Order this writing in the 2010 book the Written Word
of 1991-1996 Janet Kuypers short prose
letter to a troubled friend
Janet Kuypers
I’ve never been able to tell you how I feel, because you never let me. When I try to say something, and believe me, I try to do it in the most tactful way possible and I only begin to scrape the surface, you react in one of the following ways:
1) You cut me off, get defensive, say you never do these things.
2) You go through denial, and say I’m overreacting, because your behavior is normal.
3) You apologize, but the behavior never changes.
No one wants to deal with a sour reaction, especially when you’re trying to tell them something is wrong. I’ve pussy-footed around you through subjects such as your work, your family, the men in your life and the men in mine, your surgery - you name it, and all because I can never tell you when there is something wrong. I’ve wanted to confront you, but you make it impossible. I really feel like I have gone above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to maintaining a friendship with you. In fact, I think that a lot of the time the work I have put into it has been very uneven in comparison to what you have done. But I was willing to do it; I cared about you as a friend.
I’ve noticed a change in you in the past few years. When you were in college, you were still being supported by your parents, you had the love of your life with you. Since you have been on your own, you have no direction and no one to share your life with. From what I can gather, this behavior now relates to your feeling insecure about yourself and seeking positive reinforcement in men. They can be men with whom you have no future with, men that are gay and you have no chance with, men you have no interest in, or men who are abusive at best. You’ve gone after men that fit all of these examples. They can even be men I’ve expressed interest in, or men I’m dating - and then they would be an additional boost to you because someone would like you more than me.
I have seen this self-destructive behavior in you and I have known that for the most part there was nothing I could do or say about it, because you never listen to me. You don’t want to hear it from me. You get angry when I try to tell you what I see. You call me a therapist. And I don’t want to get the third degree when I’m trying to help you.
If you think you really need other people to boost your ego, maybe you should realize that the only person that can make you feel good is you. All this work you are doing in manipulating other men only makes you feel worse inside - because it is costing you yourself. You have to start working on what the real underlying problems in your life are and finally face them head-on. Until then you are only going to lose more friends, be used by more men, and feel like you have gone nowhere in life.
I have overlooked many double-standards in our friendship. If I talk to my boyfriend more than you in a single conversation, you pout and get mad, but as long as you have another friend with you, you can ignore me for literally hours in a social setting, then ditch me, and I’m not supposed to be angry. Yes, this has happened before. My boyfriend putting his arm around me in front of you would remind you of your ex and depress you, but when you make out with a friend of mine - after he flies across the country to visit me for only a short time - I’m not allowed to react. You expect me to take all of my savings and my only weeks vacation and spend it alone with you when I could be with the man I planned to marry, but if you were still going out with your ex, I would never see you, much less have the chance to think about spending a vacation with you. In fact, if I ever suggested a vacation where your boyfriend wasn’t allowed (and yes, you flat-out said my boyfriend wasn’t allowed with us), you’d scream at how inconsiderate I was. You can call me every swear word in the book, but I can say one wrong word - call you child for acting like one, for instance - and you’ll instantly be set off into another mood swing.
I flew across the country and entertained you for a weekend because I wanted you to be happy. It’s not as if I’ve ever had anything but your interests in mind. Only now have I realized how much it has cost me. How much you have hurt me.
I’ve tried telling you over and over again when something is wrong, and your reaction is usually denial or defensiveness. Especially last time. A guy I’ve gone on two dates with doesn’t matter to me. You do. And that’s why it hurt more than most anything any other friend has done to me. I saw your behavior. You were drunk, and paying every ounce of your attention to him. If you weren’t planning anything, you wouldn’t have waited outside my apartment after I said good-bye to you in order to see him. You did it secretly, behind my back, because you didn’t want me to know what you were doing. You say you don’t remember our discussion (if that’s how drunk you were), but in my bedroom, I told you about me and him, that we had gone on dates, that I was somewhat interested in him, because I noticed your behavior earlier in the evening, and it was hurting me even then. Your response was, łOh, Janet, I would never do anything like that.˛ Then that’s exactly what you did. You threw any trust I had for you in my face. You really showed me in one evening how little you cared for me. You can’t tell me otherwise.
If this is another example of how you seem to need attention from men, then realize that you were willing to jeopardize what you called your best friend for it, and that you have a problem. If you don’t remember anything from the evening, then you may have a drinking problem. Either way, there are issues there that you have to address, and I don’t think I am strong enough to carry your problems quietly for you anymore when you are unwilling to face those problems yourself.
I almost didn’t write this letter. I’ve asked friends what I should do.
One person, who didn’t know you, said I should give you another chance. They were the only one that said that.
One said that you didn’t care enough about me, that I tried as hard, or harder, than was ever expected of me, and nothing will change with you, so I should just let it go.
One said it was about time I ended our friendship, because all I have been doing was complaining and struggling to keep you happy.
One said they can’t see me as a difficult person to be friends with, because I’m forgiving and don’t ask for much. That these problems in our friendship don’t stem from a lack of my trying, and don’t even stem from me.
One person, after seeing you at the party, was very disturbed with your behavior in general. They said they would swear you were on drugs, and I couldn’t tell them if they were right or not. They said you looked like you have seen something the rest of the world doesn’t know about, and that it had made you very depressed, like you were over the edge, like there was absolutely no hope, and that you just didn’t seem to care about yourself anymore.
I can’t fight that. I can’t fight feelings like that.
If you feel like you hate yourself, then there is nothing I can do for you. If you really think nothing matters, that you can’t feel anything anymore, if you’re not willing to help yourself, then I can’t help either, and I never could. Trying to help you was then pointless. Trying to please you was pointless.
In all the times I’ve tried to tell you how I feel, I usually got defensiveness or denial from you. Never once were you concerned about how I felt. I told you over the phone that last time that you hurt me more than you ever had - more than probably any friend ever had. You didn’t care about that, though. I don’t think you ever did.
And that is what also hurts. I don’t think you do care, and I don’t think you know how to care.
I don’t know what to do anymore, and I don’t know that there is anything that I can do. Or should do. The ball is not in my court, as you have put it in the past, but it is in yours. It always has. It is up to you to make yourself better. To help yourself. This is not a healthy friendship. You have to make yourself whole first.
I’ve seen you degenerate over the past few years. It was one thing when we were still growing up to not know what you wanted to do with your life. It was even normal to feel so confused that you’d go through mood swings. But it has gotten worse. Mood swings become event where you have to tip-toe around, be careful of everything you say. Sometimes knowing that there’s nothing you can say.
I don’t know what to say anymore. You don’t let me say anything. You don’t listen. You need attention, but I can’t give you enough. I don’t think anyone can.
I’m not writing this letter in an effort to save our friendship. I’ve received no indication that you want to change, to help yourself. Even your last letter to me was only an effort to clear your name, to make you look better, to make sure someone knew what you thought. You didn’t write that letter for me; I’ve seen you go through this with some of your men, wanting to write them letters to get the last word in. You wrote it for you, to make yourself feel like you’ve had your say. It wasn’t out of concern for me. It never is.
You are the one that did this to yourself, and only you can change you. Remember that: you are the one that did this, to you, to me, to what friendship we had. All of this is because of you. There is nothing I can do about it anymore, and I’m not going to sit back and take your behavior anymore. I shouldn’t have to.
You’ve been in therapy for years. You’ve spent a lot of time and money talking to a person every week for years. What has it shown you? What have you learned? You’ve told me that you sometimes won’t tell her things solely because you don’t feel like talking about something, or because you don’t think she should know it. If you’re not willing to share there things, how is she supposed to help you? She doesn’t see a full picture of who you are. Are you just going to her for the attention?
I hope you actually read this letter, not read it and then throw it away because it’s not what you want to hear, but read it, and listen to what I’m telling you. Show it to your therapist. Let her see a different side of the story. Listen for yourself to a different side of the story. You’ve never thought of how other people perceive you, at least not realistically.
Figure out what it takes to make you like yourself again. Or for the first time. I can’t make you do that. No one can. Not your family, friends, not your therapist, not your current abusive man. Most of those people are out for themselves as well, and might hurt you in the process. Find yourself. I don’t know where your hope lies, or if you could ever still have hope. I just know that if you don’t change, and I’ve seen no reason to believe you will, and if I still remain your friend, you’ll only keep hurting me, having no regard for me. A friend shouldn’t make me feel this way. I have to let go. You hurting me is doing neither of us any good. I’ve been a crutch to you; you’ve been a burden to me. I can’t take that burden anymore, and you shouldn’t have the crutch. Do something for yourself. I can’t be your friend if you keep falling the way you have been. I don’t want you to fall, but I can’t pick you up anymore. Only you can help you.
