Tag Archives for doubt

Doppelgänger Dilemma

As I traveled to a recent appointment, I saw a woman I can only describe as the doppelgänger of someone who was once a close friend of mine. The striking resemblance to my former friend startled me so much I almost spoke to her, but instead I just stared, which made her and then me obviously uncomfortable. The one thing that made it clear the woman standing in front of me wasn’t the person I had once known was that she was heavily pregnant, which is a stage of life my former friend has long passed. However, the style of her hair and the shape of her features could have made them twins.

The interesting thing is that the friendship I had with this former friend grew tremendously during her pregnancy with her second child. Before that, we did the usual things adult friends do while keeping each other at a comfortable distance: we hung out some weekends, went to the movies, and went shopping together, but during her pregnancy, she changed; she became more open and caring. I enjoyed this less critical and nonjudgmental aspect of her personality. I naïvely thought that this sensitive, empathetic side of her would become a permanent fixture and we would be friends until we reached old age. Unfortunately, after the birth of her child – and what I have to assume was the re-balancing of her hormones – she reverted to the person I’d known before, and being around her for more than a few hours at a time became difficult to bear.

I’ll never understand why some people believe it is okay to treat other people like crap and still keep the privilege of participating in their lives. Why anyone believes that as long as you apologize after making cutting remarks or insults all will be well again, until the next time they do the same, is beyond me. This woman’s behaviour towards other people was so harsh at times that witnessing it made me wince. We eventually went our separate ways because of a series of things she did to others and me where, even after having the negative and hurtful effects pointed out, she made light of the situations and felt we should act as if they hadn’t happened and move forward. As expected, that lack of acknowledgement and trivialization caused more hurt. For a long while after we cut ties, I missed spending time with her and being “auntie” to her children, but our values and beliefs about how to treat people were so different I couldn’t see a way back to fully trusting her and being open about my life. I believe that had I continued in our friendship that it would just have been a matter of time before more incidents arose and ended things.

A lot of time has passed and although I know her children are nearly grown and may not even remember me, I do think of them often; and after seeing this former friend’s doppelgänger, I felt the urge to reach out to see how she and her family are doing. Then I remembered her condescension at my past efforts to mend our relationship, and that I’ve run into her over the years since we stopped spending time together and how things always felt awkward and forced. I no longer feel comfortable sharing any of what is happening in my life with her because I don’t want to be subjected to her judgement or hear her disapproving tone. I think I made the right decision not to pick up the phone, but deep down I’ve been questioning how one short conversation could hurt…

 

Lily Allen – Friend Of Mine

 

Never Doubt Your Lived Experiences

Being ill with all these glorious old and all the wonderful new symptoms is teaching me a lot about the people in my life and myself. However, I think the singular most important thing is that I should never allow another person – not even a doctor – to make me doubt my lived experiences. What I’m living through cannot be completely understood by another person, so why should I allow another person to question my experiences. Why should someone else get to tell me how much pain I should be feeling, why I shouldn’t take so much pain or other medications, or believe they have the right to question why my surgery didn’t deliver the results they expected. Why am I allowing their questioning about my health to make me doubt the value of my lived experiences?

I’ve caught myself allowing some of these doubts to creep in before. This morning a close friend reminded me why I shouldn’t allow that to happen. I spoke to him yesterday about the swelling in my legs and feet then sent him a photo so he could see the extent of it. He called me this morning to tell me how shocked he was by the photo. His exact words were, “When someone tells you their feet are swollen you try to imagine it, but when I saw the photo of your feet I gasped.” He was shocked at how “unrecognizable” my feet are. He said he couldn’t imagine how I must feel or what I’m going through while trying to cope with this on top of everything else.

His expression of empathy toward me was the jolt I needed to remind me that I should never doubt myself. Because of doubting myself, I was delaying going to see my family doctor to get my legs and feet checked because I told myself the swelling isn’t a big deal – the swiftness with which my doctor responded to my email yesterday clearly says I’m wrong. I downplayed this symptom because I was allowing the voices from other people telling me I should be better by now to cloud the reality I’m living with. I’m not better yet. My surgery did not eliminate my pain. I’m taking a significant amount of pain medications because they make it possible for my body to move so I can do basic daily tasks. My legs and feet are swollen beyond recognition and the swelling is adding to the difficulty I already have with walking.

What I’m experiencing is real. What I read that is written by others with health issues, general life issues, or just things from their lives they want to share, are real experiences. No one ever has the right to make another person doubt their lived experiences – their reality – and I have to remind myself of this more often.

 

Adele – Chasing Pavements