Author Archives: samebutdifferentblogger

About samebutdifferentblogger

Hello. I'm a Counsellor and Psychotherapist with twenty-five years experience of counselling clients from a variety of settings. I've worked as a Counsellor in a GP surgery, as part of a team counselling clients in a local government setting as well as mor recently having my own private practice and seeing clients on a longer-term basis. I've also worked as an Associate Lecturer in Psychology. I have now decided to focus on blogging about the experiences and issues that clients have brought to me over the years. I hope that you find my blogs interesting - please do comment if you would like to do so. I realise that comments might not always be positive, but it's all a learning curve for me!

Having Difficulties With Your Family?

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When I say your family, I mean either your parents, siblings or other relatives – maybe all of them! Especially after a prolonged holiday period like Christmas and New Year, chasms can appear in family relationships that didn’t see so obvious before.

Some families are very close, meeting up as much as possible and spending time like Christmas together. However, the other side of that coin is that others don’t see their families, talk to them or contact them on birthdays and anniversaries.
There can be many different reasons for this, sometimes involving childhood grievances, or arguments in adulthood resulting in distance and non-communication. Sometimes this happens after a parent died – he or she might have been the person who provided the ‘glue’ that kept the family together and once they’re no longer there, things fall apart. Support fo one another wanes and they feel like strangers to one another.
For some, they can cope with this, saying that everyone’s busy or that they have very different ideas about life in general – their politics, way of life, values and principles – and they accept that people are busy and, despite growing up together, they have little in common. There are so many ways that people can become estranged that it’s surprising that it doesn’t happen more often!

For others, it’s like an ongoing wound – they find it difficult to come to terms with the feeling of abandonment and hurt. When seeing clients, I came to realise that some families are very good at dealing with conflict – they discuss things, compromise and try to see things from each other’s points of views. With others, they’ve grown up in an atmosphere where arguments and conflict were never really resolved which means they haven’t picked up ways of dealing with different points of view without shouting and storming off!

If you’re someone who honestly wants to reconcile with your family, how can you go about it?

Forgiveness is a good start. This isn’t easy and you have to be sure that you’re ready for it – there’s always the chance of rejection and few of us want to put ourselves in that position. So, before you pick up the phone to take the first step, make sure you know what you want to say and acknowledge to yourself any part that you might have played in the situation.
If you manage to talk to your parents or siblings, take tiny steps. Don’t launch straight into what went wrong and start accusing them. Try general things, ask how they are and don’t react defensively if they seem aggressive.
Be patient – it took time to get to this stage and it will take time to recover.
However long the estrangement, people’s lives will have changed, whether it’s been weeks, months or years. Allow for that – they might have become more entrenched in their attitudes and, for that matter, so might you!
Keep reminding yourself what you want to achieve – communication and eventually meeting up might be the most to expect at this point.
Listen to what they have to say – you might not agree with them, but let them finish. Their feelings are important but if they shout, make it clear that you won’t tolerate that. You could say something along the lines of “I can see this has upset you and that isn’t what I wanted. None of it is easy, but I’ll ring again soon when we’ve both calmed down”.
If you say you’ll ring or write again in a few weeks, make sure that you do so – being consistent and reliable is vital.

These aren’t foolproof ways of mending bridges but they’ll almost certainly help if you want to work towards getting on better terms with one another again.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed reading this blog and, if so, you can see my blogs as soon as they are published (usually on Wednesdays) by pressing the ‘follow’ button and you can share them with your friends. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Instagram (samebutdifferent) and read my FB posts every week at Same But Different #samebutdifferent #relationships # issues #bloggerforever #lovewriting #livingchange #makeitcount #canidothis #canyoudothis #ukblogger #femaleblogger

Are You Being Emotionally Blackmailed?

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There are often challenges, even in good relationships, and there can be times when people take advantage of you. They break boundaries and becoming controlling, sometimes without really realising that they’re doing so.

This can be the case whether it’s with friends, family, a partner or online but if you depend on these people for emotional support, it can be very hard, chipping away at your self-esteem. Going into a new year, the Christmas holiday might have highlighted how your own feelings and needs don’t seem to matter and you realise that you don’t want to carry on like this. If you’re asked to do something that you’re not keen on you and then feel pressurised to agree with whoever’s asking you, and particularly if this happens on a regular basis, then chances are that you’re being emotionally blackmailed. In other words, emotional blackmail often means that someone who’s close to you uses any feelings you have about obligation and guilt to get their own way.

This can include:

You feeling as if you’re tip-toeing around them – if you try to reason with them, it causes friction and you start to cave in and agree to whatever they’re demanding.
They’re manipulative and although they can appear charming so that you’ll comply with whatever they want, they’re actually quite threatening and you feel as if you’ll be punished if you don’t go along with what they want.
Them guilt-tripping you – if you have a healthy relationship there’s give and take but with emotional blackmail it’s different. They take advantage of your generosity and good nature, saying things like “Is it so unreasonable that I want you to do this for me?” or “You obviously don’t think as much of me as I thought”. You then feel that their demands are almost reasonable and that you’re being selfish.
Them never seeming to give up – it happens a lot and they keep repeating their behaviour until your own self-esteem is at an all-time low.

So, if you’ve started to recognise this pattern and want to make changes, how can you go about it? Changing patterns of your own behaviour isn’t easy but this is what it will take because the person or people who are using this tactic will rarely stop of their own accord. So, here are a few strategies to start you off:

Begin by putting down some boundaries – recognise that you’re good enough as you are without complying with every unreasonable demand made of you. Practise assertive responses such as “I can’t do that this time” and keep repeating it to yourself before trying it out when people are pressurising you.
Explain that they’re not taking you seriously and that you need to be treated with respect.
Find supportive friends that you can confide in, telling them how you feel pressurised, and work to wards feeling stronger and more confident.
If trying to reason with them doesn’t seem to be working, try to distance yourself from them so that you’re no longer in a vulnerable position.

Making New Friends

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Making new friends

In my last blog, I wrote about high-maintenance friends and, if you read that, you might have decided to draw back from some of the people in your life. If that’s the case, perhaps you found Christmas a bit odd because you’re lonely, missing them (even if they were a negative influence!) and would like to make new friends to fill the space that’s left in your life.

Research shows that happiness and mental health are closely linked to friendships, but as I explored in my last blog, some friends are just too high-maintenance to continue going along with the same old patterns.

Often, going into a New Year, I write about resolutions but so do many other bloggers, so I thought I’d try a new theme going into 2023.

So, how to go about making new friends in this coming year?

It starts with making the decision to change – contrary to what a lot of us like to believe, good friendships don’t always ‘just happen’ so sometimes we have to change what we do and how we do it to make more successful friendships.

Next, think about the people that you work with; sometimes you have more in common with them than your working environment and you can take that further. If you find someone else shares your love of dancing, workouts or walking, invite them to join you in one of these. The advantage of working with someone is that you’ve had a chance to get to know them, albeit in a working environment, so you have a heads-up about whether they’re kind, principled or moody at times. If you find them difficult to work with, don’t pursue a friendship with them though!

Even if you start bonding with some of your colleagues, try something outside of work too: join a group of some kind. This could be a book group, a badminton or squash club or a running group. Try to join a group that meets regularly – weekly or monthly contact is important so that you can get to know the other group members really well.

Another great way of meeting like-minded people, who have the potential to become friends, is to volunteer locally. There are lots of volunteering opportunities – it could be working at a dog-rescue centre, litter-picking or visiting older people in a Care Home. Whatever you choose, there will almost certainly be at least one person that you ‘click’ with.

Take some responsibility for organising get-togethers and, if you say you’ll text someone about meeting up, make sure that you do it.

Friendships change and grow and it’s important to remember that all sorts of different friendships can brighten up our lives.

Lastly, don’t take it personally if some new friendships don’t really take off – people are busy and sometimes have things going on in their lives that we know nothing about.