And then it comes a time in which one realises that, for a reason or another, one is surrounded by people who take very little interest in one's problems, pains, stories.
I know, I know, there are always good reasons at play.
First, sometimes one surrounds oneself with people of a different age, who, of course, are not tuned into compatible problems and timings: one cannot expect them supporting.
Second, sometimes one surrounds oneself with people who have a lot of their own problems, very serious, much serious, so that they have no mental space to notice or discuss one's problems.
Third, one surrounds oneself with people who are spiralling into their own subconscious, so that even if their problems are quite inconsistent, they do not manage to deal with them because they are lost in the vortex of anxiety, which makes everything so enormous and tiring ...that cannot conceive putting aside a little time for someone else problems.
Fourth, sometimes one surrounds oneself with people who rely on one's listening and help, but are not ready to reciprocate. Maybe this depend on the fact that one has spoiled the them with offering a lot of care and letting them think that nothing was expected from them.
Fifth, sometimes one is surrounded by people that one has not chosen, like family, neighbours, colleagues. These people feel no interest or duty in listening, as the relationships stay there independently by any effort to maintain or reciprocate closeness.
In the end, one wonders what is the actual basic ingredient of relationships, what is made of the dough of closeness, what should not be missing there? Today I think it is plain simple interest in the other's life, in her/his problems, solutions, mal/adjustments. It is caring, imagining what the other is doing and thinking and feeling when is not there, imagining and putting oneself in the other' shoes, offering support, just listening, sharing. Just offering a shoulder on which to cry, at times.
I found that even if one frankly asks for support three major reactions follow: either people deny, smaller, downsize one's problem; or people counter attack, become overcritical, assume the position of the opposite point of view, or, but very rarely, people listen and occasionally try to offer her/his suggestion upon an emphatic effort.
I know the first ones are dominated by their own problems and can't cope with those of the others. One should feel sorry for them, and do not expect anything from them. Nevertheless, sometimes, it is very hard. For example, I have a friend whose mother is like that. How can one learn not to expect support from your mother? It is so difficult that never really is learnt.
I know the second ones believe to help by 'stimulating' the other rather than simply supporting and listening. In a certain way there is a form of virility in their actions, which is supposed to stimulate self defence and self care and finally positive reactions in the others. And it would work, if only it would be used occasionally, among a lots of 'normal' caring and empathising. Unfortunately, this approach is rarely occasional: the 'devil advocate' characters often perform their stile in every occasion they can, not just sometimes. They are, in fact, empathising their way, that is, reacting the way they would have done with themselves. Nevertheless, what is this specific way? It is pushing away the weakness stemming from pain in favour of a perception of strength coming from provoked upset or anger. They try to tell the other 'you have to manage your own' by provoking in her/him a reaction, often an aggressive reaction, which seems to clear up the needy's pain. To put it simple, if someone gets upset and angry, she/he cannot be so desperate, so down, so troubled: the problems appear to be gone. And there is a logic behind this, but also a disengagement, a running away, a refusal to support and follow up problems and the other. Most of the time I find these people is thinking of themselves, of how unbearable would be to be in the other's position, and try to capsize the situation and run away.
I know the third ones are rare, but I find they really can help, because they simply offer a shoulder on which crying. They offer it because they have it, strong and stable and supportive: as part of a person who has worked on being stable and strong, on being happier and have reservoirs of stability to play out when is needed also to others. In other terms, to have the mental and physical time and space to listen, and to offer it, means that the person has worked hard to reach that stage, and therefore has suggestions to offer, and critical tools that could also help. It also means these people understand love as a form of caring, and sharing, not just having fun together. Their support does not plunge one in deepest depression: this is the fear of those who think that mentioning problems do materialise them, which is a barbarian understanding to me. Talking problems help seeing them, and crying on them with others help mourning, which often is the key to overcome what cannot otherwise be accepted. It is a recipe for survival that is older than the human genre and I am not sure why is so much ostracised and feared.
Often psychoanalysts call depression 'the long deferred mourning': the deferred, the feared one, the one we have not wanted to perform and that prevails and asserts itself over our will anyway. And I agree with this. It is the constantly denied or postponed mourning for a part of our self that is gone, or a time that is gone, or another person or affection that is gone.
If we do not make space, and time, to acknowledge this 'leaving', if we pretend nothing for fear of materialising the pain of this leaving, if we postpone or do not find the proper listeners, witnesses, to this leaving, we condemn and lock ourselves in depression, in an apparently never-ending condition of nothingness, emptiness, solitude and silence, where words have lost their power, where time-flow is denied, where no one is anymore important, not even ourselves.
It is the delirium of the ego, that prefers to hide alone in a corner unseen, that pretends to stop time and life rather than mourning a wife gone, the youth gone, the strenght gone, an opportunity gone... In the capitalistic mythology of self management and individual independence, one forgets that the presence and the listening of the others is crucial to make our life real, to perceive it as such, to also acknowledge changes and pains. And it is because of so little people offering this listening and this care that, I think, so much depression materialises in our civilised world...so ignorant when it comes to human relations.
