One fad I remember from college was the "radical" notion of self love. Self love essentially asked us to free ourselves from the expectations of society and the people around us and instead begin to love ourselves unconditionally, regardless of our flaws. A component of self love was removing toxic individuals from your life. Basically we needed to identify the people in our lives that drained us or made us feel less of ourselves and swiftly cut them off in order to achieve a state of happiness. This nonchalant action of removing someone from your life always left a sour taste in my mouth. I pride myself on being someone who cares too much and I've held onto people far too long and sure it hurt, but it also allowed me to keep other people in my life who I would have otherwise removed. Cutting someone off is always my last resort because the action itself is painful. The myth of a clean break from a poisonous person reflected an underlying pretension and selfishness I always felt when listening to the doctrine of "self love" in college.
A recent article I read brought up this grey area in self love doctrine by viewing how it interacts with mental illness. The article itself mentions mental illness and how it is often described as a "negative" state. Many will engage with their friends who have mental illness in this manner and quickly label them as negative. And according to the doctrine of self love, if someone is draining you then that's ground to cut them off. If I could be candid without a horde of criticism (hell I don't care if you criticize me), mental illness is draining. It's draining not only for those who suffer it, but also for those close to them. So if you have a friend who suffers from a mental illness you should expect to feel some of the effects from it. Not that you deserve any pity.
Let's have some real talk for a bit, this blogpost will be very informal for the sake of being honest about how I feel on this matter. I had a friend in high school who suffered from a mental illness. We were friends for about three years and as the years went on our relationship become more and more strained. Part of this was due to the illness, but it also had to do with normal high school drama and stress. I was quick to call her negative, but I stood by her believing that only the lowest form of a person abandons their friends. At a certain point me and few other close friends of hers decided enough was enough. We couldn't handle the emotional toll she took on us anymore and so one by one we decided to cut her out of our lives. At the time we came up with excuses and threw the blame on her. But now that I can look back, the reality is we couldn't handle her mental illness. It was too much for us and we weren't strong enough. Well I don't want to speak for everyone else, so let me me take that back and clarify that I was not strong enough. It was difficult cutting her out of my life and though I put on a strong face pretending she was irrelevant at the point I decided she wasn't in my life, the reality (aptly shown by the fact that I'm writing about her several years later) was that I lost someone close to me. "Negative people", mental illness or not, are people who we can become close with. Sometimes we're the negative people in another person's life and they have to make the choice of whether they can handle us or not. In the end I can't absolve myself by hiding behind the shield of self love. I made a choice to remove my friend from my life. It was a choice that I have no doubt hurt both of us.
I believe we need to love ourselves, but we cannot become self absorbed. The moment we believe our happiness always trumps everyone else's happiness is when self love has gone too far. Good friendship is punctuated by sacrifice and compromise. And sometimes friendships don't work out. When you do decide to cut the individual off, do so with a heavy heart and don't feel foolish for having lingering thoughts about them. You can grieve the loss of a friend even if you were the one that decided to end the friendship. As for friends with mental illness, if you absolutely cannot handle the toll it might take you can always end your friendship, but you'll have to live with that decision. It isn't a question of who is right or wrong at that point. Honestly it's finding the resolution that makes both people happy.
A recent article I read brought up this grey area in self love doctrine by viewing how it interacts with mental illness. The article itself mentions mental illness and how it is often described as a "negative" state. Many will engage with their friends who have mental illness in this manner and quickly label them as negative. And according to the doctrine of self love, if someone is draining you then that's ground to cut them off. If I could be candid without a horde of criticism (hell I don't care if you criticize me), mental illness is draining. It's draining not only for those who suffer it, but also for those close to them. So if you have a friend who suffers from a mental illness you should expect to feel some of the effects from it. Not that you deserve any pity.
Let's have some real talk for a bit, this blogpost will be very informal for the sake of being honest about how I feel on this matter. I had a friend in high school who suffered from a mental illness. We were friends for about three years and as the years went on our relationship become more and more strained. Part of this was due to the illness, but it also had to do with normal high school drama and stress. I was quick to call her negative, but I stood by her believing that only the lowest form of a person abandons their friends. At a certain point me and few other close friends of hers decided enough was enough. We couldn't handle the emotional toll she took on us anymore and so one by one we decided to cut her out of our lives. At the time we came up with excuses and threw the blame on her. But now that I can look back, the reality is we couldn't handle her mental illness. It was too much for us and we weren't strong enough. Well I don't want to speak for everyone else, so let me me take that back and clarify that I was not strong enough. It was difficult cutting her out of my life and though I put on a strong face pretending she was irrelevant at the point I decided she wasn't in my life, the reality (aptly shown by the fact that I'm writing about her several years later) was that I lost someone close to me. "Negative people", mental illness or not, are people who we can become close with. Sometimes we're the negative people in another person's life and they have to make the choice of whether they can handle us or not. In the end I can't absolve myself by hiding behind the shield of self love. I made a choice to remove my friend from my life. It was a choice that I have no doubt hurt both of us.
I believe we need to love ourselves, but we cannot become self absorbed. The moment we believe our happiness always trumps everyone else's happiness is when self love has gone too far. Good friendship is punctuated by sacrifice and compromise. And sometimes friendships don't work out. When you do decide to cut the individual off, do so with a heavy heart and don't feel foolish for having lingering thoughts about them. You can grieve the loss of a friend even if you were the one that decided to end the friendship. As for friends with mental illness, if you absolutely cannot handle the toll it might take you can always end your friendship, but you'll have to live with that decision. It isn't a question of who is right or wrong at that point. Honestly it's finding the resolution that makes both people happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment