Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2001-09-27 03:05 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2001-09-27 03:05 pm
Listening
The other day, I started a cheerful conversation with a friend, only to have this person react in a way I found somewhat unusual. I got a little curious, and danced around the topic for a while, trying to figure out what was going on.
It turned out that my casual comment had hit on one of this person's sore spots, something dating back past the history I knew to something I didn't know, and would have really had no way of knowing, a childhood traumatic experience that had since been affecting their entire outlook on the world. From what I heard, I gathered that it hadn't been dealt with since then, just shoved in a mental closet. Every now and then it popped up out of there, like some obscene jack-in-the-box, and freaked the living daylights out of this person.
I listened, mostly, while my friend spilled the entire story. I really didn't know what to say. I don't tend to have friends with Bad Pasts. All I could really do was listen. The situation was over, resolved, except for its effects on my friend, and they sounded like they really needed to get it out of their heads and shared with someone else, on paper, or what have you, just OUT. Illuminated. Dealt with.
After my friend was done talking, I shared something of my own, a bit of something that had been in my brain for a while stabbing me, something that still bothers me from time to time, though when it happened, and for years afterward, it had really fucked me up. I shared some of the things it did to me and some of the ways it's gotten better, and some of the ways it still fucks with me.
Apparently it helped my friend to get that all talked about. I heard from them later that it wasn't bothering them quite so much anymore. I didn't bring up the subject again.
Sis says that listening is really all you can do, sometimes, and that often it's enough, just to have someone there who actually gives a shit.
It turned out that my casual comment had hit on one of this person's sore spots, something dating back past the history I knew to something I didn't know, and would have really had no way of knowing, a childhood traumatic experience that had since been affecting their entire outlook on the world. From what I heard, I gathered that it hadn't been dealt with since then, just shoved in a mental closet. Every now and then it popped up out of there, like some obscene jack-in-the-box, and freaked the living daylights out of this person.
I listened, mostly, while my friend spilled the entire story. I really didn't know what to say. I don't tend to have friends with Bad Pasts. All I could really do was listen. The situation was over, resolved, except for its effects on my friend, and they sounded like they really needed to get it out of their heads and shared with someone else, on paper, or what have you, just OUT. Illuminated. Dealt with.
After my friend was done talking, I shared something of my own, a bit of something that had been in my brain for a while stabbing me, something that still bothers me from time to time, though when it happened, and for years afterward, it had really fucked me up. I shared some of the things it did to me and some of the ways it's gotten better, and some of the ways it still fucks with me.
Apparently it helped my friend to get that all talked about. I heard from them later that it wasn't bothering them quite so much anymore. I didn't bring up the subject again.
Sis says that listening is really all you can do, sometimes, and that often it's enough, just to have someone there who actually gives a shit.
no subject
Somehow I brought up some subject that was painful and had to hear a whole story complete with crying.
I didn't really know what to do so I just held her and listened.
no subject