My wife had a friend. She has worked with this friend a long time ago and they used to have happy times, but then her friend began to succumb to the stresses and strains of working in the mental health profession, and rapidly began to suffer from the very symptoms she was trying to cure. Friendship became strained. Honestly, her friend has never really recovered properly. and now, perhaps cruelly, her name is often accompanied by the prefix “Mad…” Everyone who knows her expects a whirlwind visit near to a full moon. Oh yes, despite what sceptics say, experience has taught me that this so-called myth is very true – people affected by the moon are prone to lunacy when the moon is full.
One night I heard a knock at the door. My wife was away and it was 8pm. I opened the door and Mad Lady walked straight in, chattering about seeing our cats, and 101 other topics within a ten-second burst. Definitely “hyper”! She is a buddhist and spotting an ornamental buddha perched on our fish tank she began to bow to it in little fast bows, hands clasped in prayer, and muttering incomprehensible mantras to herself and her deity. I calmly asked whether she would like a cup of tea, if she was staying? To my surprise she said yes, so I began to prepare the necessaries. All sorts of thoughts were going through my head. Mostly, “What am I going to do now?“. To be honest I had always let me wife take the brunt of her behaviour and had taken every excuse possible to slip away.
Sounds harsh, bur this lady has a lot of issues and she is a vortex of negative energies. She is a “taker”, but when well is equally a “giver”, so you just have to know when to catch her right. Sadly, she visits people most often when she’s in need, and in “take mode”. Tonight was clearly such an occasion, and this time there as no escape. this time I would have to deal with her on my own. The test was obvious to me. She was going around in circles with grief, stuck in a time loop, weighed down by the grief and guilt that accompanied the suicide of a former lover. She is spiritually and intellectually active but I know that very few of the people that she encounters are prepared to deal with her frantic and overpowering curiosity combined with such a strong neediness. People often are willing to help, but she is like a vortex of neediness that people get quickly depleted.
This time, however, the test was mine and mine alone. I prepared myself.
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