Helping a friend. ..

[sunshine13]

I am trying to help a friend today and wondering if anyone can help with some advice.

About 3 months ago my friend met a really great guy.

We all told her to take it slow b/c she really liked him and usually she gets scared when things get serious and ends up dumping these guys.

We knew this guy was great for her!!!

Then of course. . she dumped him b/c of her own insecurities.

He does not seem to be one of those guys who is going to play games w/her either. He is not talking to her at all and said there was no reason for what she did and thats that.

Problem is. . now she is regretting it.

Everyday is something different w/her. Mad at him one day and sends him mean emails (why? she broke up with him).

Next day she misses him terribly and is in tears b/c she realized what she had and threw away.

Next day she just wants to be friends with him. .

I don't know what to tell her anymore. I have told her to leave him alone and if it was meant to happen it will at a later time. . .

But she has got to drop it.

Then today she told me she started emailing him again.

Any suggestions?

[Beec]

Well, she sounds rather insecure and unstable and you probably already know that, don't you.

 

What's going on clearly is that she has conflciting emotions, and these emotions lead her to go off and do things, but then how she feels changes, and she is off in a differnet direction. Unless she first looks at them and sees what she is doing, admits to it, accepts it, wraps her arms around these things and says, yes THIS IS ME. Until she comes to terms with who and waht she now is, she's not going to get far.

 

How can you help her come to terms with it, to do as I describe? Talk to her, ask questions, ask the whys? She first needs to work on her.

 

Now, at the core of this, and as a striclty amatuer psychologist, I see someone who does not think she is worth loving, and that's the big issue. She wants him, but is insecure because she does not think she is worth it. My wild guess is that there is a dysfunctional parent in the background, but that's neither her or there or a way to a fix. but, she may also need some help trying to come to the idea that she is worth loving.

 

But the control issue is she has no control. We have different cetners of our brain. There is a the base lizard brain that provides most bodily function, about which we do not think. It's the hormones and involuntary stuff that we just do. And part of that is our sex drive and the need to have it, so we can procreate. On top of that came some additions, one of which really controls our emotions, and that is at the back of our brain. And then at the top is the logical functioning portion. In her brian, the loogical portions do not exert control over her emotions. Her emotional state is in charge.

 

Now you can point all this out to her. And it might help, but it will probably only help down the road. There is a banned poster on this forum, and some may know to whom I refer, who I talk to from time to time, and I think he is in this process. Hopefully, she enters it soon. But it has been a few years to get him to begin, and I don't think he is at the end. The real beginnig for him took something very dramatic.