What’s Your Coping Strategy?

Life and how we live it. I love to study, know and understand people. It’s a part of my nature. This natural curiosity about people is the reason I decided to major in psychology. Though I must say my curiosity has gotten me in some rather sticky spots throughout my life so now, I rather do that from afar and would rather not get close. One thing people refuse to understand about human nature is that the way a person is, his or her nature is like some form of nuclear radiation affecting those closest to them. So even if you wanted to and guarded yourself thoroughly, you could never be around someone of a certain nature and not get affected by the traits of that nature. Say for example you have a friend who’s very vile, or very egotistic, even if you think they might not take it out on you or they even try to suppress their nature for you, eventually even they wouldn’t be able to help it. You become the most frequent punching bag for the blows they deal out.  There is no protecting yourself but to have the right sort of people around you. The sort of people you can handle and who can handle you.

Now about coping strategies, we all have a particular way of dealing with the business of life, and this is usually based on our natures. I’m the sort of person who attracts all sorts of people because I’m quite versatile. I can get along with anybody. So I thought I could be friends with any sort of person despite their nature, but I realized along the line I had to be choosy about the people I allowed close to me too. Some of  these people who seemed to like me, couldn’t help but burn me every once in a while because it was in their nature. I realized just as it was  for  these people to think I was a good person and want me in their lives,I needed  also to have the same sort of selfishness they had.  Only let good people in my life

When I hit the wall with this realization was with an ordeal with a friend of 9years . We had been friends ever since secondary school. She was the first friend I made as soon as I got to school and we continued our friendship from being classmates and subsequently course mates in college. It never dawned on me that I was always giving to this person and this person never cared about me since it was in my nature to do so. However  way after we finished college and were both working, she came to see me once and we spent the day talking and generally had a lovely time hanging out. The next day however I had one of the most dire crises of my life happen to me and I was a complete and utter mess. I needed a friend to talk to badly and immediately . Everyone of my other friends were at work and couldn’t talk. We had just spent the previous day together so I decided to call her since I knew she was free. I called her and it turned out she was at the hospital getting a minor test done. I put my crisis aside and spent the last 30 minutes of my airtime talking to her about hers and calming her anyway I could. I told her I was a complete mess and I was miserable but I didn’t push to tell her what was wrong and didn’t get upset that she couldn’t be bothered to ask . After-all I said to myself “ she sort of had her own problems to deal with at the time”. So I let it go. After I calmed down, days after I found myself getting irritated and I was trying to figure out why. Then I realized it had been 6days since my distraught call to my friend and she still hadn’t called me to find out what the issue had been. She couldn’t have cared less. Even when I put aside my “considerably more serious problem”  to talk to her about hers. I decided to text her to vent. I could have cut her off immediately but I thought 9years at least deserved some effort. So I texted and was very nice about it. I didn’t take the anger approach but rather used the “you really hurt me’’ line thinking that would at least make her see how not cool it was. She sent me a very condescending reply and asked me what  my problem was and that I was making a big deal of little issues and we weren’t young in our friendship to be petty about these sort of things. Boom . It felt like I had been doused with cold water. I felt stupid and very used. I had spent 9 years thinking this person was my friend. Listening to her vent about her problems. Year after year, boyfriend after boyfriend, break-up after break-up. If I were a shrink, that’d have been a huge goddamn paycheck!! That’s when I knew I had to cut her off and I couldn’t really blame her. She was a callous person who didn’t value anything of substance. That was her affliction to deal with. I was the stupid one for not seeing that all these years. And I learned my lesson. I audited all my other friendships and decided on the ones worth it and found I didn’t have that many friends left but what the heck. I’m considerably happier now. I found that these people were turning the good in me to a lot of pent- up anger and resentment and if I kept letting selfish people into my life, very soon there would be nothing left to give to those who really mattered. Those who deserved it.  That’s how I decided to cope with my nature. To build a wall and to audit people thoroughly before I let them in. because once I do let them in, I can’t help but be selfless, give the best of me. And I can’t afford to have it milked till there’s no more. What would be left then? This is my coping strategy in this cruel world. What’s yours?

It’s Lace……………..