Are You Okay Talking About This? Trust and Boundaries in Caring Friendships

This blog post was inspired by a recent conversation with my friend and fellow mental health blogger Aimee Wilson. On her blog I’m NOT Disordered Aimee draws on her extensive personal experience. We were discussing some of those experiences when she stopped and told me she had something important to say before she continued. She said sharing what she’s been through in the past — and in some cases still goes through — is incredibly valuable and helpful to her. But she wanted to check that I was okay hearing the details. I told her I was fine, and reassured her I’d let her know if that ever changed. Afterwards, it struck me what an important exchange that had been. It said a great deal about our friendship.

Difficult Topics

That kind of trust isn’t unique to me and Aimee. It’s relevant to a wide range of relationships and situations. It’s particularly valuable where conversations touch on “difficult” topics such as mental illness, trauma, rape, addiction, abuse, self-harm, overdose, loss, death, bereavement, or suicidality.

I put “difficult” in quotes deliberately. These subjects are too often considered taboo. We avoid talking about them at all if we can. Where that’s not possible, we discuss them as briefly as possible, keen to move on to safer topics. Holiday plans. The weather. The mundane happinesses and problems we all experience at one time or another. Life isn’t always mundane, however. Being able to share and discuss the difficult, messy, awkward, and painful aspects of our lives can be profoundly validating. It can also deepen and reinforce our connections with those we love and care about.

It’s worth pointing out that everyone is different. What might not be problematic for one person to hear or talk about may be triggering for someone else.

Am I Really Okay?

I was being honest when I told Aimee I didn’t have any issues with what she was sharing with me. That’s also true of me and Fran, and other friends. If they feel safe sharing with me, I want to hear. That’s the case no matter what they want to tell me, or whether those experiences are historic or current.

It’s worth exploring how I can be okay hearing about what are sometimes very serious, traumatic, even life-threatening experiences and situations. The following is excerpted from High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder.

In the early days of our friendship Fran was manic, wild, and unpredictable. Many people — including some who had known her a long time — were fearful and worried about her behaviour. I was unsure whether my ability to remain calm in her presence was healthy, or a sign that I was ill-equipped to support her effectively. The following is from my diary.

I never know how Fran is doing, not really. She can seem so fragile, so close to the edge, so hurt and hurting . . . and then the next moment we are laughing, or mad at each other. I’m learning not to be scared, not to worry, but instead to care. So many people are scared for her. They can’t deal with her, can’t cope at all. Perhaps I should be like that. Am I a danger to Fran because I am so calm? Perhaps I am being naive. Or perhaps it makes me precisely who she needs.

That final sentence was the turning point in my understanding. Positive, supportive and vigilant care is far healthier for Fran than any amount of fear-based worrying.

This message is captured in our mantra don’t worry about me, care about me. It’s a principle that has informed and guided my caring relationship with Fran and other friends over the years. As valuable as the reminder is, it doesn’t explain how I can be okay with friends sharing the “messy” details of their lives with me. There are two key aspects to this: my lack of equivalent experience and my sense of curiosity.

Lived Experience

I have little or no first-hand experience of mental illness, trauma, or the other “difficult” topics I mentioned earlier. This can be an obstacle to communication. Some people feel safer and more comfortable discussing things with people with similar lived experience. They don’t have to spend time setting the scene, explaining or justifying themselves, because the other person gets it.

There are other reasons someone might turn elsewhere when they’re in need of someone to talk to. I’ve discussed some of these in It’s Time to Talk. But What If You Don’t Want To? I used to feel sad if I wasn’t my friends’ go-to person, but I get it now. What matters is whether my friends have someone or somewhere to turn when they need help, support, or guidance. It doesn’t always have to be me.

Paradoxically, my lack of equivalent experience can be helpful. I’m less likely to assume I know what’s going on for my friend or imagine that what worked for me is relevant to their situation. I’m also less likely to be triggered by the details of what my friend has gone through or is going through at the time.

Curiosity

On more than one occasion I’ve told Aimee and Fran that it’s very educational being their friend. That might sound as though I’m trivialising their experiences, but I’m genuinely interested to learn about their lives and what they’ve gone through. Being curious helps me appreciate their situation and makes me more able to support them effectively. I’ve written about this previously in How to Educate Yourself about Your Friend’s Mental Health Condition.

You might wonder why you’d want to take the time and trouble to learn about your friend’s health condition. What’s in it for you? Fran never asked or expected me to educate myself about her situation, but our friendship has benefited enormously in many ways. Yours can too. [...] Most important of all, you will demonstrate your commitment to your friendship. Your friend is far more than their illness and symptoms, but by taking time to learn what you can, you’re acknowledging the impact they have in your friend’s life.

An important aspect of curiosity is asking the right questions. That’s certainly true of me and Aimee. She once wrote in an open letter to me on her blog, “I love that you ask me questions when I’m struggling because it’s much more helpful than you just sitting there and nodding along, pretending to understand.”

What if I’m Not Okay?

I told Aimee I’d let her know if I was ever not okay with her talking about her experiences. There’s nothing I’d refuse in principle to discuss, but it’s conceivable something might happen that I’d have difficulty with. I once asked her to check in with me before sending me photos or content that could be problematic. Her “Do you want to see?” means a lot. It reminds us both that there are — or could be — boundaries. It hasn’t happened so far but I’d feel able to say “No thank you” or “Not right now” if the situation arose.

The same is true with other friends. “There’s no TMI [too much information] between us!” feels great in a friendship, but there are times when I’ve hit that boundary. That’s not a problem. Quite the opposite. Being aware of your respective boundaries is valuable in any relationship. There have been times when a friend has asked me not to talk about a particular topic because they’ve found it triggering, or because they’ve not had the capacity to handle it there and then. On at least one occasion they told me later they could discuss it now if I still needed to.

Aimee’s Perspective

I invited Aimee to contribute her thoughts on this important topic.

As a survivor of rape and sexual abuse, I’m incredibly aware and cautious of the fact that sharing my story and talking to others about my trauma can be upsetting to a lot of people. I also recognise that it can trigger other survivors to think more about their own memories and to perhaps experience very upsetting and potentially de-stabilising flashbacks of their experiences.

In all honesty, I find these factors difficult because sometimes I find myself feeling a bit jealous and resentful in thinking; “I wish I didn’t know about any of this too!” It’s also challenging because I had an incredibly naive childhood, which meant that the rape and abuse were both shocking and unbelievable. I didn’t have much knowledge about just how wrong it was. It was therefore difficult to realise it was something that I actually needed to report to the Police. The fact that the naivety had such a negative impact has influenced my opinion of how detailed I should be disclosing the rape and abuse in my blog posts and other public content I create and the work that I do.

— Aimee Wilson

I’m grateful to Aimee for her contribution. Check out her blog I’m NOT Disordered.

Over to You

In this post I’ve discussed the importance of honesty and trust when discussing potentially difficult topics with friends. I’ve touched on some of the reasons people might not want to share, and described how I’m able to hear friends share their experiences without finding it triggering or distressing. Finally, I’ve mentioned the importance of respecting each other’s boundaries.

Do you have people you can discuss personal or difficult experiences with? Is it easier for you to share if they’ve had relevant or equivalent experience? What makes you feel safe — or unsafe — with people? Do you find it hard listening to friends or loved ones talk about what they’re going through? How do you deal with that?

Fran and I would love to hear your thoughts, either in the comments below or via our contact page.

 

Photo by Roberto Nickson at Unsplash

 

When the Clocks Change: How Daylight Saving Time Affects Our Transatlantic Friendship

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing.

— Gloria Naylor

Fran and I live three thousand miles and five time zones apart. For most of the year I’m five hours ahead of Fran, so that when it’s nine o’clock in the morning for Fran it’s two o’clock in the afternoon for me. This works well and we’ve built the pulse of our connection, our friendship, around this time difference. Our scheduling is thrown out twice a year, in spring and autumn, because our respective countries switch to daylight saving time on different days.

As I write this, we’re about to enter just such a situation. Clocks in the US advance one hour tonight, Saturday March 8. The UK won’t fall in line until the end of the month. For three weeks, we’ll be four hours apart instead of the usual five. Instead of calling each day at 7 am, 2 pm, and 6 pm (in Fran’s time) we’ll meet at 8 am, 3 pm, and 7 pm, assuming those times are convenient for her — and we know in advance they won’t always be. I could temporarily adjust my schedule but that’s not always workable either. It’s okay. We’ve done this twice a year since we met in 2011. But it’s something we need to take into account, an inconvenience that can’t be ignored or wished away.

I used to get so frustrated when things like this got in the way of us connecting. I’ve learned to let go of the need for things to always go the way I want them to or think they should. (That word, should!) Clock changes serve as an opportunity to practice acceptance. They are an example of the Serenity Prayer’s call “to accept the things I cannot change.”

I’ll endeavour to approach these coming weeks in that spirit. The different frequency and timing of our calls offers a chance to appreciate the ease with which our lives interlace for most of the year, and the value we each place on our friendship.

That’s something worth celebrating, whatever time it is.

 

Photo by Jon Tyson at Unsplash.

 

Time Management for the Stationery Lover (One More Filofax for the Road)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

— Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

In a recent blog post I discussed how people have different ideas about the most appropriate time to do things. This led me to ponder how people keep track of time. Specifically, how I keep track of what’s going on in my life and the things that have happened to me. As we approach the close of the year, I thought it would be interesting to review some of the time management methods I’ve employed over the course of my lifetime. This post was further inspired by me buying — and almost immediately regretting buying — yet another Filofax planner. More on that later!

Personal Diary

Regular readers will know that I’ve kept a daily diary since I was fourteen years old. My diaries represent the definitive account of my life as I experienced it. They have captured, and continue to capture, the most significant details — events, emotions, thoughts, and relationships — as I’ve moved through my life, one day at a time. Excepting a few years in the eighties when I’d occasionally tip in sketches and drawings, there are no photos, clippings, or other embellishments. Just my words, handwritten in black ink.

They proved an invaluable resource when Fran and I were writing our book. We included numerous excerpts to illustrate what I was thinking and feeling at different times in our journey as friends. I rarely look through old diaries nowadays, however. I archive each volume as it’s completed, and hardly ever take them up again. I sometimes wonder why I continue to write a diary at all if I never look back over what I’ve written. I don’t have an answer, other than to say I continue writing my journal because doing so is part of me, and how I process what’s happening in my life. I’m unsure who I’d be if I no longer committed my thoughts and feelings to paper. As I expressed it recently in relation to my writing generally, “if I’m honest, I write because I’m scared to stop.”

My diaries contain what I’ve done and how I felt about it at the time, but there’s no high-level perspective and no summary of highlights. Being hand-written, it’s also not easily searchable. Over the years I’ve developed various strategies to provide these alternate views. In different ways, they help me navigate to a particular date or event. From there, should I wish to, I can pull the relevant volume of my diary and revisit how I was feeling on that day. These strategies include my Traveler’s Notebook, online calendar, to do lists, online notes, timelines, and photos. Let’s take a look at these in more detail.

Traveler’s Notebook

As I wrote a few years ago in Every Day Essentials for the Successful Blogger, I own two Traveler’s Journals. I love how easy it is to swap out individual inserts, folders, and other accessories. I started out using my Standard Traveler’s Notebook for work notes and for drafting blog posts, but I’ve not used it in quite a while. My smaller Passport Traveler’s Notebook serves as a memory journal, and is very much still in use. I keepsake days out, holidays, and other special occasions. I decorate the pages with washi tape, stickers and stamps, and photos printed on my little HP Sprocket printer. I carry it with me pretty much everywhere I go. It’s my go-to if I want to reminisce about a special event, or check the date so I can look it up elsewhere. There’s a wonderful online community of people who use and love Traveler’s notebooks, and creative journaling in general. Apparently, there’s a word for us: papyrophiliacs, literally those who love paper!

Clocks and Calendars

My diary and journals allow me to record and recall my time and memories, but when it comes to managing the present and planning future activities I turn to the multi-timezone clock and calendars on my phone and tablet. Fran and I live three thousand miles and three hundred minutes apart. After a dozen years of friendship, I rarely need to think about the five hour difference between us. I instinctively think in UK and US Eastern times simultaneously. It’s nonetheless helpful to have both clocks to hand. This is especially true when daylight saving adjustments complicate things, or if Fran travels out of state or abroad. I’ve used various clock apps over the years. Currently, I’m using Universal Clock Widget 2021 by Aaadbic. This simple app allows me to display not only Fran’s time on the East Coast, but also other friends’ times.

I’m a big fan of the Google suite of cloud applications. I use Gmail as my main e-mail client. Our book was written on Google Docs. Our blog is hosted on Google’s Blogger platform. Google Drive is my primary cloud storage, with Microsoft’s Onedrive as backup. I use Keep as my main note-taking app. It’s natural, then, that I should use Google Calendar as my main calendar application. One of the first things Fran and I did was set up a shared calendar. This helped a lot with our book tasks and activities. More generally, it helps to keep us aware of each other’s plans so we can schedule our calls more easily. I’ve shared calendars with other friends in the past too, and found them very useful. That said, I’m not a huge fan of the Google Calendar app itself. I use aCalendar by Tapir Apps GmbH on my Android phone and tablet to manage my Google calendar appointments.

To Do Lists

Although Google Calendar and aCalendar include task functionality, I prefer to use a separate to do list application. I’ve tried many over the years. My favourite is Trello. Fran and I used it extensively in planning the writing, editing, and publication of our book. It’s highly customisable and flexible, but these days I find I have less need of its extensive functionality. I’ve taken to using a single tick box document in Google Keep as my to do list. I keep this displayed in a widget on my phone homescreen. I use it to track my current and upcoming blog posts, as well as domestic tasks like paying bills. Keep’s simplicity is a bonus here, as it keeps me focused on the tasks in hand. For anything more complex or complicated, I would use Trello.

Google Keep

I mentioned using Google Keep for to do lists, but that’s not my main use for this grossly underestimated app. It’s my go to for note taking of any kind, and where every blog post I write begins its life. I have a “scrapbook” document for jotting down spontaneous notes and ideas. I tidy this down on an ongoing basis, but there are entries I don’t wish to lose and I’ve archived my scrapbooks a few times in the past. They serve as informal memory journals, charting thoughts and ideas which may or may not have made it into my diary or been recorded elsewhere. I rarely hit the word limit on individual notes, and there is no limit on the number of notes you can have. Keep is also searchable. This makes it a good starting point if I want to retrieve specific memories quickly.

Photos

My diary and blogging aside, I document my life in the many photographs I take. Older digital photos are archived on an external hard drive with DVD backup. Photos taken since the start of 2016 are organised by year on my phone with cloud backup. It’s often the first place I look if I want to check when a specific event happened, or what I was doing around a particular time.

Social Media Posts

Social media provides another valuable index to the events of my life. I wish Facebook had better search options, but I love the Memories stream which reminds me of things I posted or was doing on this day in years gone by. As with photo albums on my phone, I use Facebook albums to home in on images I’ve shared. I post less frequently to Instagram but the photos I share there tend to be ones that are especially significant to me. In that sense, Instagram serves as a digital memory journal.

Chat

I use Facebook Messenger to chat with friends all over the world. Its text search means it can be very useful in recalling events and discussions. I use it a lot to recall conversations relevant to whatever I’m blogging about at the time, or to inform my personal reflections in my diary. My chat history with Fran was incredibly important when we were writing our book. I downloaded our conversations in full — we used Skype at that time — and we quoted extensively from them in the book.

Friendship Timelines

The above techniques focus on recording — in words, images, or social media posts — what was happening at a particular point in time. That’s invaluable but doesn’t provide a high level perspective. With this in mind, some years ago I began a timeline to track the ups and downs of one particular friendship. Marking the frequency of our get-togethers, calls, and other significant events helped me see the friendship in broader terms, and respond with more understanding as things changed over time. I’ve used the same approach with other friendships since.

Wellbeing Logs

In 2013 when Fran was traveling in Europe, and again for a period in 2020 when she was out of town, I tracked my health, wellbeing, and self-care routine. It helped keep me on track but I didn’t keep up with it for more than six months or so on either occasion. It’s something I might take up again in the new year.

Blog Posts

I pour a lot of myself into my writing and find it both interesting and instructive to look back over topics I’ve covered in the past. The nature of my blog posts has changed a good deal over the ten years since Fran and I began Gum on My Shoe in August 2013. That’s something I might explore that in a future post. For now I’ll just note that I explore my life, experiences, and issues more now than in the early days of our blog. I’d go so far as to say it’s become my primary vehicle for self-examination, overtaking even my personal diary. Certain articles have come to serve as waypoints, marking key moments in my personal journey. Of these, I’d pick out the following in particular.

THIS BOY GETS SAD TOO

Being a Man: Exploring My Gender Identity for International Men’s Day

Return to Down: How My Baseline Mood Has Slipped from Positive to Low

I Can See Clearly: Celebrating My New Glasses from Grey St. Opticians

Big Boys Cry Too: Challenging Toxic Masculinity for International Men’s Day

One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy: Encounters With the Absurd Man

Others are useful as indexes to my experiences and life events. These include the review posts I’ve written for 2020, 2021, and 2022. Look out for the review post for 2023 in the next week or so.

One More Filofax (for the Road)

I’ve focused on techniques I’ve found helpful, but I can’t close without mentioning one that never quite has, despite me wanting it to very much. I refer, of course, to the Filofax personal planner. My first was part of my induction pack when I began working for the UK civil service I.T. Services Agency thirty years ago. It was royal blue with the ITSA logo on the front. I don’t remember how much I used it at the time, or for what, but it caught my imagination. I never quite got over the allure of opening and closing those six little metal rings to add, remove, and rearrange the pages, dividers, pockets, and the like. I still have it, somewhere.

I may have bought another Filofax which didn’t get used — I wasn’t overly enamoured of the colour of the ITSA one — but the next personal planner I remember buying was an A5 zip cover planner sold by WH Smith. I used it for a while, then set it aside because it didn’t quite fit my needs. At some point I donated it to charity. That’s something I bitterly regret because, in my head at least, it was the perfect planner for me. Around ten years ago I saw a black personal size Filofax Domino planner on offer at Staples in Newcastle and bought it without hesitation. Surely, this time, it would be just what I was after. Needless to say, it wasn’t. I liked the planner itself but I simply couldn’t find enough uses for it.

Fast forward to last December, when in a renewed fit of papyrophilia and having mislaid my personal size Domino — somewhere — I bought an A5 Domino with calendar inserts in various formats, dividers, plastic pockets, and extra note paper. I began using it to take notes on various projects, including reworking a novella I wrote years ago. I like the Domino covers, with their elastic closure, but the one I received was slightly damaged on the inside. I didn’t return it for a replacement, but the damage played on me and I was never completely happy using it.

So this year, as Christmas approached, I caught the bug again and ordered myself a black A5 Metropol Zip Filofax planner. I hoped to recapture the satisfaction of the WH Smith zip planner I gave away, but I was sorely disappointed. I knew it was PU (artificial) leather, which is fine, but it’s very shiny and feels horribly tacky. So here I am, again, with yet another planner I’m unlikely to use.

Maybe I’ll go back to the A5 Domino. Maybe I’ll try and track down a second-hand WH Smith planner, only to discover it’s not as great as I remember it being. Maybe, out there somewhere, is the perfect planner for me. In the meantime, I’ll keep on keeping on, living and documenting and managing my life as I go.

Over to You

In this post I’ve described some of the ways I keep track of the events, emotions, and happenings of my life. How do you manage your time? What works for you? Are you a Filofax person? Do you journal at all? I’d love to hear from you, either in the comments below or via our contact page.

 

Photo by Kevin Ku at Unsplash

 

Present and Correct: How to Do the Right Thing at the Right Time

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it is called the present.

— Attributed to Alice Morse Earle

This piece was inspired by a conversation with Fran about when’s the right time to open Christmas presents. I sent Fran’s gifts early this year, and she wanted to open them as soon as they arrived. We had a fun time on our video call that evening, each in our matching Santa hats. It was November 27. The fact that I was okay with this shows how much I’ve grown since we first became friends in 2011. In those early years, it was important to me that we open our gifts together at the same time, ideally on Christmas Eve.

I guess I’m attached to the idea of there being a proper time to do things. I buy and wrap gifts in plenty of time — not least because many will be mailed to various locations in the UK and beyond — but the tree and other decorations should go up no earlier than the middle of December. I stock up in advance on festive fayre — mince pies, Christmas cake, chutneys, crackers, crisps (chips) and such — but it’s not to be consumed until a week or so before the big day.

If you’re a regular reader you’ll have noted my use of “should” in the previous paragraph. You’re no doubt thinking “Hmmm... I thought you don’t believe in shoulds!” You’re right, of course. Should implies some shared scale of rightness or propriety. In this case, I have only my personal sense of tradition, and the feeling that celebrations are enhanced by not starting them too early or continuing them too long. Realising that this is personal rather than absolute or universal is what I meant when I said I’d grown. It’s okay that other people feel differently.

My ideas about when things should be done are as valid — no less and no more — as Fran’s or anyone else’s. I like to open presents as close to Christmas Day as possible, but if Fran wants to open hers as soon as they arrive, that’s cool. I send cards in the first week of December, but if my friend wants to mail hers out in the middle of November, that’s good too. (Thank you, Jessie! Yours was the first Christmas card I received this year, and all the more special for that!)

It’s not just Christmas. I celebrate my birthday itself with family, and enjoy a get-together with friends as close to the day as possible. Fran marks her birthday by filling the month in which she was born with things she wants to do, either on her own or with friends. Neither approach is right or wrong. We’re free to mark our birthdays in the ways we wish.

Maybe this all seems obvious, and hardly worth mentioning, let alone discussing at length. I find it interesting, nonetheless. I think it highlights the fact that people have different approaches to the passage of time, and how to mark that passage in ways that are meaningful. I’ve written before about how to reach wise decisions, but deciding when is no less important.

• When to send the Christmas cards
• When to put up the decorations
• When to eat that first mince pie
• When to open your presents

These decisions may seem trivial, but each time (pun intended) we make one, we’re putting a little flag in the timeline of our life. Being aware of our time-based decisions and how we make them can help when we have larger flags to place.

• When to look for a new job
• When to send that letter
• When to ask that question
• When to end a relationship or start a new one

Being present and correct — or correctly present — is important. It reminds me that not everyone experiences time the way I do, or marks key moments in their lives the ways I’d choose to. I’ve mentioned Fran’s month-long approach to celebrating her birthdays. My friend Aimee celebrates Christmas in a similar way. She starts early (compared to me), visiting Christmas markets and making other festive trips in the weeks beforehand, and posting a new piece to her blog I’m NOT Disordered every day from December 1 until Christmas Day. Preparing those Blogmas posts is a commitment that starts weeks if not months ahead of time. I can’t imagine devoting so much time and effort myself, but I know how much it means to Aimee and how large a part it plays in her experience of Christmas. I love that she includes me in her celebrations, and we get to enjoy the season in ways that meets her expectations and mine.

That’s what it’s about; being aware of ourselves and our needs in the moment, and respectful of the needs of other people. Just the other day, Fran joined me on our usual video call. I was looking forward to a good catch-up, but she was too exhausted to talk. Instead, she asked if we could have some quiet time together while she rested. I was happy to agree. As I’ve written before, sharing quiet moments like this can deepen your friendship. Half an hour later, Fran felt sufficiently refreshed to ask how my day had gone and share a little of her own. It was a lovely example of how paying attention and making the right decision at the right time can enrich our experience.

There’s a connection here to my recent post about Albert Camus and his philosophy of the Absurd as exemplified in The Myth of Sisyphus.

The lesson we can take from Sisyphus — at least as Camus’ presents him — is to become fully aware of the present moment and find happiness there. Find meaning there.

So, whether it’s opening Christmas presents, spending time with a friend, or taking a significant life decision, being conscious of our needs helps us make the most of the current moment. It’s arguably the greatest gift of all. And that, my friends, is why they call it the present.

 

Photo by Icons8 Team at Unsplash