Will I ever be able to deal with "toxic" friend?

[Normandy]

Only 10 days into the Gupta programme and I was feeling better, not great but better. No more awful stomach pains and diarrhea in the morning and was able to go to the shops a couple of times.

Now, I’ve crashed very badly.

The cause? An old friend has insisted on visiting me. Although he has been good to me in the past and only wants to be helpful (will clean up the flat. do any little job that needs doing, go shopping for me and cook nice meals), I find his company very stressful. He means well but he’s not very bright and will say things like “let me hoover that disgusting carpet” or “when is the last time you cleaned your fridge?””

It’s not his fault, he really wants to help but almost as soon as I agreed (reluctantly) to his visit, I had the most awful adrenaline rush and diarrhea. I have been bad since, the stomach pains and bad stomach in the morning have come back as well as many other physical symptoms.
I’ve tried to deal with it with the “Stop. Stop, stop” and the “Soften and flow” but nothing works, I am too overwhelmed by my feelings/symptoms.

I’d like some feedback fro people on the Gupta programme. When can you safely face stressful situations?
Are you to avoid them altogether (and I lose a well meaning friend) or face them?

It’s not as if I can reintroduce him slowly into my life (meet for coffee) as he lives miles away so will be sleeping here a couple of nights.

Will I even be strong/well enough to deal with him?

One cannot avoid stressful situation for ever.

Please help, advise.

Thanks

[CFSGeek]

Hi Normandy

It's great to hear that the programme was helping. You should be really pleased with yourself as you had obviously been using the techniques correctly, great job!

One of the points that Ashok makes is that people who suffer from CFS often tend to be kind people who are inclined to think about others more than themselves. It seems that this is one of those situations where you need to decide that you might need to risk hurting your friend's feelings in order to help yourself get better.

I felt an enormous sense of relief when in one of the programmes Ashok gives you permission to say "No" to things you don't want to do. This meant I could stop doing some of things I was doing to keep other people happy, so that I could start to get better myself.

This is a short term decision (perhaps a few months or so) until you feel well enough to deal with the situation. If your friend is a good friend, he will accept it even if he does not understand, and when you are better you will be able to renew the friendship.

So I would suggest the following:

- Find the right way to communicate to your friend that you'd like to leave more visits until you are feeling better - perhaps tell him it's nothing personal, you are not having any visitors for any length of time

- Relax in the knowledge that you have bought yourself plenty of time to get better, so you are under no pressure

- Continue using all the Gupta techniques that you now know work

- When you have a negative thought about a visit from your friend, use the complete "Stop Stop Stop" technique on it

I also find that there are particular "toxic" people at work who I find stressful to deal with, with the same affect on my stomach etc. Basically I try to avoid them, but also use the "Stop" technique when I have no choice.

Best of luck, and trust that you will get better!