-Ask the Expert-
Question:
I could not believe that i would suffer
so much. I could not believe that i would feel such an intense and
intolerable pain, and that i would feel it for such a long time. I
did not know that the end of a friendship could cause such violent
and intense suffering. I am here to ask for a suggestion.
David is, or maybe was, my best friend.
He was my friend since many years, almost since forever. He is a
complicated person, full of problems, he is introverted and younger
than me. He entered in the endless spiral of depression, and then
worsened the things with alcohol.
All this for problems related to
his family, his relationships, and much more things.
I “saved” him countless times,
taking him completely drunk out of some bar, or simply making him
talk to get over his suicide threats. It was an error.
I substituted myself to a professional
figure that certainly could have helped him way better, and would not
get involved emotionally. There was a sort of transfert..If he was
happy, I was too. When he fell into the deep of his depression, I
felt great anxiety and fear.
Then he got over that dark period. And
he literally kicked me out of his life. We had a ferocious argument,
and he absurdly accused me, my availability, and my efforts. He never
talked to me again, not even to say sorry for the harsh words he used
against me. Even if it might seem incredible, i felt his pain when he
was suffering.
I would have done anything to make him feel better. I
intimately and deeply shared his pain, and i wonder, now, if I
deserved what then happened to me.
The answer is NO. I do not deserve such
a treatment. I just want respect, at least for what I have done and I
have been through because of him.
Thank you.
Answer:
Dear Rae, I read your letter word by
word, and I write you what i think from your own words. I hope this
will help you.
Come out from your suffering? Let's
clarify. Which suffering? I want to highlight that a psychological
consult, like a psychotherapy, can solve the problems of a “neurotic”
suffering, but cannot solve an existential pain, that is part of the
negative side of life. It is not right or wrong, it just happens.
I will explain better. If you succeed
into healthily resetting your emotional responses, you can come out
from the loop of pain you seem to be in; but you will not be able to
avoid the existential pain of the human disappointment that you
faced.
That will always be part of your life
experience, but it will not cause additional pain if you can accept
and solve it emotionally.
Did you make a mistake into trying to
solve the problem of your friend? Humanly, certainly not. But it is
impossible to help who does not want to be helped. The alcoholic that
does not say “help me, I am an alcoholic”, is not help-able, not
even professionally.
But this is not the main point, i think.
What really happened is that the big
problem of a person that you cared about clashed against your feeling
of power, and that made you fall into an addiction yourself.
We can be addicted to substances, but
also to persons or situations. That situation became your addiction
as much as the bottle was his. You need to recognize your addiction
from that situation, not as a self-critic moral act, but as an
explanation of your psychological state of mind, and as the first
step in your path towards independence. You lost independence: that
situation sucks you in, exactly like a drug could do.
Your letter to me is a partial
understanding of your condition itself. You are on the right path,
understand it, walk through it, and at the end you will find your
solution. Only like this you will find a possible help, as opposed to
the help that you gave him, that was impossible.
Good luck
Answer:
Roberto Melloni, Psychotherapist
Question:
Rae, 46 years old
Publication Date: 07/18/2008
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