BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Journals Friends who try to fix you.

I just looked at the designation or whatever you call it beneath my name...

So now I'm a jellyfish?

Hmmm... I wonder when I become a vertebrate.

I get sent self-help books all the time to review and actually that type of friend can be very helpful. What the books explain is that you need multiple types of friends. If all you have is friends who listen passively and say "yes yes it will all be OK" then you tend to stagnate. You sort of wallow in your problems and don't make progress.

So yes you definitely need listening friends! That is a key part of your circle. But you also need active cheerleader friends. You need the "we can fix this!" friends.

The key is to have this circle and to go to your friends in turn. If you go to a "fix it!" friend when you are feeling too passive to fix things, it's not going to work. But if you keep going to the passive "listen without any comment" friends and nobody else, your life spins in circles!

There's a role for everyone

Oh, I agree.... I definitely don't want "There, there" friends exclusively. But the kind of person I was talking about isn't encouraging in actuality, although I'm sure THEY think they are.

Their encouragement is actually a set of well-disguised insults. They imply clearly that you need them to straighten you out because you are oh, SUCH a mess.

These folks aren't a positive influence at all; all they do is make you feel angry and hurt your feelings.

I have a not-so-close-anymore friend who would not let me talk at all. Once I got started, just jeeding to talk it out, she would blast me with her your-family-sucks attitude, insulting people we are not even discussing. It seems to me she would raise her voice to get attention of the people around her, no matter how quietly I talked...which to me would indicate that nobody else needs to hear our conversation. Again, I revert to my journal. I don'tneed people telling me to give up on my marriage because theirs didn't work. My journal listens and doesn't give feedback until I reread it later in the evening. And even then the feedback is not hurtful.

That is exactly the way I feel about it, Lynn Ann!

Input and advice from a friend, someone who CARES, is always welcome. Mean-spirited put-downs under the guise of advice are another thing entirely.

AND sher still thinks we are the best of friends.

Yup! Exactly!

It took a long, long time for me to convince my most you-need-fixing sort of friend that I was, indeed, a grown-up and did not need her to fix me, raise me, straighten me out, ready me for my close-up, or any of that stuff.

I did tell her that I could use just a friend.

Once she finally ascertained that I was not in need of refurbishing, she vanished.

I do want to add a comment for the people who are reading this thread. I definitely agree that some "friends" solely enjoy putting you down and it makes them feel better. Those types of "friends" should be gently but firmly detached.

That being said, it is also really important to give serious thought to what they people around you are saying. I know many people who are in unhealthy relationships with husbands who were very bad for them. Their friends try to warn them of it. But the women think "I can take care of myself" and drive them away.

So it is very worth it to listen to what they are saying, and see if there is a kernel of truth in there somewhere. Sometimes the messages are hard to hear - but often there is something important in there that you really need to absorb.

No argument there, Lisa! There is a big difference between a real, good friend, who may tell you something you don't want to hear out of concern for you (like the situation you describe), and a false one who only considers you a project.

Having been in both situations, I can tell you flat-out that often it is hard to tell the difference.

REALLY hard.