ARe You A DustbiN?

Today in the odd hour of the afternoon, my phone started ringing. I was little annoyed , but picked the phone. On the other side there was one of my friends who appeared little bit disturbed and was willing to share some of the details of her problem. As I was in office and was busy also, I offered her to talk after half an hour so that, after completing my pending work, I can concentrate on her talks. Though her voice sounded a bit reluctant, but she had to say yes.

Hardly 20 minutes were passed and she rang me up again and this time she started to speak in flow without a beat. I could not say no to her as I thought that she is in mental agony and I should try to sympathize. This social work of mine lasted in 1 and half hour. This was totally one-way traffic with some yes or no words from my side. In between if I ever tried to advise her something she did not allow me to do so. In a nutshell , I can say that, I was used as a dustbin to pour garbage of her mind into my mind and as you know it is always unidirectional and never can be bidirectional.

After this telephonic consultation(not consultation exactly), I felt totally drained and exhausted and those 1 and half hour of social work spoilt rest of my working hours, so no more productive work for the day.

After that I never got a call from her for months. As I was busy in my tight schedule, still I used to think about her problem many times and wanted to know how she is now? So one day, I called her on phone. I was surprised that she was altogether fine, in fact appeared cheerful. I told her my concern but she responded as if she never had a problem. Then I was forced to think that, “on that day it was her emotional tide which threw the water on me to relieve herself.”

These kinds of incidences must have occurred in your life also, when people use you as a dustbin to vent off. They waste our time and energy and then disappear from picture once they attain ease.

It irritates you a lot, but every time you do the same thing for different people, I mean dustbin is same but users keep on changing. This steals lots of our precious time which we could have used for us or for our nearest and dearest.

One more interesting fact-these people pose themselves very nearest and dearest to you when they are in need but once they are done they never look back at you and give you a cold shoulder when you need them.

They just want to speak their problems, they never want to listen advice from you .Most of the time they are in habit to put words of their choice in your mouth. So, you are more or less a passive living machine for them, who can answer only in yes or no.

They always hunt people to vomit out their mind and choose their prey meticulously who is empathetic and good listener. So that they can successfully transfer their garbage into listener’s mind leaving him/her confused, drained and frustrated. 

After such sessions you feel like a disposable object which is destined to be dumped after use. My long lasting experience with such people forced me to stand against their leechlike action.

So I decided to use a word, “no”, in a firm tone or sometime in a stern manner (conditions apply).This helped me a lot. Now I can smell such people ahead of a conversation. I have learnt to refuse stubbornly to be a part of this social work either with soft excuses or by showing my priority list (depending upon the leech).

I am also practicing some skills like whenever someone starts to suck my mind I reciprocate in the very same manner. Because these people always want to suck others and are never interested in giving ear to someone else’s problem.

Formula is:- as soon as they start weeping on your shoulder just do the same and drop your two and half kg head weight on their shoulder(interrupt them by telling your problems). This will shoo them off like anything and that too, immediately. Because they will not waste their time listening you, instead of this, they will search someone else to act as a dustbin for them.

Sometime, “ NO” is a good word, develop the skill to say NO.

Stay Happy

Seema💐💐