Do You Have One Of These?

[cabinetman]

Our well being can be attributed to many things. Safe working habits, and safe tools fall into the category. Our emotional and mental state is another area. So, the question is, do you have a "confidant"? A confidant could be your spouse, a classmate (even an old one), workmate, neighbor, friend, just about anybody. Someone that you trust to tell your innermost secrets, discuss traumas in your life, give and take advice. Someone that allows you to vent, or is there when you need them?
.

[Mr__Bill]

I usually do my confiding to that voice I keep hearing....

Ok, that voice keeps interrupting so I usually have talk to my cat. The cat doesn't hold it against me, through it back at me and never ever repeats what I say to him.

There was a whole lot more here but I deleted it. Because some things need to be said but no one should ever have to hear it.

Bill

[MikeMcCoy]

My home comanion is an old parrot but you can never be sure that he won't repeat something that you don't want repeated.

[Uncle Cracker]

My innermost secrets are just that... secret. I derive no benefit from telling anybody. Maybe it's just that they ain't really too earth-shattering. Hard to get a load off your chest if there isn't one there, I guess.

[ironhat]

I figure that others have enough of their own problems to live with and don't need any more to deal with. Yea, I know that they would just be listening but I've had a couple of experiences of their next comment being sooo off-topic to what I was saying that I realized that they weren't listening in the first place. Or just as bad, the trite comment like. "That's too bad". No kidding! (Falls off of soapbox and bites tongue - time to quit.)

[Bruce Cohen]

Yup,

I see a therapist once a week and take a lot of "happy" pills.

Does that count?? It must work, I haven't heard the voices in quite a while, now the nightmares are a totally different story.

Bruce

Bruce

[LinuxRandal]

If you were to ask anyone "what is the first lesson you remember learning?", my immediate reply is never trust anyone, with a quick addendum, especially NOT family.

[radhak]

This is an especially sore point for me - so much so that I brood about it sometimes. I do have such confidants, and lucky me, there are 3 of them . All guys, friends from yore. But! They now live far away from me. Hundreds, even thousands of miles away .

And the reason I brood is, I have realized how difficult - impossible - is it to just get somebody like that. For all that I have today, they are the ones I miss. And funnily, they don't know each other. From different stages in my life, they are my 'life references', who I'd point to, if God asked me, "have you done anything with your life? who can I talk to?".

Family does not come close; wife cannot play this role (at least, not for me).

case in point - some years ago, I had this epiphany that a local friend's wife was figuring too much in my thoughts ( ) , and I called 'S' in Asia in the middle of his night to tell him; he listened, and gave me an immediate 12-step program to follow; boy, did that help, and was that a close call! So many in my life (LOML, that friend) don't know how much I (and they) owe him!

Another time, "D" was rushed from work to the hospital in Hongkong because he had a mild heart attack while anticipating his wife's call (she was so close to delivering their first child). He did not want to tell his wife ( ), so he called me and I 'held his hands' and I called her and held her hands and generally was the go-between, so to speak. Thankfully she did go into labor till the next day, and did not realize for many days why her hubby returned so late 'from work' the day she was expecting to be in labor .

But all that also reminds me that I am short of such friends locally, and am poorer for that.

[smorris]

Not in the last 20 years or so.

[bigstick509]

Feline Friend

I usually do my confiding to that voice I keep hearing....

Ok, that voice keeps interrupting so I usually have talk to my cat. The cat doesn't hold it against me, through it back at me and never ever repeats what I say to him.

There was a whole lot more here but I deleted it. Because some things need to be said but no one should ever have to hear it.

Bill

I'm with Mr. Bill, cats are indifferent and could care less.
At least the can't repeat anything. Come to think about it they sound a lot like most people I run into these days, except for the talking aspect .