Why is it that the people around me hide things in an attempt to protect me?

Every time something is happening with my friends or family I am always the last one to find out. They view it as protecting me but it just hurts me more. I feel they don’t trust me in knowing or do it in fear of how I’ll react.
Asked by Lindsey
Answered
11/02/2022

It sounds like this is a pattern? Has it happened before for you? Where you feel 'everyone knows except you' kind of thing?

What have you tried in order to express or explain your own need for autonomy in family and friends dynamics? Are you able to tell the people closest to you how you feel about being excluded from a sense of authority in your own life? Have you ever been able to clearly state that it generates a sense of mistrust when you are not informed about significant situations?

How do you choose relationships to begin with? What do you consider a good friend? What does a healthy relationship look like to you? Often times people treat us as we have taught them to treat us. When we struggle to assert our own needs, and clear expectations and boundaries, other people will not observe them either.  We have to teach people what is ok and what is not ok and while it is critical to "assume the best" of people we love, we have to hold them to the standards you have set.

It might be useful to decide what is most important to you in your closest relationships. It sounds like you desire things like transparency, and direct authenticity. However are you upholding your own boundary space for those characteristics in your friends and families?

The fact that you suggest it has happened before would lead me to guess you do not hold that boundary. If someone feels they can not tell me something, then I look at our level or trust and connection. I will invest time and effort to improve trust and connection if the person is important to me. However, if the health of the relationship does not shift in a fashion that lines up with my own needs and priorities then I will minimize investment in that relationship, often times cutting it out altogether.

How are you with boundaries around your priorities? Do you clearly recognize your own non negotiables and priorities? 

When you look at your the scope of your relationships is there a proclivity for people to treat you as fragile?  Are you the youngest? Were you ever quite sick? Sometime people develop and settle into patterns that are truly not beneficial due to some extraneous factor such as these and it can be helpful to interject a NEW pattern of behavioral expectation in those relationships most close to you.  Do you present your self as frail and uncertain? Perhaps there are areas of strength you want to develop. Maybe you want to work on preparedness. If you feel prepared, you might feel less uncertain. If you feel less uncertain you may seem more confident. If you feel more confident, people may take more risk in sharing chaotic information with you.  Deciding what a "good relationship" looks like can go a long way to creating the kind of safe spaces with people. Sharing that with people we find most valuable takes practice and consistency. Don't give up.

(MA, LCMHC)