Latest / Toxic Girls Zone / 9 Questions When Your Friend Only Speaks Boyfriend Now

Transcript

9 Questions When Your Friend Only Speaks Boyfriend Now · Toxic Girls Zone

0:03
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome back. Grab whatever you've got in your hand
0:06
Speaker 1: right now. And if it's not an iced coffee, I
0:08
Speaker 1: genuinely don't know what you're doing with your life, but
0:10
Speaker 1: no judgment. We're all on a journey. Today's episode is
0:13
Speaker 1: one I've been sitting with for a while, and it's
0:15
Speaker 1: going to feel personal because it is both for me
0:17
Speaker 1: and probably for someone you love right now. The warning
0:20
Speaker 1: is this. I say this with so much love, and
0:22
Speaker 1: I mean that completely to you if you're the friend
0:24
Speaker 1: who has disappeared and to you if you're the one
0:26
Speaker 1: watching her disappear. We're going to talk about the vanishing friend,
0:29
Speaker 1: the nervous system underneath all of it, and nine questions
0:31
Speaker 1: that are going to show you exactly where you are
0:33
Speaker 1: in this thing. Right? That's the whole episode. Let's go. Okay,
0:37
Speaker 1: so here's what this episode is, and here's what it isn't.
0:39
Speaker 1: It isn't about hating on love or being weird about
0:42
Speaker 1: commitment or telling your friend her boyfriend is the problem.
0:45
Speaker 1: I don't know her boyfriend, and frankly, neither do you
0:47
Speaker 1: right now, because she hasn't asked you anything about your
0:49
Speaker 1: life in three months. What it is is an honest
0:51
Speaker 1: look at a pattern that is so common and so
0:53
Speaker 1: quietly painful that most of us don't name it until
0:56
Speaker 1: we're already grieving somebody who is still technically in our
0:58
Speaker 1: phone contacts. The thesis lands right now, and I want
1:01
Speaker 1: you to really hear it. It's not that she loves
1:03
Speaker 1: him too much, it's that she's disappeared. That's it. That's
1:06
Speaker 1: the whole thing. We're going to spend this episode unpacking
1:08
Speaker 1: what that means for her, for you, and for the
1:10
Speaker 1: friendship itself. Right? Because this matters. My dog, for the record,
1:15
Speaker 1: has more to talk about than some people's friends right now,
1:17
Speaker 1: and he communicates exclusively in sock theft. This morning I
1:20
Speaker 1: found three socks behind the couch, arranged in what I
1:22
Speaker 1: can only describe as a little museum. He had opinions.
1:25
Speaker 1: He was present. He wanted to show me something. I'm
1:27
Speaker 1: just saying. Okay, let's do this. Nine questions, a nervous system,
1:31
Speaker 1: one pattern with a name, and hopefully by the end
1:33
Speaker 1: of this, a way back to each other. I say
1:35
Speaker 1: this with love. Keep listening. So let's start with the
1:38
Speaker 1: mirror because that's always where I want to go first, right?
1:41
Speaker 1: Think back to who she was before. Not before him specifically,
1:44
Speaker 1: just before the narrowing. She was the one who called
1:46
Speaker 1: you about the weird things she noticed about herself at 30, right?
1:49
Speaker 1: The job stuff, the family drama. The random thought she
1:52
Speaker 1: had on the subway that turned into a whole conversation.
1:55
Speaker 1: You were each other's people. You knew each other's interior lives.
1:57
Speaker 1: And now you pick up the phone and you already
1:59
Speaker 1: know the first 10 minutes. He said this. He did that.
2:01
Speaker 1: She thinks it means this. She asked her other friends
2:04
Speaker 1: and they said, you know, before she even starts. Yeah,
2:07
Speaker 1: I know, you know. And here's what I want to
2:10
Speaker 1: do before I flip this, because I don't want to
2:12
Speaker 1: skip the part where I actually see you. Falling hard
2:14
Speaker 1: changes the brain. Genuinely. The early months of a relationship
2:18
Speaker 1: narrow your whole world to one person, and that is
2:20
Speaker 1: not a character flaw. That is literally chemistry. Your nervous
2:23
Speaker 1: system is flooded. Your attention is magnetic. You cannot stop
2:26
Speaker 1: thinking about this one human, and that is actually beautiful
2:28
Speaker 1: and worth celebrating. Okay? So I'm not going to pathologize
2:31
Speaker 1: being in love. That's not what we're doing here. But
2:34
Speaker 1: something else is happening with the vanishing friend. Make sense
2:37
Speaker 1: so far? The narrowing never widens back. Six months in,
2:40
Speaker 1: a year in, she's still giving you the same boyfriend briefing.
2:43
Speaker 1: And here's the part that usually gets glossed over. She
2:45
Speaker 1: stopped asking you a single question about your own life.
2:47
Speaker 1: Not fewer questions. No questions. Zero. Here's the flip. It's
2:53
Speaker 1: not that she loves him too much. It's that she's disappeared.
2:55
Speaker 1: And a friend who has disappeared is not actually available
2:58
Speaker 1: to love you or him or herself very well. That's
3:00
Speaker 1: the thesis. That's where we're starting. Because this episode is
3:03
Speaker 1: going to give you nine questions. And they're going to
3:05
Speaker 1: act like a flashlight, not a verdict. A flashlight. A flashlight.
3:08
Speaker 1: You point it somewhere and you just see what's there.
3:10
Speaker 1: The Boyfriend is basically a podcast you did not subscribe
3:12
Speaker 1: to but cannot unsubscribe from, and I say that with love, truly,
3:15
Speaker 1: because I have been both the listener and the host
3:17
Speaker 1: of that podcast, and neither role is cute. Right? Let's
3:20
Speaker 1: get into the nine. Nine questions. And before we get
3:24
Speaker 1: into them, I want to be clear about how I
3:26
Speaker 1: want you to use these. Right? They're for you if
3:28
Speaker 1: you suspect you might be the vanishing friend, and they're
3:31
Speaker 1: for you if you love one and you're not sure
3:32
Speaker 1: what to do about it. What I'm not asking you
3:34
Speaker 1: to do is diagnose her, screenshot this episode, or airdrop
3:37
Speaker 1: it to her at dinner. What I am asking you
3:39
Speaker 1: to do is sit with each question and notice what
3:41
Speaker 1: comes up in your body, not your brain, your body.
3:43
Speaker 1: A tight chest, a little shame, a little relief, a
3:46
Speaker 1: little recognition. That body response is the data. None of
3:49
Speaker 1: these questions are a verdict. They're a flashlight. We've established this.
3:53
Speaker 1: Sound familiar? Good. Think of this as a wellness check
3:56
Speaker 1: that does not require a clipboard, a waiting room, or
3:59
Speaker 1: you pretending you're fine while filling out a form about
4:01
Speaker 1: how fine you are. It's just nine questions and your
4:04
Speaker 1: honest reaction to each one. That's it. We're going to
4:07
Speaker 1: move through them and I'm going to give you scenes
4:09
Speaker 1: and stories because that's how we actually learn things, not
4:11
Speaker 1: from definitions, from moments we recognize. Okay? First question. Question one.
4:18
Speaker 1: When was the last time she asked you a real question? Right?
4:21
Speaker 1: Not how are you as a preamble before she starts talking.
4:24
Speaker 1: Not the polite question you ask when you're already half
4:25
Speaker 1: checked out and waiting for your turn. A real question.
4:28
Speaker 1: Something that required her to be curious about your actual
4:30
Speaker 1: life and then wait, like actually wait for the answer.
4:33
Speaker 1: Sit with that. And if you're the vanishing friend, Think
4:36
Speaker 1: about the last real conversation you had with someone who
4:38
Speaker 1: loves you. Did you ask them anything? Not rhetorically. Actually,
4:42
Speaker 1: the nervous system does something really interesting here, and this
4:44
Speaker 1: is going to come up across all nine questions, so
4:46
Speaker 1: hold on to it. When we're anxious about a relationship,
4:49
Speaker 1: we talk. We narrate, we process out loud, we fill
4:52
Speaker 1: the silence because silence feels like danger. Talking about him,
4:56
Speaker 1: analyzing what he said, looping through what it might mean,
4:58
Speaker 1: it's a way of managing the fear that something is wrong. Yeah,
5:02
Speaker 1: that's what it is. It feels like connection. It feels
5:04
Speaker 1: like you're working through something together. But it's actually a
5:07
Speaker 1: regulation strategy. You are using your friend's ear the way
5:09
Speaker 1: you might use white noise. It quiets the alarm. The
5:13
Speaker 1: problem is your friend is not white noise. She has
5:16
Speaker 1: a whole life happening on the other side of the phone.
5:18
Speaker 1: Picture this. She calls you on your walk home. You've
5:21
Speaker 1: actually had a kind of hard day. Something happened at work.
5:23
Speaker 1: The kind of thing you'd normally lead with. So you say,
5:26
Speaker 1: actually something kind of hard happened at work today. She says,
5:28
Speaker 1: oh no, what? You start to explain. You're maybe 30
5:31
Speaker 1: seconds in. She says, sorry, wait. He just sent me
5:34
Speaker 1: something weird. Can I read it to you? And you say, sure,
5:37
Speaker 1: because you love her and you listen. And 45 minutes later,
5:39
Speaker 1: you're home and you never finish your sentence. You are
5:42
Speaker 1: mid-sentence and you are already old news. You are the
5:45
Speaker 1: opening act at your own concert and you didn't even
5:47
Speaker 1: get to finish the song, right? That's question one. Do
5:50
Speaker 1: you ask real questions and do you wait for the answers?
5:53
Speaker 1: Notice in your next call with her whether she asks
5:55
Speaker 1: you one real question and actually waits. Question two, when
6:00
Speaker 1: she talks about him, is she solving something or is
6:02
Speaker 1: she spinning? My younger sister, who says exactly what she
6:05
Speaker 1: thinks and has never once softened a landing in her
6:07
Speaker 1: entire life, which I say with deep love and also
6:09
Speaker 1: a slight fear of her, said something at her own
6:11
Speaker 1: engagement party that I genuinely cannot get out of my head.
6:14
Speaker 1: She was talking to someone across the room, and I
6:15
Speaker 1: caught just this piece. She said, Yeah, because she was right.
6:18
Speaker 1: There is a real difference between processing a genuine problem
6:20
Speaker 1: out loud with someone who loves you and using conversation
6:33
Speaker 1: as a loop that never resolves. The vanishing friend is
6:36
Speaker 1: often spinning. She tells you the same story about the
6:38
Speaker 1: same moment, and she does not actually want a solution.
6:41
Speaker 1: Because a solution would end the loop, and the loop
6:43
Speaker 1: feels safer than sitting alone with the uncertainty. If you
6:46
Speaker 1: are her, that loop is your nervous system trying to
6:48
Speaker 1: find solid ground. But here's what it costs. You're running
6:51
Speaker 1: laps around a track and calling it a journey. My
6:55
Speaker 1: sister said this to me, a version of it, years
6:57
Speaker 1: before the engagement party, about me. About the breakup that
7:00
Speaker 1: broke me at 26, I was three months post-breakup and
7:02
Speaker 1: I had told the same story to literally everyone I knew.
7:05
Speaker 1: My friends, my co-workers, the woman who cut my hair.
7:07
Speaker 1: I had it memorized. Same beats, same punchline, same righteous ending.
7:12
Speaker 1: My sister sat across from me one afternoon and she said,
7:15
Speaker 1: you have told me this 11 times. I love you.
7:17
Speaker 1: What would happen if you just felt it? I wanted
7:20
Speaker 1: to argue. I opened my mouth and nothing came out
7:22
Speaker 1: because she was right. The story was a shield. 11 times.
7:26
Speaker 1: She counted. My sister has always been a little too
7:29
Speaker 1: organized for my comfort, and I fully respect it even
7:31
Speaker 1: when I want to escape it. Right? Question two. Solving
7:34
Speaker 1: or spinning? Notice the difference. Question three. Does she still
7:39
Speaker 1: have opinions about things that have nothing to do with him?
7:42
Speaker 1: This one is subtle, okay? It sneaks up on you.
7:45
Speaker 1: Picture this. You're out at lunch, just the two of you.
7:47
Speaker 1: The conversation wanders somewhere neutral. A movie. Something weird that
7:51
Speaker 1: happened in the world. A mutual friend's career change. Notice
7:54
Speaker 1: whether she has a take. Not a take filter through him,
7:56
Speaker 1: just her own actual opinion. The vanishing friend often stops
7:59
Speaker 1: forming opinions about things outside the relationship because the relationship
8:02
Speaker 1: has become her entire frame of reference. Everything filters through him.
8:06
Speaker 1: Is he into this? Would he like this place? He
8:08
Speaker 1: doesn't think this is a big deal, so maybe it isn't, right?
8:11
Speaker 1: She's outsourced the job of deciding what's real and okay
8:13
Speaker 1: to one person, which means she's stopped checking in with herself,
8:17
Speaker 1: which means she's also stopped being able to check in
8:19
Speaker 1: with you because you can't give someone what you don't
8:21
Speaker 1: have access to. The nervous system term for this is
8:25
Speaker 1: co-regulation without a base. She has started to need one
8:27
Speaker 1: person's presence and perspective to feel okay, and she's done
8:30
Speaker 1: it so gradually that neither of you noticed. You're both
8:32
Speaker 1: at lunch, and someone at a nearby table is having
8:34
Speaker 1: the loudest, most bizarre phone argument you've heard in public
8:37
Speaker 1: in years. It's genuinely a lot. Normally she would clock
8:40
Speaker 1: it immediately. She'd catch your eye, and you'd both try
8:42
Speaker 1: desperately not to laugh. Today she's typing something to him,
8:45
Speaker 1: and she doesn't even notice. You used to be co-commentators
8:48
Speaker 1: on the human circus together, the two of you. Now
8:51
Speaker 1: you're sitting in the stands alone. Make sense? Ask her
8:54
Speaker 1: one question this week that has nothing to do with
8:55
Speaker 1: him and watch what happens in her face. It'll tell
8:58
Speaker 1: you everything. Question four. Are you getting texts from her
9:02
Speaker 1: or from the relationship? There is a specific kind of text.
9:05
Speaker 1: You know the one. It comes in at odd hours.
9:07
Speaker 1: It's long. It has context you have to scroll back for.
9:09
Speaker 1: There are screenshots attached. It ends with a question mark
9:12
Speaker 1: or just the word right. And it has absolutely nothing
9:14
Speaker 1: to do with your life. That text is not from
9:16
Speaker 1: your friend. It is from the anxiety inside her relationship,
9:19
Speaker 1: looking for a host. I'm not being mean, I promise.
9:22
Speaker 1: I have sent that text. I sent a version of
9:24
Speaker 1: it so many times in my mid-20s that my best friend,
9:26
Speaker 1: who has been blunt with me since our second semester
9:28
Speaker 1: of college and has never once stopped, she stopped responding
9:31
Speaker 1: to that category of message for a full week. On purpose.
9:34
Speaker 1: She told me later she did it because she knew
9:36
Speaker 1: answering was making the loop worse. Every detailed response I
9:39
Speaker 1: got was fuel. It told the anxiety, yes, this is
9:42
Speaker 1: the right channel. Keep transmitting. So here's a question for you.
9:46
Speaker 1: If you're getting those texts and you keep answering them
9:48
Speaker 1: in full, in detail, at 11 at night, you are
9:51
Speaker 1: not actually helping her. You're helping the loop. And if
9:54
Speaker 1: you're sending those texts, be honest with yourself here. Notice
9:56
Speaker 1: how you feel after someone responds. Does it settle anything?
10:00
Speaker 1: like actually settle it or does it just open the
10:02
Speaker 1: next round my best friend once sent me a voice
10:04
Speaker 1: note after i sent her a particularly unhinged screenshot spiral
10:08
Speaker 1: she said i love you and i'm not answering this
10:09
Speaker 1: one call me when you want to talk about you
10:11
Speaker 1: i was offended for approximately four hours i want to
10:14
Speaker 1: be clear about that four hours of genuine offense And
10:18
Speaker 1: then I realized I had not talked about me in weeks.
10:20
Speaker 1: Not once. The screenshot spiral, a genre of literature that
10:24
Speaker 1: has never once resolved anything, and yet we keep publishing,
10:26
Speaker 1: we keep reading, we keep writing sequels. Right? Question four.
10:31
Speaker 1: Are those texts from her or from the fear? And
10:33
Speaker 1: that brings us right to where things get really interesting.
10:36
Speaker 1: Because all of these first four questions are circling something
10:38
Speaker 1: that lives underneath. Something in the body, not just in
10:40
Speaker 1: the behavior. Next, we go to where this pattern actually
10:43
Speaker 1: lives in the body. And one of these questions is
10:45
Speaker 1: going to be the one you didn't expect. I promise
10:47
Speaker 1: you that. Stay with me. Question five. When you picture
10:52
Speaker 1: her without him, what do you feel? Close your eyes
10:54
Speaker 1: for a second or don't. You're probably driving. I'm not
10:57
Speaker 1: going to be responsible for that. Just picture her. Not
11:00
Speaker 1: her and him, just her. What does your body do, right?
11:02
Speaker 1: If you feel relief, like, oh, there she is, that's information,
11:05
Speaker 1: it means you miss her. It means some part of
11:07
Speaker 1: you already knows that the version of her who's fully
11:09
Speaker 1: present is different from the version you've been getting. If
11:11
Speaker 1: you feel anxiety, like, I don't even know who that
11:13
Speaker 1: is anymore, that's also information. The vanishing friend fades so
11:16
Speaker 1: gradually that nobody notices until someone tries to picture the
11:19
Speaker 1: original person and can't quite find her. And if you
11:22
Speaker 1: are the vanishing friend and you do this exercise about
11:24
Speaker 1: yourself without him in the frame, and it feels like nothing,
11:27
Speaker 1: like a blank, that's the question worth sitting with, not
11:29
Speaker 1: who are you to him. Who are you? There's something
11:33
Speaker 1: the nervous system does here that's worth naming. When we
11:35
Speaker 1: feel regulated around one person, when their presence makes us
11:38
Speaker 1: feel calm and okay and safe, we start to need
11:41
Speaker 1: that presence to feel okay at all. It's called co-regulation.
11:44
Speaker 1: And it's healthy in doses. You're supposed to feel calmer
11:47
Speaker 1: around people you love. That's not a flaw, that's the
11:50
Speaker 1: whole point. But it becomes destabilizing when it's the only source.
11:53
Speaker 1: When you can't access calm without him in the room,
11:55
Speaker 1: or on the phone, or at least reachable. Right? Because
11:58
Speaker 1: then you're not two people in a relationship. You're one
12:00
Speaker 1: person and her external nervous system. And your nervous system
12:03
Speaker 1: baby was meant to live inside you. Picturing myself without
12:07
Speaker 1: my partner is actually easy. My partner falls asleep in
12:10
Speaker 1: the first 10 minutes of every single movie, so technically
12:12
Speaker 1: I watch everything alone. I've seen the end of things
12:15
Speaker 1: my partner will never see, and I've made my peace
12:16
Speaker 1: with it. But I know what it feels like to
12:18
Speaker 1: have that baseline self, that person who exists when the
12:21
Speaker 1: room is quiet. Some years I didn't. Some years the
12:23
Speaker 1: quiet felt unbearable, and I filled it with whoever was
12:26
Speaker 1: in front of me. Sound familiar? Yeah. That's what we're
12:29
Speaker 1: talking about. Question six. Has she canceled on you more
12:33
Speaker 1: than she's shown up this year? Count it. Not in
12:35
Speaker 1: a scorekeeping way, in a patterns way. The vanishing friend
12:38
Speaker 1: cancels on friends because time with friends requires her to
12:40
Speaker 1: be a full person with a full life, and that's
12:42
Speaker 1: exhausting when you've narrowed your world to one relationship. She's
12:45
Speaker 1: not canceling because she doesn't love you. She's canceling because
12:48
Speaker 1: showing up to you means being herself, and she has
12:50
Speaker 1: temporarily misplaced herself. The nervous system prefers familiar, narrow environments
12:54
Speaker 1: when it's anxious. Being with him is familiar. Being with
12:58
Speaker 1: you requires her to be a person outside the relationship,
13:00
Speaker 1: and that person feels thin right now, stretched, like there's
13:03
Speaker 1: not enough of her left over to fill the space
13:04
Speaker 1: your friendship needs. Okay? Here's the blunt version. A friend
13:09
Speaker 1: who keeps canceling is not a bad friend. but she
13:11
Speaker 1: is an absent one. And absent is still absent, even
13:14
Speaker 1: when the reason is love. She texted you three times
13:17
Speaker 1: this month to cancel plans. The first two times she
13:19
Speaker 1: said he had something going on. The third time she
13:21
Speaker 1: said she was tired. You said it's okay because you
13:23
Speaker 1: love her, but it wasn't fully okay and you both
13:25
Speaker 1: know it. You said the words and your body said
13:27
Speaker 1: something completely different and you went home and told your
13:29
Speaker 1: dog about it and your dog looked at you the
13:31
Speaker 1: way dogs do. Deeply concerned, ready to steal a sock
13:34
Speaker 1: in solidarity. I tired is doing so much heavy lifting
13:37
Speaker 1: as an explanation right now. That word is carrying a
13:39
Speaker 1: whole relationship's worth of avoidance. And it is going to
13:42
Speaker 1: need a back brace, right? Do this. Text her to
13:46
Speaker 1: make one concrete plan. Not a maybe, not a let's
13:49
Speaker 1: figure it out, a real day in a real time.
13:52
Speaker 1: And then notice whether she holds it, not as a test,
13:54
Speaker 1: as information. Because the vanishing friend often doesn't realize she's
13:58
Speaker 1: been canceling. She thinks she's just been busy. She's been
14:00
Speaker 1: busy with one thing and calling it everything. Question seven.
14:05
Speaker 1: When you imagine telling her something hard about yourself, do
14:07
Speaker 1: you think she would remember it next time? This is
14:09
Speaker 1: the one that hurts a little. Real friendship has memory.
14:12
Speaker 1: You tell your friend something tender about yourself, something real
14:15
Speaker 1: and a little vulnerable. And the next time you talk,
14:17
Speaker 1: she says, how did that thing go? The vanishing friend
14:20
Speaker 1: isn't building that memory right now because her attention is
14:23
Speaker 1: allocated somewhere else. If you are her, think about the
14:26
Speaker 1: last time a friend told you something important. Do you
14:28
Speaker 1: remember what it was? Can you say it back? Or
14:30
Speaker 1: did it move through you the way background noise does
14:32
Speaker 1: because your brain was already back on him? Make sense?
14:36
Speaker 1: Your inner voice might say, I'm a good friend. I
14:38
Speaker 1: care about her. And that might be true as a feeling.
14:40
Speaker 1: I believe you that the feeling is real. But care
14:43
Speaker 1: that has no room in it is still not showing up.
14:45
Speaker 1: Intention is not presence. I learned this the hard way
14:48
Speaker 1: in the years I was chasing unavailable men in my
14:50
Speaker 1: early 20s. And I don't talk about that era with
14:52
Speaker 1: a lot of pride. A friend told me something significant
14:55
Speaker 1: about her family, something real and painful. And the next
14:58
Speaker 1: week I had absolutely no memory of it. When she
15:00
Speaker 1: brought it up, I had to pretend I remembered. I
15:02
Speaker 1: went along with the conversation, hoping context would fill in
15:05
Speaker 1: the gaps. I can still feel the shame of that moment,
15:07
Speaker 1: sitting in a coffee shop, praying my face wasn't doing
15:09
Speaker 1: what my face does. Right? My face has never once
15:14
Speaker 1: kept a secret in its life. It is a terrible colleague.
15:17
Speaker 1: It announces everything before I've decided whether to say it.
15:20
Speaker 1: My partner has described watching my face as reading a
15:22
Speaker 1: live caption service, and I cannot even be offended because
15:24
Speaker 1: it's accurate. The point is, I was so inside my
15:27
Speaker 1: own anxiety about a man who didn't really want me
15:29
Speaker 1: that I had stopped making room for the people who did.
15:32
Speaker 1: And I didn't notice until the shame showed up in
15:33
Speaker 1: a coffee shop to introduce itself. Yeah, some lessons arrive
15:37
Speaker 1: that way. Question eight. Does she talk about the future
15:40
Speaker 1: in the singular or the plural? I'm going to be
15:43
Speaker 1: honest about this one because I did this. In my 20s,
15:46
Speaker 1: deep in the pattern of chasing men who were not
15:48
Speaker 1: fully available, I stopped saying I want to do that someday.
15:50
Speaker 1: I started saying we might do that. I want to
15:53
Speaker 1: move somewhere warmer became, he doesn't want to leave the city,
15:55
Speaker 1: so I guess, I don't know. My own future had
15:58
Speaker 1: been quietly taken over by someone who wasn't even sure
16:00
Speaker 1: he wanted me in it. And I didn't notice because
16:03
Speaker 1: it happened slowly. One small surrender at a time. You know?
16:06
Speaker 1: This is one of the most telling questions because the
16:10
Speaker 1: future is where your sense of self lives. If your
16:12
Speaker 1: friend can't tell you what she wants, just her, not
16:14
Speaker 1: in relation to him, not contingent on what he decides,
16:17
Speaker 1: that's not love. That's absorption. And absorption isn't the same
16:20
Speaker 1: as commitment. I want to be clear about that because
16:23
Speaker 1: people mix those up constantly. You can be deeply committed
16:26
Speaker 1: to a person and still know what you want when
16:27
Speaker 1: he isn't in the room. Those two things aren't in conflict.
16:30
Speaker 1: I caught this in myself during the therapy years after 26.
16:33
Speaker 1: My therapist asked me to write down five things I
16:35
Speaker 1: wanted in the next two years. I wrote three things
16:37
Speaker 1: and they all had him in them. A man I
16:39
Speaker 1: had broken up with months earlier. She looked at the
16:41
Speaker 1: list and said, I see him. I don't see you.
16:44
Speaker 1: I went home and stared at the ceiling for 40 minutes. Right?
16:47
Speaker 1: The ceiling and I had a very productive relationship during
16:50
Speaker 1: the therapy years. It never gave me unsolicited advice, which
16:53
Speaker 1: I appreciated deeply. It just held the questions while I
16:55
Speaker 1: figured out I was the one who had to answer them.
16:58
Speaker 1: And that list, that embarrassing little list with no me
17:01
Speaker 1: in it, That was the beginning of understanding that I
17:03
Speaker 1: had disappeared. Not dramatically. Not all at once. In five
17:07
Speaker 1: things I used to want. Quietly replaced. Question nine. How
17:12
Speaker 1: long has it been since she talked about something she loves?
17:14
Speaker 1: Just her. Not him. Not the relationship. Not the fight.
17:17
Speaker 1: Or the plan. Or what he said. Something she loves.
17:20
Speaker 1: A show she's watching. A corner of her life that's
17:22
Speaker 1: just hers. Something she wants to try. A stupid thing
17:24
Speaker 1: that made her happy. I know a woman who realized
17:26
Speaker 1: she hadn't mentioned a single personal interest in four months
17:29
Speaker 1: of conversations with her closest friends. Four months. Every conversation
17:33
Speaker 1: was boyfriend content, wall to wall, no commercial breaks. And
17:36
Speaker 1: when she sat down to think about what she actually liked,
17:38
Speaker 1: she could list his preferences faster than her own. Can
17:41
Speaker 1: we see this? That's the nervous system collapsing the self.
17:44
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen dramatically. It happens in four months, increments
17:46
Speaker 1: of small surrenders. You stop mentioning the thing you love
17:50
Speaker 1: because you don't do it anymore. You stop doing it
17:52
Speaker 1: because there's no time. There's no time because every hour
17:55
Speaker 1: has a minute somehow, and the hours that don't have
17:57
Speaker 1: him in them get spent processing the hours that did.
18:00
Speaker 1: Picture this. There's a show on the screen, one of
18:02
Speaker 1: those invented reality ones, a couple standing at a fake altar,
18:06
Speaker 1: the efficient reading from a notepad while one of them
18:08
Speaker 1: is clearly on their phone. You watch it alone because
18:11
Speaker 1: your friend cancelled again, and you notice you haven't told
18:14
Speaker 1: anyone that you love this show. Not because it's embarrassing,
18:17
Speaker 1: you would normally announce it loudly and without apology, but
18:20
Speaker 1: because lately your conversations don't have room for you. Right?
18:24
Speaker 1: The woman at the fake altar is on her phone,
18:26
Speaker 1: and honestly, same, no notes, she is doing her best
18:29
Speaker 1: under difficult televised circumstances. But you, sitting on your couch,
18:33
Speaker 1: watching alone, not mentioning the thing you love because the
18:35
Speaker 1: friendship doesn't have space for it right now, that's the
18:38
Speaker 1: part worth paying attention to. Because you matter in this
18:40
Speaker 1: story too. Not just her. You. Coming up, the one
18:45
Speaker 1: wound under all nine of these questions, and the hardest
18:48
Speaker 1: truth about why we let a friend disappear, including ourselves.
18:51
Speaker 1: I mean it when I say the hardest. Stay with me.
18:54
Speaker 1: All nine of those questions point at one thing. Safety.
18:58
Speaker 1: Specifically the kind of safety that feels like it only
19:00
Speaker 1: lives in one place. The nervous system, when it's anxious
19:03
Speaker 1: and when it hasn't learned that it can regulate itself,
19:05
Speaker 1: will find one external source of calm and lock onto it.
19:08
Speaker 1: For the vanishing friend, that source is him. The relationship
19:11
Speaker 1: has become her nervous system's entire co-regulation strategy. And when
19:15
Speaker 1: that happens, everything else, her friendships, her opinions, her future,
19:19
Speaker 1: her own interests, shrinks to make room for the one
19:21
Speaker 1: thing that feels like solid ground. Right? This isn't a
19:25
Speaker 1: character flaw. This is a nervous system doing what nervous
19:27
Speaker 1: systems do when they haven't been taught that they themselves
19:30
Speaker 1: are a safe place to land. Here's the thing. What
19:33
Speaker 1: doesn't change is this. It's not that she loves him
19:36
Speaker 1: too much. It's that she's disappeared. And a disappeared woman
19:39
Speaker 1: isn't okay, even if she feels okay, because the feeling
19:41
Speaker 1: of okay is borrowed from him. She's renting calm from
19:44
Speaker 1: another person and calling it love. And the rent is
19:46
Speaker 1: her whole self, her opinions, her memory, her ability to
19:49
Speaker 1: ask you how you are. and actually wait for the answer.
19:52
Speaker 1: That's what's on the table here, okay? Not the relationship. Her.
19:55
Speaker 1: You need to hear that distinction before we go any further.
19:58
Speaker 1: The concept underneath all nine questions is what I'd call
20:01
Speaker 1: self as nervous system anchor. That's the ability to regulate
20:04
Speaker 1: your own emotional state without requiring a specific person's presence.
20:07
Speaker 1: And I want to be clear, this isn't some advanced
20:09
Speaker 1: spiritual achievement. It's built, not born. It can be rebuilt
20:12
Speaker 1: at any stage, at 32, at 45, after a breakup,
20:16
Speaker 1: inside a relationship, whenever. The nervous system is genuinely plastic,
20:20
Speaker 1: which means it learns new things, including how to feel
20:22
Speaker 1: safe in its own company. Make sense? Yeah. That's the
20:25
Speaker 1: part that gives me hope every single time. Your nervous
20:28
Speaker 1: system is extremely loyal. Unfortunately, it has terrible taste in
20:32
Speaker 1: who it outsources to. I say that with love because
20:34
Speaker 1: I include myself in that sentence. I really do. Here's
20:39
Speaker 1: the hard truth. If you're the vanishing friend, the people
20:41
Speaker 1: who love you are grieving you while you're still here.
20:44
Speaker 1: They don't know how to say it. They keep picking
20:45
Speaker 1: up the phone. They keep showing up. They keep answering
20:48
Speaker 1: the texts at 11 at night. But something in them
20:50
Speaker 1: has already noticed that the woman they called their person
20:52
Speaker 1: is running on one channel and they can't get through.
20:55
Speaker 1: That grief is quiet. It doesn't look like grief. It
20:58
Speaker 1: looks like your best friend saying, sure, no worries when
21:00
Speaker 1: you cancel again. It looks like a shorter reply than
21:02
Speaker 1: she used to send. It looks like her stopping mid-sentence
21:05
Speaker 1: because she already knows you're going to steer it back
21:07
Speaker 1: to him. Right? That's grief wearing patience as a costume.
21:11
Speaker 1: And if you're the friend watching, the hard truth is
21:13
Speaker 1: that you've probably made it easier for her to disappear
21:15
Speaker 1: by being endlessly available to the loop. Every time you
21:18
Speaker 1: answered the spiral text at 11, you were telling her
21:20
Speaker 1: the loop was okay. Every time you gave your best
21:22
Speaker 1: analysis of what he probably meant, you handed her one
21:24
Speaker 1: more reason to stay in the spin cycle. Sound familiar?
21:27
Speaker 1: Love sometimes means not answering the screenshot at 11. Love
21:30
Speaker 1: sometimes means saying, I miss you, not you and him,
21:33
Speaker 1: just you. That sentence is the most loving thing you
21:35
Speaker 1: can say and also the hardest to say without crying.
21:38
Speaker 1: especially if you're at a restaurant. I'm not okay just
21:40
Speaker 1: thinking about it. I say this with so much love.
21:44
Speaker 1: If this episode is making you feel like the relationship
21:46
Speaker 1: itself is the problem, please talk to someone, a therapist,
21:49
Speaker 1: a counselor, a trusted person in your life who can
21:51
Speaker 1: help you see clearly what is yours to carry and
21:53
Speaker 1: what isn't. You don't have to sort this out alone,
21:55
Speaker 1: and you don't have to sort it out from inside
21:56
Speaker 1: the loop either. That's the one thing I want you
21:58
Speaker 1: to take from this whole section. I miss you, not
22:01
Speaker 1: you and him. Just you is doing a lot of
22:03
Speaker 1: emotional heavy lifting as a sentence. But it's worth it.
22:07
Speaker 1: It really is. Now, the other side of the vanishing friend.
22:11
Speaker 1: Because I don't want to leave you with just the diagnosis,
22:14
Speaker 1: I want to show you what the other thing looks like.
22:16
Speaker 1: The other side isn't a woman who loves less. She's
22:18
Speaker 1: wildly fully in love and also still entirely herself. She
22:21
Speaker 1: talks about him because she's happy and happiness deserves airtime, right?
22:25
Speaker 1: But she also asks you questions. She remembers what you
22:27
Speaker 1: told her last week. She has plans that are hers,
22:29
Speaker 1: things she's excited about that don't route through him. She
22:32
Speaker 1: cancels sometimes, sure, because love takes time and life gets full.
22:36
Speaker 1: But she shows up. She's not using you to manage
22:38
Speaker 1: her anxiety. She's sharing her life with you. That's a
22:40
Speaker 1: different thing. Picture this. She calls you and she says, okay,
22:45
Speaker 1: I have like 10 minutes before he gets home. How
22:47
Speaker 1: are you? Tell me the work thing. And you do.
22:49
Speaker 1: And she listens. And when you're done, she says, okay.
22:52
Speaker 1: And then she tells you something she noticed about herself
22:53
Speaker 1: this week. Something that has nothing to do with him
22:55
Speaker 1: at all. Maybe something small. Maybe something she's still figuring out.
22:59
Speaker 1: And you both laugh. And it feels like her. That
23:01
Speaker 1: woman exists. That's what both of you are moving toward.
23:04
Speaker 1: Not the absence of a relationship. Not the absence of love.
23:07
Speaker 1: Love that doesn't require the self to be vacated to
23:09
Speaker 1: make room. Yeah, that's the destination. 10 minutes and full attention. Honestly,
23:15
Speaker 1: that's more than most of my status meetings give me,
23:17
Speaker 1: and those are scheduled in advance on my calendar. The
23:20
Speaker 1: bar is on the floor and she still clears it.
23:22
Speaker 1: Love that. Here's what to actually do. One, if you're
23:27
Speaker 1: the vanishing friend, pick one thing this week that is
23:29
Speaker 1: entirely yours. A walk, a show, a reorganizing project at midnight.
23:34
Speaker 1: because suddenly that drawer situation is urgent. Anything that doesn't
23:37
Speaker 1: involve him and doesn't get reported to him afterward. Do
23:39
Speaker 1: it and don't narrate it to anyone. Notice what it
23:42
Speaker 1: feels like to have one hour that's just you. Two,
23:45
Speaker 1: if you're the friend watching, the next time she calls
23:47
Speaker 1: with the loop, say, I love you. And before we
23:49
Speaker 1: get to him, tell me one thing that happened to
23:51
Speaker 1: you this week that has nothing to do with him.
23:53
Speaker 1: Say it warm. Say it like you mean it, not
23:55
Speaker 1: like a test. Three, if you're both, send her a
23:58
Speaker 1: voice note today that says, I miss you. Let's do
24:00
Speaker 1: the thing we always said we'd do. Not a plan
24:02
Speaker 1: for someday, a specific day. Four, if you're deep in
24:06
Speaker 1: the vanishing, write down five things you wanted before this relationship.
24:10
Speaker 1: Not to leave it, just to remember that you had
24:12
Speaker 1: a self before him and that self isn't gone. She's
24:15
Speaker 1: just been on a very long hold. Write down five
24:18
Speaker 1: things you wanted before him. Look at the list. Notice
24:21
Speaker 1: which ones you still want. That's not a small exercise.
24:24
Speaker 1: That's a whole conversation with yourself that's been waiting, right?
24:28
Speaker 1: The Midnight Reorganizing Project is genuinely underrated therapy and I
24:31
Speaker 1: will die on that hill. My partner has come out
24:33
Speaker 1: at one in the morning to find me alphabetizing things
24:35
Speaker 1: that did not need to be alphabetized. And honestly, I
24:38
Speaker 1: think it's helped me more than some actual things I
24:40
Speaker 1: paid for. The woman on the other side of this
24:43
Speaker 1: isn't the woman who loves less. She's the woman who
24:46
Speaker 1: loves from a full self. She asks her friends real questions.
24:49
Speaker 1: She answers theirs. She has opinions about things that have
24:52
Speaker 1: nothing to do with him. She's hard to vanish because
24:54
Speaker 1: she knows where she is. She isn't waiting for him
24:57
Speaker 1: to tell her who she is. She already knows. And
25:00
Speaker 1: her friendship is a real place you can go to.
25:02
Speaker 1: You can call her and she'll pick up. Not just
25:04
Speaker 1: the phone, her actual self. She's there. That's what we're
25:07
Speaker 1: building toward. You know? She still talks about him sometimes.
25:11
Speaker 1: She just also remembers your name. Okay? That's the bar. Low? Maybe.
25:16
Speaker 1: But it's the right one. I'm going to say the
25:18
Speaker 1: thesis one last time, and I want you to sit
25:20
Speaker 1: with it. Baby, it's not that she loves him too much.
25:23
Speaker 1: It's that she's disappeared. If you found yourself in any
25:26
Speaker 1: of those nine questions today, that's not a verdict. That's
25:28
Speaker 1: a starting point. You are not too far gone. You
25:31
Speaker 1: are not broken or hopeless or too deep in to
25:34
Speaker 1: find your way back. You're just a woman whose nervous
25:36
Speaker 1: system got scared and grabbed the nearest solid thing. And
25:39
Speaker 1: that's human. That's so human. But the next solid thing?
25:43
Speaker 1: That's you. Go find her. Right? When did you last
25:47
Speaker 1: ask her something that had nothing to do with him?
25:49
Speaker 1: And when did she last ask you anything at all?
25:51
Speaker 1: Sit with that. Send this episode to the friend you've
25:53
Speaker 1: been missing. Send it to yourself if she's you. Either way,
25:57
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're here. Take care of yourself. I'll talk
25:59
Speaker 1: to you soon. This show is made by Oba Media.