Boats, Bridges and Walls

Today I am taking a few cliches and adding my thoughts on them:

Burning Your Boats definition:

you destroy all possible ways of going back to that situation (source WIKI).

How many times have we put a situation behind us, never to return? It’s all part of life’s learning curve, especially in relationships. In the heat of the moment, things can be said that can never be retracted, and one thing I learned years ago is that you can never go back. It’s not just the situation that’s changed, but the people concerned as well.

When I first married, there were several newly wed couples in a small complex of new properties and friendships sprung up between us. Sadly but not surprisingly, following my divorce all but one of these friendships petered out. Several years later when I returned to my home town, I visited ‘my friend’ only to discover that even though we had kept in touch, she wasn’t the person I remembered, her attitude had changed drastically, and we had nothing in common any more. No doubt she thought similarly of me and the friendship died altogether. There is nothing and no-one from that time in my life now, nor would I want there to be.

Building bridges definition:

to improve relationships between people who are very different or do not like each other (source WIKI)

I don’t like conflict in any shape or form. In my ‘perfect little world’ everyone loved everybody else, we all got on and families were perfectly in tune with each other (it’s The Waltons again) .My PLW blew up like an H-bomb years ago, and any remnants have long since been obliterated. It’s all very well offering the olive branch, but when it gets swiped out of your hand and then used to whip you, you tend to back off. As far as I’m concerned, good intentions suck, and these days I won’t even offer an olive. However, if someone offered me one, the chances are I’d take it, say thanks very much, and shove it in a pizza.

Erecting emotional barriers/walls:

“Some people put walls up, not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to knock them down.” -Unknown (Quote found on internet search) .

Our emotions, good and bad, take a hammering all through our lives. Hands up those who have got emotional over a sad or dramatic movie or book? Witnessed something miraculous that has brought tears to their eyes? We may cry with joy, weep tears of relief, but we also build invisible barriers to protect ourselves from hurt, rejection, even despair.To please our partners, we may pretend to be something we’re not, something they expect us to be, until eventually we lose track of who we actually are. Then something, perhaps relatively trivial, tips the balance and like a tsunami, our emotions rise to the surface. We can’t handle the onslaught, and the results can be debilitating and catastrophic.

Truddi Chase (c. 1935 – 2010) wrote “When Rabbit Howls”, an autobiography about her experiences after being diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. She developed over 90 personalities to escape and protect her from the horrors of violent abuse, though she didn’t know any of these existed until she became an adult. I read the book when it was published in the 80s, and found it harrowing stuff, yet fascinating how The Troops (as she referred to them) shielded her.

So some people will erect walls or barriers to keep people out. It’s a defense mechanism. After all, if we don’t let them in, they can’t hurt us, right?

Finding someone to knock them down though? They have to make a chip in the brickwork somewhere. The thing is you have to trust them in the first place to let them get close enough to start.

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