Social Relationships

Social relationships depend on mutual care, respect and compassion.  Both parties must care for each other (caring is not the same as affection in this case).  They must also respect and feel compassion for each other.  Some psychiatric symptoms make this difficult.  Some symptoms make recognizing another's feelings difficult.  Some symptoms make it difficult to recognize one's own feelings.  This sometimes makes it difficult for others to care for us, respect us and feel compassion for us.  We also sometimes do not recognize that we DESERVE to be in relationships with people who do care for and respect us.  Unfortunately, we often have low self-esteems and feel we do not deserve to be in healthy relationships.  Even with these challenges, peers need to have social relationships.  We need to know that other care about us, but we also need to care for others.   

The first step is to evaluate the relationships we are in.  Are they healthy?  Do we respect and care for the others?  Do they respect and care for us?  If not, why?  Have we treated them poorly?  Have they treated us poorly, and we accepted it, or encouraged it?

Once we have evaluated the current state of our relationships, we need to decide whether the relationship can be saved.  We cannot change someone else.  Change can only come from within.  Focus on the relationships that are faltering due to our own weaknesses.  If we have been "takers", make an effort to be a giver in the relationship.  Apologize for inappropriate actions and seek to make retribution for past hurts. 

As for relationships where we are not the direct cause of the strife, this is a more delicate situation.  It may be that as one takes more control of one's life and begins to change one's own attitudes and behaviors, the other person will begin to change in response.  But there is no guarantee that the other person will change or if they do change that it will be in a reasonable amount of time.