Quote Originally Posted by Serpentine View Post
Skeppio, the very first thing you can do towards making it up is to actually listen to what people are saying, not what you assume they're saying, or think they should or would be saying. What they are saying. Not every piece of criticism or advice regarding a change of behaviour means "I hate you, you're vile and disgusting, go die in a hole". If that were true, we wouldn't be bothering to give the advice or criticism at all.
Yes. The problem with giving help or advice to some people is that, even when they ask for it, they refuse to accept it, try to reinterpret what was said to mean something else, and point blank refuse to acknowledge what is right there in front of them - even when what they are saying in reply cannot logically be true. It can be very draining at times dealing with that and sometimes you just need to distance yourself from them to recover. The hardest part is making them understand that you don't hate them and that you're not putting them out of your life forever, but that you just need that time to recuperate.