AGONY GRANT: HOW CAN I HELP?

Hey I’m Grant, the Agony Aunt! How can I help?

“Dear Grant, one of my closest friends is struggling with life at the moment. I empathise a lot given this is a hard time for us all. However, they have become quite negative and reactive and it feels like I am treading on eggshells when interacting with them. It is becoming rather difficult to navigate. How do you think I should approach this problem?”

I feel you.

Firstly, I don’t want you thinking you’re some terrible human for having these feelings, like you said this is a tough time for everyone and sure, it’s harder for some than it is for others. The fact you can identify this means you are understanding, wonderful and have empathy.

Do me a favour and don’t feel bad about it.

Imagine yourself as a well. You have all this emotional energy just sloshing about in there that you use up throughout the course of your day. Some days the well gets a little bit emptier than others depending on the things and activities you’ve experienced.

Now, imagine that well has cracked at the bottom. All your stores of emotional energy are just slowly sapped away through this crack. So, when you go to draw on it to deal with any of the many inevitable lockdown stresses (not to mention personal life stresses) it’s a little emptier than you expected. Thus the task is harder. Each night you go to bed drained a little more. When you awake there’s less than there is usually. This little crack is never giving the well enough time to refill itself.

That crack my dear reader, is your friend.

Now my prescription? Some healthy distance.

I am not advocating ghosting your friend in their time of need, that would be cruel and unnecessary.

Am I prescribing a potentially uncomfortable and difficult conversation? Yes.

You are going to have to tell them that whilst you understand and empathise, you can’t be there all the time right now, you have things going on in your life that you need to focus on. During this conversation please try not to proportion blame or infer negatively that this minor break in scheduled activities is from her behaviour. You have to find a positive way to do that. How you ask? I dunno, I give advice I don’t work miracles.

Is it selfish? Yes. Sometimes a little bit of selfish is exactly what a friendship needs.

Friendships are a balance of reciprocity, one that is currently slightly out of kilter resulting in you becoming somewhat self-sacrificial in this pairing. If you continue as you are the feelings of resentment will only grow and in the long term that is far more detrimental to your friendship than a temporary step back.

The best thing is it could help the both of you, they may realise that their behaviour has been less than constructive and you get to recharge.

Win Win.