Topics for Discussion 3- cutting people out of your life.

Topics for discussion 3- the first in blog format!

Hi everyone (or anyone)! Welcome to my first ‘topics for discussion’ that doesn’t involve me editing out multiple minutes of me staring into space and saying “I don’t really know how to put this into words” and “am I making sense?”

As January has approached and people have started making goals and resolutions, something I’ve been thinking about a lot is the concept of axing ‘negative’ people from your life. I’ve seen a lot of tweets from people claiming that in 2018 they are going to unapologetically cut people out of their life and I’ve realised I have a real issue with that- mainly because I have been on the receiving end of one of someone going on a ‘cutting off’ spree and it was really stinky. Settle down and I shall tell you all the story.

In year 8 I got put next to a boy in history and over the rest of secondary school he gradually became one of my closest friends. Looking back at it, the relationship wasn’t very healthy what with us both being so young and having 0 emotionally maturity but that wasn’t helped at all by him cutting me out of his life when we were 16- very suddenly and without any explanation. By this time, we had developed a funny power dynamic and I think had events played out naturally the friendship would have fizzled out naturally anyway- especially with us leaving school and seeing each other less and less- and so the seemingly impromptu ending of our friendship felt really drastic and unnatural. Unfortunately, not long after this I started addressing my depression; what I really needed then was a support system this friend who I was used to being there to support me point blank refused to be my friend.

I would like to clarify that I don’t blame him for doing this, he was a confused 16-year-old boy and has since (only last week actually) explained to me why he felt like that was the only option for him and his wellbeing. Nonetheless, I get so frustrated seeing people promoting this as a healthy or normal way to deal with people and with challenging relationships. The way he went about ending our friendship was shit for him and for me.

Something I will climb up onto a roof and shout about all night is communication- it’s crucial in romantic relationships but it’s also super important in ALL other types of relationships! If you feel like someone is a “negative energy” in your life, that they’re hurting you, that your relationship is dysfunctional or anything else please deal with it! Talk it through, try and see it from their perspective, understand the points on which you agree and disagree- even if at the end of all of it you decide that you need to part ways at least you have mutual understanding and a sense of closure. About a year after me and my friend had last spoken I got very drunk (I hadn’t drank in about 10 months at this time) and left him a furious voicemail in which I spilled out all of the hurt and rage that had been left unexpressed- everything I felt he had done wrong and explanation for all the things I knew he thought I’d done piled out of the pit of my stomach and back of my mind right into his answering machine. He didn’t listen to my early hours howling until the next morning and was understandably upset with me. The thing is, that would never have happened if I hadn’t been surpressing all that hurt and all those thoughts- I physically had to unleash it and unfortunately it took alcohol for me to have that ‘fuck it’ attitude.

Abruptly ‘cutting people off’ with no conversation or explanation is not a healthy way to end a relationship at ALL and, in my opinion, is bound to lead to much bigger issues later on. Essentially, I urge people not to enter the new year with this attitude and to take a deep breath and break down how they’re feeling before they ruin important relationships.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on this? Is it a method you adopt or one that you steer clear of? Is it something that you think is understandable in certain situations or never ok? I’d love to hear your thoughts either in the comments or over email/ Instagram J

As always, I hope you are doing ok at the moment and if you need to chat about anything my emails are always open.

Much love,

M xx

Email: martha.h.hopkins@gmail.com

Insta: martha.hopkins