No matter how much we yearn for friendships and relationships that are totally accepting and allow us to be who we are "warts and all", the reality is that just about everyone has boundaries that they will not allow other people to cross. That makes us all "conditional" friends in one way or another.
I think that's a healthy thing to a certain degree, otherwise we'd be giving money to people who would never repay us, or would squander our resources on booze, drugs, etc. We'd be giving of ourselves to people whose sole purpose in life is to see how much of other people's resources they can suck from them. There are such things as emotional vampires who drain life from others, and take all the time but never offer anything in return. Or people who ask you to do things for them, and make promises of reciprocation and never follow through with them. Are those the kinds of friends you want? Of course not, so you create conditions. Your subconscious sets a kind of alarm at the point where what you put into a relationship and what you get back become off-kilter and you experience severe discomfort when that level is reached.
Everybody's "point of diminishing returns" is different. What you are willing to invest in a friendship should ideally be balanced with the rewards you derive from your investment. If the rewards stop coming, even though your investment remains constant, a person becomes frustrated and eventually - if allowed to continue for long enough (again that is very individual) - resentment builds up. You then reach a point where you have to decide whether you want to re-define the relationship so that it again becomes comfortable for you to deal with. You may decide to re-define it such that you never speak to the individual again, or perhaps you decide that it's best to maintain an arm's-length or strictly professional approach to the person. You can't beat yourself up for what's happened. What is done, is DONE. Everyone needs some kind of self-protective measures so they can feel empowered in and of themselves, rather than being stuck in some kind of emotional and psychological rut with dead-end relationships.
One of the cool things about doing this, is that you don't have to go making an announcement to the person that Hey, I've redefined our friendship and I'm kicking your ass to the curb. You can keep that information to yourself. If it's bad enough that you have to kick someone's ass to the curb, they probably don't really give a damn anyway.
On finding out who you are once you've peeled away all the JW crap... that's a little more difficult. Wanting to be liked and accepted is normal, and we all tend to modify our behaviour depending on our circumstances and who we're with and where we happen to be at a given point in time. For example: at work, we maintain a level of professional decorum. But away from work, we tend to be more relaxed and can "loosen up" a bit. Even if we get together with workmates after hours/off site there's a shift in how we relate to one another. You may even have someone from work who turns out to be a good friend, and you can really let loose and share some excellent camraderie with them, and do stuff together that you wouldn't do with anyone else at work. All of that is OK too.
Whenever I watch "Shrek" and hear him say "Ogres are like onions... they have layers", I relate to peeling off all the JW stuff from my personality with the hope of eventually finding whatever is underneath all of it. Lots of the JW stuff was burying things about me that I never even knew existed. I think of it as a work in progress, and I don't think I'll ever come to a point where I can honestly say that I'm finished with it.
Love, Scully
