Spectral Posted July 22, 2010 Posted July 22, 2010 Hi, I've been friends with a woman for a few years now. When she's good, she's good- and she's truly a caring and compassionate person. But she will fly off the handle over the smallest things- traffic, running late to something, she even got angry when a mutual friend talked to another mutual friend simply in the presence of a man who had broken up with her. She took it as a personal affront that we would even stop to say hello to someone in the proximity of her ex - we didn't even acknowledge the ex!! Anyhow, her mood swings have put several evenings down the crapper. She even flipped a **** at my birthday party. She is a good person at heart, but she has zero mood control. I'm not interested in "unfriending" her, because I do love her. But, I'm at the end of my rope with her reactivity. I feel the need to address this issue with her. How would you go about it?
and.then.some Posted July 22, 2010 Posted July 22, 2010 If she's that sensitive and reactive, chances are that she won't take what you have to say in a good way. The best you can do, if it's putting a cramp in your relationship, is tell her that you love her, care for her, etc, but that these things are causing problems for you. However, if you know she will react negatively with great certainty, then it's probably not worth mentioning at all. When put in these situations, I've just changed the way I deal with certain people... distanced myself, and so forth. Some people won't really hear what you're saying no matter how you say it. If she's not that type, just tell her as kindly and lovingly as you know how. If this is new for her, think about things that might have changed in her life that caused her to act this way. It might be more worth while to understand where she's coming from, and try to make her notice these things indirectly. On the other hand, some people just make a lot of noise. Some people complain and gripe, and it means very little. They're just verbally expressing how they feel at that moment, but it doesn't really... mean as much as it would had someone else said those same things. (If that makes any sense to you.) I can be expressive, very verbal, or even seem to be all worked up about a matter, and be totally over it and past it 5 minutes later. I've said what I had to say (sometimes with great passion) and I'm done with the matter. It could just be the way she is. And, if that's just her nature it's not very likely to change. However, when it comes down to her wrecking everyone else's good time, that sounds a little severe. I say it's worth addressing things like that. Some people need to be told every once in a while that everything isn't all about them...
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