good for me. Pickles had some good words of advice, and made me see some things from a different perspective, as well as giving me some tips that I hope will come in very useful with my mental mind and all. Some I kinda knew already, and just needed someone else to tell me, an impartial friend with chocolate always helps. And I love films when the underdog (Or underpig, as Pickles said) wins. The last film I cried at was Escape to Victory, which MrC used in a very imaginitive way to make me laugh when I was feeling down at the weekend because his friend brought him a Christmas present I had bought and hid for him. Don’t ask.

Things Pickles helped me see:

1. Boys and girls can be friends. If a boy and girl want to be together then they would be together, and if they’re not they’re not. It’s just the way it is. I added to this my advice that you can’t make anyone love you. If someone’s with you it’s because they want to be with you.

2. If you love someone you gotta let them be themselves. They will have had a life before you, and you have to be OK with that. You will have had a life before them too. It’s good meeting people from your other halfs life, but you can’t be a part of the past, but you’re a part of the present.

3. If something is bothering you, and you feel anxious, sometimes trying to work it out just reinforces or reassures you that feeling that way is OK. Sometimes, to break a cycle, you have to deal with it in a different way. Ride out the storm. I see from this that sometimes wanting to explain and have MrC understand every last detail of what is going on in my head is not the best thing, for me. It just means I will keep on getting anxious and having to explain, so I gotta just ride it out, and it will get easier, not the next time, but in time.

4. And in relation to the above, I’ve got to not reinforce others behaviour that isn’t good for them. Pickles told me she would sometimes go in a mood and her ex boyfriends would always ask what was up. “Nothing” she’s say in a harsh tone, repeatedly when asked. They would coax and cajole her, she would answer with “Leave me alone!”, wanting them really to stay and keep asking her and she could keep being mean to them. Her now husband, when she was in a bad mood, would ask if there was anything he could do. If she said “No!” he would say, “Ok, I’ll be upstairs when you need me”. He was the first person to do this, and to begin with she would stew in her bedroom for hours, before realising she was actually bored. He was the first boyfriend person she said sorry to. From this it’s a similar lesson- it’s not always best for us what we want, especially when emotional, and sometimes it’s not always best for us or them to pander to other people’s.

5. If you get really anxious about something, you can write it down, and mark the different points in relation to how anxious you feel, then write a list of pros and cons for each point, for instance in telling someone, or going back to check you switched the oven off (for OCD suffers). Then mark your points again for how anxious you feel. You should feel better, just getting it out can make you feel better. But again, sometimes you gotta ride the storm to break the cycle. I don’t think it would be any good for me if someone kept pandering to my insecurities; I think it woud just make them worse.

6. And finally Pickles made me realise the reason underneath why I was upset last week. I felt excluded, like there was a secret, and that was all. I should just be able to say that, MrC say OK, and to move on. But instead i get bogged down in my insecurities, I remind myself of everything bad I have done or someone has done to me, and really, it will hurt, but I gotta get out of that cycle. I should tell MrC if something bothers me, but it should be something easy to explain, and not random “I feel on the outside not on the inside”malarky. My friend had trouble seeing that.

Ah, it’s good to have friends that help you to see things that you know are true, that make you think in a different and better way, that give you a different perspective and can make you laugh at yourself. Thanks pickles!