The Complexities Of Interpersonal Relationship

I made a little promise on my podcast that I was going to make a comment on the many little things that are going on in my life and attempt to figure out where I can place myself now. One of the things I have to believe is worth mentioning is my relationship with other people. 

Chandan Suman
Source: Pexels.com

The problem with the mind.

Julian, a funny friend of mine, had a catchphrase last year, "it's all in the mind, think about it". He said it whenever a question was asked or he stumbled on something he didn’t want to give his attention to. Soon enough, everyone that approached him would start whatever conversation with "it's all in the mind" and just as it started, it ended. 

The thing with the statement was how it absolved Julian from having any rash and immediate reaction to whatever was in front of him. And for me, it brought to my consciousness months later the importance of the mind in pretty much everything that pertains to us being human. 

The mind is the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought. In simpler terms, you are as fucked as your mind. 

For persons with "troubled minds," there is an interference with how you relate with other people because while trying to wade through the uncertainty that is your emotions, human interactions become a lot more difficult and there is a strain on interpersonal relationships. 

It is easier to be labelled as a difficult person when it comes to how well you interact with people. It is harder to expect people to make allowances for you, or extend a bit more kindness, everyone is going through it and a lot fewer people have the grace to spare. So coming from a disadvantaged place only means more hurdles to jump and the patience to not allow everything to blow up in your face. More even than not, I find myself retreating from human interactions because it becomes overwhelming and I need the space to breathe and recover.

But suppose you can get your mind together and develop healthy coping habits while simultaneously removing yourself from the toxicity you have gotten used to. In that case, you get to overcome the mind, and interpersonal relationships become a lot easier from your end, at least.

Trauma and healing. 

I read somewhere that our trauma is deeply entrenched in our current coping mechanisms and until we heal from past trauma, we create new avenues for such trauma to play out.

I have an extreme fear of loneliness, which is the funniest thing about being an introvert. I felt unwanted as a teenager when I realised the people that got close to me did so because of what they stood to gain from it. It took a while to make friends that truly wanted to stay and I became a people pleaser to make sure they did.

I was insecure, immature and naive. I was also too trusting for the strangest reason and I chose to see only what can be good about someone even if they showed me the worst thing in them. Constant trying to reach out to people and being bruised with every interaction made me decide to stick to myself. 

But that decision backfired in different ways, like going on to handle every wrong done to me alone and failing to handle it properly, finding it extremely difficult to communicate with people and finally becoming codependent on the people I get close to. Separating myself from those people broke me in worse ways than it should and I never gave myself the chance to stop and heal. 

The thing about machines you don't oil and a mind you don't heal is that they break down. The bright side though is that when you hit rock bottom, the only way left to go is up. To go up is to start healing and healing is no easy route. 

On some days, it feels like you are doing alright and everything is going to be just fine, and on other days, you find yourself right where you started, sad, broken and confused. You can also be angry because you are aware of the wrong that was done and the part you played, albeit unaware of the outcome of those things.

I say that the people that hurt me the most are the ones that would rather lie to get something from me, especially something that it is in my nature to give freely and the ones that would get what they want from me and go ahead to mock me for being a "free" giver.

And it hurts because manipulation has a way of rewiring you, it makes you doubt yourself thousand times over, makes you feel like you are a fool, walks away with your self-esteem and for me makes it easier to accept the lies my subconscious mind creates. So I become more cynical, less trusting and a lot more unwilling to attempt reaching out to people. The mind always isolates itself into insanity. All of the things I don’t want to be.

Acquaintances.

I have been told that I am very friendly and that is a lot of improvement from who I used to be. I had to learn to define my relationship with other people. My classmates are basically my classmates and I do my best to have something more than just a polite conversation with them. I try to pay attention to little details, get to know them and their significant other, keep their birthday on my calendar so that I don’t forget to send a birthday wish, and above all, I draw my boundaries pretty tight. 

One trick I have learnt in dealing with people that I have relatively loose ties with is to tell myself that it is not that deep. I don’t allow myself to feel things so deep that it bothers me, I have learnt to always let things slide instead. Although there are days that I feel terribly hurt and angry that I have no other choice but to actually confront what has happened and after those confrontations, I feel way worse than I expect to be. A trick to avoiding confrontation is to completely sever whatever connection is between us and it is always a last-ditch effort.  

Friends.

Some friends who may not be the closest to me, have the most important key for me in a moment of my life. Some, who may be as close as my own skin may not have what I need today. It's okay if our spouses or partners don't have every key. How could they? It isn't a failure if they don't open every single door of who you are. The million-room-mansion of identity cannot overlap perfectly with anyone. But I will say, my closest friends have a key ring on their hip with lots of keys, jingling.

Jedidah Jenkins

Author of "Like streams to the Oceans"

I can choose to dwell on the problem I have with all my friendships, be it from my end or theirs, or I can do this.

I am blessed to have amazing friends and to finally learn the limits of such friendships. It is ok if you can’t get certain things out of your friendship with people, the most important thing is that the basics like shared or common values, respect, and effective communication are seen in those friendships. 

Recently, I was forced to have a difficult conversation with an old friend of mine. She wanted to know everything there is to know about me, up to a point of entitlement. She wants to meet all my friends, wants them to know about her existence, and wants to be involved in the day-to-day of my life and she sounded entitled to that information. I told her there was certain information she isn't privy to and that is the way things work. 

I knew my words hurt her, I knew she felt sad in the course of that conversation but at the end of it all, we were able to reach an understanding. She wasn't entitled to knowing everything in my life, no one is. She had to learn boundaries and I had to stand my ground and defend those boundaries.

I have learnt to define the boundaries of all my friendships and to know what I have to offer to each of them and what I get out of it. The most important lesson, though, is learning when to leave a friendship that no longer serves either of us.

Samir Ali
Source: Pexels.com

Familiar Strangers.

Dear A,

Our friendship was a very interesting one but I became terrified of being vulnerable somewhere along the way.

I always had an idea of who this person was long before we had any interaction with each other and finally when I met him and we became friends, it was easy to see how much of an amazing person he was. The truth is this though, everyone has another side to them that we might never know until we cross the line of pleasantries. 

One lesson from this friendship that I would never forget is this if they can do it to someone else they would definitely do the same to you. So if you meet someone that is unforgiving to other people, overly critical, brutally honest and condescending towards people, it is only a matter of time before they become that to you. 

I have my fair share of foolishness, but being in love with my friend was the height of such foolishness. Not only because it was unrequited but also because it made detachment a lot harder than it ought to be. I was once again too vested in something that has become toxic.

Nowadays, his absence in my life is not as profound as I imagined it to be. I always thought I would completely fall apart if we stopped being friends, and now it's like he was never here, never friends and more of a dream I had but can't quite recall. 

Family.

At the end of the day, family is all you have.

I have grown closer to my family in the past months and honestly, I am glad we got there. 

And now, we have a lot more grace for each other, an understanding of our different struggles with enough love and encouragement to go around. I have become closer to my brothers, had the time to sit and chat with my cousin and have that deep sense of belonging. It feels weird to say that I can finally belong with these people, my people.

But then again, family is more than just biological. 

I am trying to build a family here.  Some friendships are transcending the normal plane of closeness and the only other description for them is family. It is beginning to make sense to me now, how our parents have friends that are so close to the family that calling them uncle is just right, and how they slowly built a community that in turn raised us.

I am finding my place in God’s family but then again, my sins are ever before me and I still struggle with walking into God’s outstretched arms and those of His other children. I hope I allow myself to belong to this family and find a way to ease this life I have been called into.

This is the 100th post on The Estherian Blog and it feels exciting to be able to get to this milestone. So what do you think? How much impact do you think trauma has on our interpersonal relationships? 

Let me know in the comment below.

With Love,

The Estherian💛