Episode 146: Friendships Featuring Kristi Cronin

Kristi Cronin joins me today to discuss friendships, being a people pleaser in the past, expectations, boundaries, releasing friendships, making friends, successful friendships, sharing your story, becoming an author (Kristi has a book coming out Jan 2020 called Black Balloons), and her faith.

Reviews

That was such an insightful discussion and exactly what I needed to hear right now as I am struggling as a 30 year old woman living a new lifestyle, in a new place, healing from depression and trauma and am having a very hard time meeting the right people who will pick me up during this difficult time and having that genuine symbiotic relationship with new friends. I have always had friends and reminded myself that quality is so much more important than quantity when it comes to making close lasting friendships in adulthood. I appreciate both of your ladies’ advice and am currently needing to have a conversation with a friend who I am feeling like is causing me stress more so than support and I have tried to have open and honest conversations with other friends without attacking them but even if they seem to receive and respect my opinions and feelings if anything positive comes from that conversation it never lasts. My big issue with this friend is that I feel like she uses me as an outlet for her anger or frustration when something unrelated to me happened to cause that negativity and since I am dealing with PTSD and am trying to avoid stress and conflict at any cost, I am so scared to tell her how I am hurting because she is one of my only friends nearby but I had a panic attack from just being on the phone with her. My intense reaction is not because of what she said as much as it was the trauma And burnout I am dealing with that she sometimes seems to forget about before getting upset and raising her voice when we were just trying to make a plan to see each other. She is highly sensitive too and has been through a lot as well which mostly has brought us closer but I know deep down I cannot be close friends with someone that makes me an outlet when she had a bad day and I have no clue what I could have done to upset her. I know it isn’t about me and sometimes she has recognized her mistake and apologized without me prompting the conversation but apologies mean very little in my opinion when the person repeats the hurtful behavior. I hope you could offer guidance on how to basically tell her I need space right now without making her feel attacked and leaving the conversation feeling even worse.