6th Jan
A weird week of wacky sleep schedule, almost constant work, and never seeing the sun.
It has been odd. Permanently dark. Sitting on the bed tapping away at code on the laptop.
Poor Athena has just slept all the time. I am zero fun. And she's old and tired.
Also, I think I probably lost a friend this week. I am ok with that, if that's the case.
It comes down to challenging someones reality. At what point do you go along with someone and their belief, and at what point do you pushback and disagree. It's not about forcing them to agree with you, or demanding they think in a certain way. Agreeing to disagree is perfectly acceptable. But even this can be thorny when someones life is based around a lie, or, lying to themselves.
I've often hit this pothole in life. How much do you push. How much do you let slide.
How to tell someone they are fucking up badly. Or being an asshole. Or crazy. Or anything that is difficult for them to come to terms with. If not impossible.
Saying nothing can often be the answer, just, support, but don't say squat. But even this can get tricky when supporting them has at least a little reliance on you also having to agree with their bullshit. You get co-opted into their dysfunction.
Difficult.
Oddly enough, I read a fairly frivolous article yesterday challenging us to be "better friends" and not just agree to anything and everything a friend says, but at times challenge them.
You can read the article here
There's a quote in there that they got from a psychologist commenting about it.
"While the easiest route in a great friendship is to agree with what ever your friend is thinking, support what path they’re taking, and to defend them – even at times when it seems their position is indefensible – you could be creating some destructive mechanisms.
The job of a really good friend is to challenge your friend’s perception of certain circumstances, if you think that those circumstances may do them harm in the long run "
Therein lies the rub.
Doing this is at best going to cause a little discomfort in the target, and at worst challenge them in a way that they cannot handle and flip out about.
So it is.
Another way I think about this, is to imagine a future where they have overcome their particular difficulty. Would they look back and thank you or curse you for enabling them and not challenging them ? But if they never get over it, does their opinion then change ?
Eesh. Hard. Because the answer is, it depends if they end up seeing the light or not. Any choice you make, you stand a good chance of being possibly hated for it.
Ultimately there is a cost involved there. That friend role of challenging self destructive but tightly defended behaviour is going to take a toll on emotions, mental health and everything. It's a high cost. And maybe one that cannot always be afforded by you ( try to remember you're human too ). Because your friend is going to take you as a target. And lash out. If it were that easy about being dragged into the light, they would have strolled there themselves. It isn't. They don't want to. And they will throw a tantrum at worst.
Tricky.
As it stands, this time around, I have dug my heels in with this friend. I don't have a problem with them making a choice one way or another. But I will not agree with their gaslighting of themselves, burying of emotion, and adherence to some bullshit standard out of fear and a sense of duty. Make a choice. But be honest about where you're coming from. If you have to gaslight yourself to death in order to defend your choice. Yeah. No. The writing is already on the wall for that one, and pain and suffering is liable to be due.
Of course, there are no guarantees, and anything can happen.
But gaslighting yourself is bullshit. Regardless of eventual happy or more likely unhappy outcome.
They are more than displeased that I have not gone along with their new found happy clappy reinvention of the state of affairs.
Of course. Predictable. Because it threatens their tenuous make believe construct that everything is actually ok. They dont want that bubble popped. They dont want their world to be shaken. Who would ? But you also cannot alter reality to your own liking just because. As shit as it is, you have to accept things as they actually are. Not just invent a la la world in place of it. They are scared of what it all means. And have retreated to a gaslit bubble of bullshit. Ironically, they have said they appreciate me being honest with them, and how important it is.
They don't mean that. They are scared of the truth, and want anything but that, if it goes in the face of their fragile echo chamber.
So. All in all.
I hope things work out for them. But I think I have lost a friend. I don't regret it. And would do it all over again. Even though they might not know it - yet. I am trying to be the actual best friend to them, in spite of themselves. What you're doing. Is really harmful to yourself.
But you'll get no thanks or pats on the head for it. Just a kick.
Such is life.
And as my other friend brutally remarked. And keeps echoing in my head. "You're better off out of it". Probably so. I can do without the drama of getting stuck inbetween two extremes of one persons emotions and having to argue against one personality or the other depending on what day of the week it is. The costs, as stated above, are high.
This, regrettably, is not the only situation in my life like this at the moment. There's another even worse one that's sitting in my circle of people. An even worse and nastier payload with a bad mental health condition - paranoia which is in no uncertain terms destroying their life. I honestly don't know what to do about it. And at this point. I am just hoping they get help, but, it seems unlikely at this point.
Very difficult.
As I've got older I've tended much more to just keep my mouth shut. If I haven't, that probably means you mean more to me than my own sanity ( or very unlikely, I got involved without thinking about it ). But even with that. Sometimes the better path is to let the paid professionals - where applicable - do their thing and keep your mouth shut. Someone can offer them time and expertise. Just the context of "The Professional" challenging someone can be enough of a change to make someone properly look at themselves. I have slowly, oh so slowly, learned, I don't always have to be the one forever fixing it. Other, paid people, can do that. Still. Always hard to watch people suffer.
In other news, my old man has apparently driven his car off the road into a ditch.
An unforced error.
This isn't the first time he's got into trouble with the car.
My brother seems pretty frazzled with it all. A series of stresses and events have all slowly piled up on him, and a shaky month has turned into months. He's ok. But not great.
The old man is also having problems just... doing anything. Fucking up the heating. Fucking up the phone. Forgetting how the car works.
He's getting to a point where he can't quite look after himself. Him being him, there will be no helping him per se.
He has already suggested to my brother in that offhand way, that it might be soon time for him to commit suicide.
Uh huh.
I talked to my brother about it. Gave him some support. A plan of what to do. And mostly, not to worry about it. It is what it is.
As for the old man. You can never really tell. He does love a bit of drama secretly. A bit of a drama queen on the quiet. But there's also more than a dose of truth in there. Either he will pop himself off, or not, no way to tell, no way to prevent it. Not even sure if it would be a mercy to stop that anyway. I think if you did, you would just enrage him to do it more messily out of spite. At this point, 84 years old, cancer, diabetes, chronic depressive, he's never going to "get better". Difficult.
It's a sorry meandering end to a life. Very sad. But also very much leaned into. He is in a bed of his own making. But then again. There but for the grace of God go I. We can all be like that.
An awkward stubborn dude, constantly battling with a suicidal mood and prone to fits of anger, the only coping mechanism he knows. A difficult customer and no mistake.
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