Friends Do Not Talk to Me and It Hurts

Talk to me! (Image courtesy of worldofmiri.com)

How childhood scars affect my day-to-day life

And what it takes to heal them

I recently read an article on Medium about the different parts that live in our consciousness and can be at war with each other in an unsuccessful effort to protect the whole.

I know these parts very well.

I have quite a few of them.

Some go along the lines of:

“It’s not surprising no one answered your text. What you put out there was not important.”

Or

“Remember when you were 20 and you lied about what you did because you were ashamed to admit it? How could anyone ever trust you again?”

Or

“You have texted her, sent photos, and tried ringing about ten times. She has not reacted once. You are to blame because you have not tried hard enough. Or maybe you used the wrong tone. Again.”

Friends do not talk to me so I believe I am unworthy

As part of a treatment mode called internal family systems therapy (IFS), the Medium article examines the idea that exile parts exist within us which carry unresolved pain, mainly from childhood, and are extremely scared. Then, there are the protector parts. Their job is to keep the exile parts safe, i.e. protect them from the trauma reoccurring. The protector parts step in whenever a similar situation to the original trauma is triggered. Managing the pain could manifest in a number of ways: running away, throwing a toddler-like-tantrum, consuming ridiculous amounts of chocolate… There is a tendency to non-conformity, maybe even destructive behavior.

To heal this, you need to get to the root cause by engaging with the exile part. The article suggests asking the protector part to step away to see if you can directly communicate with the exile part and ask it what it needs. You might even be able to heal the exiled part meaning the protector part will not have to keep acting out.

I took a hard look at myself.

It was Sunday morning and a friend had not replied to my messages. I felt like an idiot. A part stepped in and started cursing my whole day: “You are not THAT important. It is pretty normal for people not to get back to you. What were you expecting? You probably said the wrong words again. Send another text. Or better even, ring! Send flowers! Invite for lunch!”

When friends don’t respond, I know I need to take care of myself

I stopped myself moments before I jumped in to follow the advice. What was really going on here? Was my reaction justified?

I sat down, closed my eyes, did some breathing exercises, and politely asked the protective part to step aside. It worked! I could address my exiled part directly and asked it what its pain was about. Instantly, I was taken back to a situation in Grade Three. I desperately wanted to fit in with the girls of my class. I tried to connect with them. I invited them for play dates. I copied their hobbies and the way they spoke. I liked what they liked. Still, I felt like an outsider. We had moved into the village from another town and we were not locals. In hindsight, fitting in was a futile attempt. I was different. Looking at it with my adult eyes, I can see what was going on. However, when I was in Grade Three, I did not understand and I could not grasp there was more to the world and that there would be more friends on offer than in my limited Grade Three classroom view.

Then, the bullying happened.

Suddenly, none of the girls spoke to me. They refused to talk to me in class, silently walking away, violently shaking their heads when I approached them. They did not even open their mouths. I could not get any play dates and I did not get any answers to what was going on. I grew more desperate every day. What had I done wrong? Was I not being nice enough? Was I not being good enough? I tried different avenues, but all I earned was a wall of silence.

Can you imagine what this must have felt like? Like ghosting, but with real faces.

I cannot remember how long this lasted; in my memory it went on for an eternity.

I did not confide in my parents or the teachers. I simply assumed this was normal and that it had to do with me. Something had to be wrong with me. So absolutely wrong.

I don’t remember how the story ended, but eventually I found out that one girl, who apparently wanted to be friends with me but never told me, blackmailed all the other girls in the class into not talking to me. They took a children’s vow, one of those where you have to promise first you’ll do it no matter what it is, and only afterwards you are granted access to the great secret.

In hindsight, I feel compassion for this girl and her plotting skills. Where had she learned this at such a young age? What must her life been like to get her to act like this?

Back then, we never became friends. I never really befriended anyone else from my primary years either.

One year later, I changed schools and I never saw any of those girls again. Yet another year later, we moved out of the village. I had to start all over again, carrying with me the notion that it is normal for people to ignore me.

Fast forward to now. I felt the pain of my little eight-year-old self who only wanted be seen, acknowledged, held, and loved. The little girl that desperately craved a friend. A real friend. Someone who would always be by her side. I came to see how twisted her idea of friendship had become. She did not learn how to articulate her needs or that she was even allowed to have needs in a friendship. She grew up dismissing clear signs of waning friendships. She never gave up on anyone. She was always the one reaching out, at least that is how she perceived it. She thought this was normal. She did not have healthy boundaries in friendships… until she crashed because she had run out of energy.

While this story was unfolding for me, tears kept streaming down my face. Grief and sadness pushed to the surface.

Questions arose. How should I move forward? Being over forty, I never learned what it means to be in a healthily balanced friendship. Where should this knowledge come from? How would I learn?

I feel like a young kid again, heading into unknown territory.

It feels scary.

There is a blank canvas to be filled. I sense butterflies in my stomach.

Maybe this is a good time to start again?