Jen Fitton answers readers’ problems
Dear Jen I have an old friend who really needs your help, but whenever I mention counselling, she’s quite scathing. She visits quite often and spends over an hour pouring out her problems and moaning about her life. Her children live away and I don’t think many peo- ple can be bothered with her as she’s such hard work. I feel that I’m doing a good job being there for her and she says I make her feel better, but sometimes I feel so dragged down when she’s gone that I then have to work hard to get my own spirits back up! The last time she came she started crying and said: “It’s 49 years since Mummy died.” I didn’t know what to say. Have you any ideas?
Exhausted
Dear Exhausted I’m sure many readers will sympa-
thise with you as probably most of us have met people like this. We feel sorry for them and want to help, but our advice is always rejected and nothing ever changes. Your friend seems to be stuck in a comfort zone of misery, and nothing will be differ- ent until she decides that she doesn’t want life to be this way and realises
that she needs professional help. People can only benefit from coun- selling if they genuinely want life to change and if they make their own decision to seek help. Therapy is quite different from infor- mal sympathy, and being a therapist is quite different from being a friend; a therapist has a more objective per- spective and is not so emotionally in- volved. I’m sure that your friend ben- efits temporarily from off-loading her troubles, but it doesn’t last long and it also drags you down in the proc- ess. In therapy, the dynamic is very different as the client is working with the therapist to find a way through their misery. A good therapist will also be tuned into subtle nuances of language that disclose destructive thinking and behaviour patterns so that the client can understand and begin to make lasting changes. Unfortunately, allowing your friend to keep off-loading to you could be prolonging her reluctance to change. She obviously enjoys the social as- pects of her visits: the tea and cake, the comfy chair and having you nodding and sympathising with her - even through gritted teeth. So why would she bother paying to sit with a glass of water and talk to a complete
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stranger who might ask awkward questions? She must think it’s a no- brainer. Could you ask her what she thinks therapy is about and what she would expect? People have some funny ideas! When she was crying over her moth- er’s death, did you feel that, after all this time, she was genuinely so up- set that she couldn’t help burdening you with her grief? Or did it seem a bit over-dramatic, a bit manipula- tive? She must have known that she would create a difficult situation for you, so this is actually quite control- ling behaviour. I think you have two choices: one is to simply accept the situation and risk undermining your own well-be- ing; the other is to gently explain to your friend that her misery is drag- ging you down and you can no longer help her. You could say that you’d still like to see her, but she needs profes- sional help so that she can be less burdened. Only you can decide how important this friendship is and how assertive you want to be, but some- times we have to risk being outspo- ken, even if this means letting go of old friends and moving on.
Best wishes Jen
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