I Love You, Just Not Your Behavior

A dear friend of mine recently tried to take his life. Now, you will do one of two things right now. You will either continue reading and be open to what I’m going to share, or like 80% of people you will find yourself too uncomfortable to continue. Each of us has our darkside, our not so sunny parts, our warts and our thorns. All too often we prefer to ignore these, push these aside, and pretend they don’t exist. They do and they aren’t going away. Please be brave for just a few minutes and continue reading.

This person has a lot of drama going on in his life, all of it he created. The disappointing and frightening part is that until he made this attempt he had kept it all somewhat controlled and largely hidden behind a wall of falsehoods and half truths. Now he is exposed. And he has exposed all of his friends and family to the house of cards he’d built over the last two decades.

It saddens me profoundly that the “good guy” got buried in all the bad behavior. He made so many poor choices, so many irresponsible decisions and then covered those up with excuses, blame, and pointing the finger toward anything and anyone else in his life that was available. I am reminded of the movie The Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith, the lead character. Despite the world seeming to be against him, leaving him homeless, broke, a single father, and more, he persevered, he didn’t allow the odds to beat him down. He didn’t allow his past or his circumstances to define him, instead he grew way beyond them.

Being his friend and the last person to see him before this attempt, I feel deceived, confused, distracted, and frustrated by what he has done. I still love him as my friend, but clearly I don’t love his behavior. By lying he has hurt those that meant the most to him and that cared for him the most. While they will still love him, they will have to separate that from his behavior.

This is a person who has a large public presence (you may even know him) and his core is empty. His entire validation is based externally on other people’s opinions, not his own self worth. This is a dangerous and precarious place to live and ultimately was one of the key factors in his cry for attention. He wasn’t getting enough external validation and needed to stir the pot, he needed to up the drama quotient. This is one helluva way to do it.

Take a look at your own life and look closely. Are you creating more drama than you need to? Are you caught up in victim thinking and that the world and others owe you? Have you created a life where others are supporting you in bad behavior rather than stepping up and taking responsibility for yourself? It doesn’t matter how you got into this pattern, it does matter that you get out of it.

Make the right choice and make the best choice. Take responsibility for everything in your life, the good, the bad, and even the ugly. Nothing happens to you, you co-create it with those you invite into your life, with God (or universal source or whatever other name you give your faith.) You can turn your life around as quickly as you turn your thoughts and beliefs around. And there are people willing and wanting to help you every step of the way.

I will continue to be this man’s friend, though I will be very cautious and certainly unable to believe anything he says or even does. That is a high price to pay for drama and attention getting. I know he is in pain, I also know that it is pain that he has co-created, he has the power and ability to heal this and much more if he chooses to. So do you. Will you?

PS. In case you think this sounds harsh, know that I come from a place of knowing the inside of suicide. Don’t judge me until you know the rest of my story . . . .