Your Friend's Messy House

You have a friend, maybe several friends, reluctant to have you visit or even see past their front door.  Your friend can take five minutes to locate a single document on his desk, or to locate her keys in her purse.

You think, my friend doesn't care about getting organized; such a slob, but I like my friend anyway.

Well, your friend probably suffers from depression or crippling anxiety, or both.  Your friend really wants everything to be perfect, and is so embarrassed that the item can't be quickly located, they start stressing.  If you could monitor their heartbeat and blood pressure while they search their desk, their car, their pockets, you would see that both are skyrocketing.  If you watch their face, you'll see it either go pale or get dark red patches.  Their hands are perspiring heavily.

And this happens to them several times a day.  At least.

Later in the day, reflecting on the incident, your friend is deeply ashamed.  "I can never do anything right," they think.  "I disappoint other people all the time."

So....go easy on them.  Maybe you can help; probably you can't. 

Probably the best thing you can do for your friend is, at some other time and in some other context, praise their skill at something:  "You tell such great jokes."  "I can't tell you how much it cheered me up when I came into the meeting and saw that you'd be there, too."  "Your friendship and support mean a lot to me."

Cut People Some Slack

Having a bad day? Getting grief from everyone around you? Maybe it's time to back off and realize that maybe THEY'RE having a bad day, too. We all know the stereotype of the crabby old person -- probably they have fingers and backs that ache, and their crabbiness may be rooted in pain. When I was grieving for the death of a friend, I found myself being rude and nasty to all sorts of people -- and tried to lighten up, to apologize and say straight out, I'm sorry, a friend died recently and I'm having a hard time coping -- and people usually forgave me.

If you realize that YOU'RE the problem, own up, apologize, and try not to take out your unhappiness on innocent parties. You may not create World Peace and Joy, but at least you won't be increasing everyone's misery level.