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Post by nightnurse on Aug 31, 2004 23:10:35 GMT
I agree Pix...you can lead a horse to water etc. All you can do is carry on being a good friend, maybe you can let him know that you hope everything works out well , but if not , you'll be there
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Post by Pixie on Sept 1, 2004 11:55:55 GMT
Yeah... I guess so. If he asks, I'll tell him; I don't want him to get hurt, but lying to him isn't going to solve anything anyway, so I'll just tell him the truth. Chances are he won't ask, though. He's knows she doesn't come recommended for a relationship...
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Post by azazel on Sept 6, 2004 8:45:22 GMT
Always a tough one that Pix. How about instead of warning him off the new bitch just try convincing him its way to soon for him to be getting involved in a new relationship. Tell him it would be more productive if he sorted himself out as best he can emotionally before starting up a new romance because it just wouldnt be fair to either of them. Maybe that way he will see it as friendly advice not as an attack on his choice of girlfriend. If he already knows she is bad news and as you say he probably does he will be expecting people to give him "Advice about hew for his own good" not advice about healing himself before moving on
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Post by Pixie on Sept 6, 2004 9:47:18 GMT
*puts head in hands* too late... he's infatuated, spent most of Saturday night snogging/shagging her, ew! I'm not the only one who's warned him to be careful; my ex, and my former housemate, have both said it's not a great idea, and he's too infatuated to take any notice. She's a bitch to my ex as well, in front of his best friend who doesn't seem to notice or be bothered by it. pisses me off no end. lol, though, she tried flirting with him - my ex - when she was drunk, and he was well unimpressed - rolling his eyes at me behind her back, and making me snicker but I think it's really bad that she's been going out with the guy for a week, and is flirting with anything that moves (inc. females), letting one guy kiss her neck, kissing her hostess' boyfriend ON THE LIPS, and humping his leg (I thought only dogs did that... oh, wait a minute...). And the boyf just sits there and looks at her adoringly with puppy dog eyes. I wouldn't stand for that from anyone I was going out with... Urgh.
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Post by azazel on Sept 6, 2004 9:51:18 GMT
Oh dear Pix lost cause if you ask me. Just be there to pick up the pieces if you can. Thats if you are still speaking when he comes to his senses and rids himself of this hound
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Post by Pixie on Sept 6, 2004 9:59:29 GMT
Yeah... well, I'll be there for him, of course. I just hope he doesn't get too hurt. Poor wee thing... he's a good few years younger than me, and is like my baby brother, so I'm a bit protective - doesn't help. But it's out of my hands now.
Why can't he find himself a nice, decent girl to go out with, who'll treat him right?
Hehe, the look on my ex's face, though, when she was attempting to flirt with him... I think he's begun to realise that there are lots of girls out there who are absolute bitches, and maybe he didn't have such a bad thing going with me after all. Poor, naive guy! I think he thought all girls would be loyal and faithful, and has recently had a couple of nasty shocks with best friend's relationships going all awry. I feel kinda sorry that his bubble had to be burst like that... though it might work in my favour in the end, I suppose.
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Post by azazel on Sept 6, 2004 10:05:02 GMT
Sounds like your still intrested in him. Might be a good time to make a move while pshco girls behavior is fresh in his mind, your sweet nature will surely convince him were he is better off.
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Post by Pixie on Sept 6, 2004 10:34:42 GMT
hehe. You may well be right. ;D Very much still interested in him *sigh* cause he's such a sweet guy, I can talk to him about anything and everything... and feel totally comfortable with him. And we're scarily similar in some ways... I bought him lunch the other day, and ended up having precisely the same... even drank the same. Weird, isn't it? lol. Well... I shall certainly make sure he doesn't forget I'm still around. Not that he seems to want to forget it anyway.
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Post by Ditto on Sept 6, 2004 11:21:40 GMT
That's called 'mirroring' Px, if you find you're sat exactly the same as him, then you're in lurve.
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Post by Pixie on Sept 6, 2004 13:26:46 GMT
Oh, I know that, problem is getting it through to him and making him realise... he chose his drink before me, but decided to have what I was eating, so we're copying each other - it works both ways! Similar sense of humour (always catching each others' eyes and having fits of giggles, when nobody else understands the joke), minds work along the same lines (I understand what he's saying most of the time, even though lots of others don't and think he's totally out of his tree - he isn't, at least no more than I am, just thinks laterally). Problem is, he doesn't seem to realise despite all the above, and coming to me as a first stop when he wants advice and comfort and help... ah, he's just scared of commitment. I can kind of understand it in a way, given that he's not long finished at uni. He still needs to grow up a bit, that's all.
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Snow
Billy Johnson
Posts: 173
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Post by Snow on Sept 10, 2004 0:12:25 GMT
Hi guys. Sorry for not being around for so long and then heading straight to the Blues café. But this has been bothering me for several months now, and I guess writing things down in a foreign language might help to clear my mind on the matter a bit. So, uhm, sorry if this will be really long and pointless. I have a colleague, a woman in her mid-twenties, who works in the same office as me. I know that she considers me one of her two best friends. She grew up in a pretty bad family with an alcoholic tyrant of a father and a very uncaring mother, brother and sisters. She moved out from her family's like four or five years ago and now lives at her own place; her father died several months later. She told me pretty early on that she felt like she had huge emotional issues, about sex, about her own body, about men and about social relationships in general, and I guess she could confide in me because she instantly realized that I could relate very well on those topics . About three years ago she's started seeing somebody about her problems, first somebody from the protestant church who then sent her to an actual psychotherapist. She has now been in psychotherapy (because of sexual abuse by her father) for about eight months. So far, so sad. Now comes the part where I'm feeling like some worthless shit of a friend. Because right now I just can't bring myself to care anymore. To the contrary. I'm mostly fed-up with it all. She calls in sick at work once or twice a month because she "just doesn't feel up to it". For the last few weeks she has either taken a day off or stayed home sick once per week, usually because she had had a bad dream about her father the night before or because she had realized something about her relationship with her family or because her brother had called her and that had made her feel so horrible that she got sick. Yesterday when she called in sick she said that since I had taken the afternoon off the day before and she had been alone in the office with very little to do she had had too much time to think, resulting in bad dreams during the night and that's why she couldn't come to work. Things like these happen frequently. I need to do overtime anytime she stays home (I still have 18 days of vacation left this year plus 66 hours of overtime already). But that's not necessarily the problem as, well, we don't work long hours anyway in lazy Germany , and I actually enjoy being alone in the office for a change (you know, you can google for pretty pictures of James really focus on work, plus you can talk to yourself without anybody giving you funny looks .) But what I really hate is that whenever I go on holidays my colleague gets sick either right before or right after that. You can count on it, even my family has started joking about it. Like when I went to Berlin in May she stayed home the whole week before I left, meaning I had less time to pack and prepare. Now as most of you know (and as she does very well) that whole travelling-and-meeting-people-thing is an issue of its own for me so I really need lots of time to double and triple check everything and maybe feel a little less scared (and gawd am I sounding pathetic again...) I'm not saying that she fakes it, mind me. I'm absolutely sure she really gets sick. It's what I call the "granny-syndrome". You know these old grandmothers who get sick any time the family wants to go somewhere, making sure they get some attention? That's my colleague. To make matters worse she usually is fit and perky again when she wants to do something with me on weekends. Whereas for me the weekend is the time of the week when I can lock myself up inside myself and don't need to let the world in, so every time she insists I come see her to me that feels like a lost day. She lives in another town which means I need to go by train for two hours and I need to stay overnight. Now we talk a lot about our personal "weirdnesses" so she should know how I feel about that and while it may be fun for her when I come visit it surely is not fun for me. But she doesn't have many people she could turn to so I guess these things are quite important for her. Then there's this whole sexual abuse thing. It is... hm. She says herself that if you look at things objectively there actually was nothing. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure there was SOMETHING, and I can only imagine how hard growing up with an alcoholic father must be for a child. I do realize there is something like verbal abuse as well. And I understand that my colleague as a child felt so disgusted by her drunken father that she hated it when he touched her even if it was completely innocent. She says she still cannot see when a dad has his young kids sit on his lap. Yet when she tells me that she has issues with her sexuality because her father often used to sit around in his underwear at home I just go "huh?". (Because, you know, so did mine *g*. I guess it's just that generation... Or maybe my colleague is right and it is actually my dad who is responsible for all my issues. I wonder if I could sue him...) She says her psychotherapy helps her a lot and she's making a lot of progress. She probably is right but that doesn't help the fact that since she's started that therapy she is so involved in her inner turmoil that she cannot work a whole month without being sick once or twice. I would really love to be supportive and all. But right now I'm mostly annoyed. Two years ago I've had a pretty bad time myself, with full-grown depressions and everything. But I still went to work every day. - And now it sounds like I'm trying to compare my problems with hers and that's pretty unfair because whatever is wrong with me is nothing compared to what happened to her. Yet right now I can't help it, it is how I feel. And mostly the way I feel gives me a very bad conscience and makes me think I'm a really horrible friend and a very cold and uncaring person. It's apparently bad enough to wake me in the middle of the night and make me spend two hours whining to you all. And now it's too late to go to bed again. Bugger. Maybe I'll just call in sick today...
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Post by PokerKitten on Sept 10, 2004 0:52:34 GMT
I thought you were up late sweetheart, as am I! But you're later! I'll read this again in the morning because it strikes me that she has come up with one of the most imaginative sickies ever (we call it "taking a sickie" when we phone in to work saying we're , when we're just fine thank you and fancy watching daytime instead). Bad dreams?! And they accept that?! Maybe she does have bad dreams sometimes but sitting around at home on your own brooding about them won't make you feel better, will it? How bizarre. And I had to laugh at the underwear thing! Maybe the undies in question were nasty faded grey y-fronts. I think that would scar me for life too As I say, I shall read this again another time because right now I seem to be feeling snarky. But I will say, I can quite see why you are losing patience and I also think you'd be perfectly justified in saying no to going to visit her at weekends sometimes. You need time to do your own thing.
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Post by Pixie on Sept 10, 2004 7:58:45 GMT
I think she needs to meet a few more people, and get out a bit more. As lots of you know, I have my own 'issues' (though was never scarred by father in y-fronts. Just got used to it. The vests on the other hand... VESTS SHOULD BE BANNED ). One of the things that my friends pointed out to me was that brooding over how bad things are/were is counter-productive, and it's far better to get up, go out, and do something to take your mind on it... like go to work! Or in my case, get off my skanky ass and go out shopping, to the pub, and anywhere else my friends could forcibly drag me. Obviously, everyone's different, but brooding never helps. Maybe she should try angel therapy as well. This is going to sound totally out of the tree, but talking to (and more importantly, listening to) your angels can really help. Of course, it helps if you believe in angels in the first place. There are loads of courses to help you contact them, and books that tell you how to do it, and it really can help. Okay, so it sounds weird, but that's just me. I am weird, I admit it... but get past the weirdness! It's like counselling from someone who loves you unconditionally and doesn't judge you and has infinite patience. Um... anyway, now I've blazoned my weirdness for all to see, I'll think of some other things that might be helpful to her!
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Post by Ditto on Sept 11, 2004 0:25:58 GMT
Daph here...
Dear Snow, Hiya Chuck, it sounds to me as if your friend does have problems but there again you have your own and it seems to me as if she is taking advantage of you.
She comes across as selfish especially when you have to travel on your own and she knows of your problems and her having time off work is not helping you.
Remain friends, but 'cool it' and step back a little and let her manage her own problems. See to yourself chuck.
Lotsaluv Daf, see you in London (Yay!)
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Post by azazel on Sept 11, 2004 0:26:20 GMT
Snow maybe you could have a word with your boss. Just voice your concerns that you think your friend is obviouly in a bad place right now which is why she is needing so much time of sick and meybe her work hours need reducing or cutting completley for her own state of mind.
The thing she is going to have to come to terms with is the bad dreams and memories never go away they just lessen over time. Her past experiences should not be used as a crutch for future bad behaviour, be that calling in sick at work when you really just cannot be botherd or using friends.
The problem with this girl is if her family were as bad as she paints them maybe she hasnt grown with proper social skills and doesnt realise when she crosses the boundaries such as invading your weekends. Maybe its time you told her straight. If you like her then compromise and agree to see her some weekends and others have to yourself.
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Post by nightnurse on Sept 11, 2004 16:12:07 GMT
Bugger me...TC posted LOL! Snow darlin....it wouldn't really matter how much care and attention this gal gets from everyone, she would always, as a taker , want more. Agree with most everything everyone else has said and would just add that you tell her that you have to cut your visits to her to maybe once a month. If she asks why, tell her you have to see your therapists ....i.e. come visit us here more often cos we miss you Lookin forward to seeing you again too ;D
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Post by Ditto on Sept 11, 2004 19:33:06 GMT
Actually she dictated.
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Snow
Billy Johnson
Posts: 173
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Post by Snow on Sept 12, 2004 11:13:56 GMT
Firstly, thank you all for your kind words and your advice, and secondly, sorry for replying so late (I had to go see my parents to install my dad's new modem. How is it that a man can be able to repair a with his eyes closed yet is unable to put a CD in his computer and follow the instructions? ) Reading back on what I wrote two days ago I thought that it may have come across like I was trying to marginalize my colleague's problems. Let me just make it clear that I did NOT mean to. I cannot even begin to imagine what she went through in her childhood, and that fact is probably part of the problem. I guess the main problem is that right now I'm so tired of it. It's been going on for so long now and I can't really help. On top of it all the other woman in our office got divorced a year ago and has huge problems with money, her neighbours, her ex and three very active sons who occasionally do things like try to burn their father's house... Sometimes I just feel like everybody dumps their emotional garbage on me. (And there I wonder why I tend to avoid all human contact... ) PK, she does watch when she stays home. Because she needs that to get her mind off of things. She says. When she's back in our office she says she's so happy to be back because now I can talk to her about James/my niece/Michael Moore/greek mythology/the American elections or Lord Peter Wimsey (take your pick) and that will take her mind off of things. So I suppose if I worked overtime and just stayed in the office with her all day to keep her entertained things would be fine . And regarding our boss: He shows up at the office by 9.30 or 10, opens the mail, causes a bit of trouble with the computer system and leaves around 11 or 11.30. I don't think he even bothers to check who's there or not. Besides, my colleague talked to him once and he only heard the word "sexual abuse" and was so shocked he'd probably accept pretty much any excuse. But of course that can change pretty fast. I don't think angels would work for my colleague, Pixie, she's very proud of not believing in all that "spiritual crap" and tends to look down a bit at people who actually believe in something. Though good ol' atheistic me is trying to convince her that religion can be something beautiful. (Was brought up catholic, myself.) I totally agree on the "needs to go out more". But I'm afraid that's exactly what she needs me for. To keep her company. Yet I think I'm the worst choice for that task because of my own problems. Right . Remember I'm the one who still doesn't know if she'll dare to have that picture taken at the Halloween con? It takes a lot more to make me call anybody "weird", petal. Ditto - love ya! If only things were so easy. Sometimes I feel like I'm taking advantage of her instead of the other way around. After all she considers me one of her two friends, and I during six years have not even figured out if I actually like her or not And then of course it's flattering. She actually thinks some of the things I've read or done are cool. Nobody ever calls me cool. Me likes. Ouch! Thanks for the advice Daf - so happy to see you posting (or having your words posted ;D)! I'll try to make it clear to her. Again. It's just that I hate it when I gotta admit how "weird" (see, Pixie? I wrote it!) I really am. And I just don't think she really understands. Hi Az . I guess if our boss was anybody else but who he is you'd be right about talking to him. But with him He even leaves us alone with all kind of actually work-related problems, I really can't see him taking care of something like that. I think regarding the lack of social skills you may be very right, and I actually never thought of that. I only feel like she's clinging to me, you know? Yet as I'm so negative about being around people in general I'm simply not sure, is she really or is it me overreacting? Thanks again, love you all, and btw, I've just googled for "Y-front" and "vest" and added those two expressions to my vocabulary (they really didn't teach us anything at school *g*). It seems I have been scarred for life then already as a toddler Well, I guess both my parents and those of my colleague didn't exactly come from upper-class... My mum keeps telling the story about how a friend of hers came to visit. They were looking at baby pictures of me, and as it's mostly my mum who takes photos in our family it was usually my dad in the picture with me. So after several dozends of photos my mum's friends suddenly exclaimed: "Now look at that! So your husband DOES own a shirt!" ;D
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Post by PokerKitten on Sept 12, 2004 11:33:37 GMT
I'm sorry, I had to LMAO at that. I think we all recognise this person from on place or another, especially the computer bit! ;D Personally I think one or two people here may have been a bit harsh with regards to your colleague. It certainly would seem like she has big problems, but whatever professional help she is getting isn't really doing it for her. I winced when you said about her regarding you as one of her only two friends, and yet you aren't sure you even like her. Man, I so know what you mean. It makes you feel horrible, but it isn't your fault. When you actually work with the person you can't just gradually fade out of their life, can you. It's a dilemma. But you might be able to extricate yourself from the weekend visits slowly but surely. And your other colleague has some very obvious and immediate problems. Jeez, those kids must be a handful, to say the least Thinking about the sitting around in undies thing... there are plenty of naturist families that stride around the home nekkid and there's nothing wrong with that. If someone sits in their Y-fronts/briefs/boxers/undergarment of choice and proceeds to - pardon me for being blunt - play with themselves in front of the entire household, now THAT is a scarring offence for sure
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Post by DeeDee on Sept 12, 2004 12:18:31 GMT
Hi snow I cant Imagine what your friend has gone and is going through (as to Dads and underwear never saw my Dads undies allways fully clothed) she has been through alot but so have you just try to stay her friend but I know its difficult to tell her you need your own space as well, everyone needs there own space at some time or another you are a most caring and understanding friend and when the healing process begins she will understand just how much of a friend you have been to her I hope you are staying well and she isnt tiring you out too much all the best to you snow see you at halloween I think you need a hug for being a good friend to her
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