Joy D. Fanning rebuilds her ability to trust after an abusive marriage left her isolated and friendless. She regained social skills by volunteering, moving to Mexico City and Colombia to force herself into new friendships, and now leads meditation groups focused on healing friendship trauma.
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Welcome, my name is Joy D. Fanning, an astronaut of life, and I help people go inward to explore. In today's video, I'm going to discuss my own personal journey with friendships and the trauma I had around it and how I healed it. So let's get into it. I don't go around talking about my personal, like, history or life a lot, um, and this is one of the few videos where I plan to do that because I, I had this— my own experience with friendship, and it's been like a rocky road my whole life. And as adults, I think it's very hard to make friends and keep them And we take a lot of stuff from our childhood and it becomes part of our behaviors as adults, right? So here's kind of my story with friendship, and I'll talk about the good and the bad. So the good was— and you could view this how you want— I moved around a lot. As a kid, I think I counted, I went to 5 different schools. Let me count real quick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 4 were between kindergarten and like 8th grade, and then I went to a different high school. So I was often like every roundabout, like every, every 2 years, the new kid. There was a time between 5th and 8th grade, so we had, what, 4 years where I went to school with the same kids, and then I went to high school with a different set of kids. So I, as a child, it became pretty easy for me to make new friends because I had to learn this skill, otherwise I wouldn't have any friends. I have a younger brother who I mentioned in a previous video. And he's just 15 months younger than me, I'm pretty sure. So I don't remember life before him, right? Like, we've been together my whole life and he really is my, like, lifetime best friend. We were best friends growing up. We got along very well. Well, mostly. He annoyed the shit out of me a lot. But in general, we played well together. We did a lot of things together. And even in high school and middle school— well, not middle— mostly in high school, we had similar friend groups. So I always had my brother, but both of us had to kind of learn how to make new friends. And for my childhood and even up into college, this served me very well. I was very apt in making new friends. and it was very easy for me, and I made friends pretty well. I wasn't— I was never like the most popular person by any means. My brother was. I'm not like an overly outgoing person, right? Like, I especially as a child, I was more of the quiet loner type, but I was always able to make at least one or two friends. The only time that I really struggled in childhood was, I want to say, like 7th grade. My best friend Ivy, she moved away, and I kind of realized after she left, like, wait a minute, I don't really have any other friends to like hang out with. And I was like at the bottom of the barrel as far as like popularity went. So like nobody really wanted to be my friend. So I just, I, at that time, my family was going to this large church and my church friends really became my friends. And we would go on Wednesday nights and I would hang out with these girls my age. And they all went to, because I went to a very large church, they all went to the church's school. I think my parents noticed in like 7th and 8th grade that I was kind of a loner. I didn't have many friends except these church friends, and, um, it really affected me at school. And I don't know, they picked up on it. However they did, they did. My parents made the decision to send my brother and I to our church's private Christian school, so Before that, I had always gone to public school. So starting in 9th grade, I went to this private school and I got to go to school now with all my church friends and meet even more kids. It was a very small school, but, um, and I had a great time. For me, high school was a blast. I am not super proud of who I was in high school. I was very judgy, but, um, I had friends. I got along with everybody. I wasn't made fun of. That's another thing. I got made fun of mainly for my voice in middle school. Sorry, QB is— QB wants attention. I got made fun of a lot in middle school for my voice, and maybe that's what my parents picked up on. And yeah, it was— it really affected my confidence. I knew I had a little voice at the time. It probably was more like up here, and I would talk all sweet and cute. And the popular girls would come up to me— and this is middle school— they would come up to me and be like, "Joy, talk to us in your normal voice." And I would have to be like, "This is my normal voice." And then they would just laugh. And I just— it made me feel like really little, and I didn't know at the time how to process this. If I took it to heart, and so it just kind of made me more shy. But like I said, my parents picked up on this and they switched schools for me. And so in high school, um, nobody made fun of my voice. Now, it came up every now and then. I remember I want to say my sophomore year, we had some new students that like joined us my sophomore year. And after a few months they were like, Joy, I realize now that your voice is your real voice, but I could have sworn you were pulling a prank on me when I first got here, which I wasn't. I just talk this way. So there was growth in that. And I got to play any sport I wanted in high school. I had so many different friend groups. I had like my core friends which were 3 girls in my grade. I had my basketball friends that I was on the basketball team. I had my volleyball friends and my track friends. I had my student council friends. I was on so many. I joined like pretty much every club and every sport I could do, and I loved it. I honestly don't know how I did everything. I had summer jobs. I even had a job at a restaurant. In high school, but I mean, I guess that's the age for it, right? But in college, it also served me pretty well being the new kid so many times in my life. Kind of everybody was there. My freshman year of college, I went to ORU, which stands for Oral Roberts University. QP, watch the mic. Um, that's in Oklahoma, in Tulsa. It's an evangelical Christian school. Oh buddy, chill, peel. And I made quite a lot of friends there too right away. Um, my roommate struggled, and, and it was like the first time I realized that not everybody had these skills I did. And it— I did my best to help her with, you know, I'm sure I could do better now, but at the time I did the best I could. Like, why you— if you want to make friends, you have to put yourself out there. That's essentially step number one, right? Like, you have to talk to them, you have to go to events, you have to do these things. They aren't just gonna magically appear in life. Um, and that's— that was mainly my journey with friendship. Um, now we're gonna get to the trauma part. So fast forward a few years, I leave ORU. Actually, there is an incident at ORU I need to talk about, which for me is very embarrassing and I really don't want to, so that means I probably should. Um, So first semester, everything was great. I got along with everybody. I was still kind of the quiet person, but, um, I don't know. I'm an INFJ, if you know what that means. That's a Myers-Briggs personality test thing. And us INFJs, at least me, I can speak for, um We'll be quiet for a while and just observe and kind of take everything in. And then I honestly don't know how to explain it. It's like one day I'm finally comfortable and you see my crazy, silly side where I'm like a goofball and like the life of the party. And it literally— I've literally had it be like, whoa, where was this Joy before? Like, who are you? Where did you come from? And it's just because I'm like finally comfortable. So that's been my whole life. That's the way I am. Um, if you're friends with me and you haven't seen that side yet, just give it some time. It will come out. Um, and it's— I can even see it with these videos, right? Like, um, I'm more comfortable talking in front of the camera now and just sharing my stories and who I am. So anyway, I got along with everybody my first semester. The second semester didn't go so well for me. It was really sad. I had a crush on a guy, and I really felt like God was telling me he was going to be my husband. And I told my RA this, my residential advisor. Unbeknownst to me, she also had a crush on this guy. They're actually married now with like a zillion kids. But, um, she betrayed my confidence, and literally my whole friend group learned that I had this crush and I thought that God wanted me to marry him, and they pretty much shunned me. And it really shook me because one, I'm at a Christian school, these are all Christian kids, yet they're treating me this way. And I got a lot of weird looks. It was insanely uncomfortable. Even now, like, that was 2004, was my second semester of college. So, golly, that's too much math for me. But like, We're talking over 10 years, right? Like almost 20 years ago. And yeah, it's still kind of annoying and hard to talk about, but I want to put that out there. Like, that wasn't easy to go through, especially at that age. And I didn't go back to school there, one, because it was expensive, but also because I didn't know how to handle this embarrassment or how to face everybody again. And it, it really— I really took it personally. I, I didn't understand how nobody was mad at her for betraying my trust. It was all on me thinking, you know, having this crush or whatever. And it made me confused with God. Like, why would I feel this way and feel like God's telling me this, and then it, it doesn't happen? So there was a lot to process and work through, which at the time I I did not do. My solution was to just go to another school, so that's what I did. And I used my skills as always to make new friends at this— at— I went to IUPUI in Indianapolis and I made friends there and it was all good and gravy. Um, but for me, the trauma happened around like 2013. I was on my second marriage, in a marriage I knew I shouldn't be in, but I did anyway because I had so much unhealed trauma from my first marriage and I didn't process it. I also had an incident in between the marriages I didn't process. Um, so I was— I had my own baggage, I had my own shit that I had not dealt with. And I was in this marriage where my ex-husband would kind of isolate me. We moved in very quickly together, and he slowly just kind of orchestrated these events that made me lose my friend group. And I remember seeing it for what it was, but I felt trapped and I didn't know how to escape it. And I stayed that way. I mean, I stayed in that marriage. We were together like 3 years total if you include the dating time. And when I got out of it, I moved back into my— with my parents. I had spent 3 years essentially isolated with only this ex-husband who was abusive and, you know, manipulative, keeping me isolated where really he was the only person I knew. I had— I eventually made like one work friend, but I wasn't really allowed to like go hang out with her, um, or anything. And that's where the trauma happened for me. It was like I lost all these skills that I developed from childhood, like trying to make friends. I think we got divorced in 2015. Like, after that, I just— I didn't know how to flirt anymore with guys. I didn't know how to make friends. It was— it was very weird because I was like, this used to be so easy, yet now it's like I don't even know what to say. I don't know what to do. And I had some work friends. Like, as the introvert, right? One of the ways I would make friends is like an extrovert would find me, and in my mind they would like adopt me and just keep hanging around. So then I was like, okay, well, I guess they're my friend because they keep showing up and wanting to talk to me. And that's essentially what happened then. Sharon, I love you. But it was traumatic and I didn't know what was going on. I eventually got into therapy and I healed these traumas from my two past marriages and the trauma that happened in between them. But I was— I didn't— at that time, I had so much other baggage to work on. I didn't really work on, like, friends or relationships. And eventually I graduated college. I know I talked about going to college in 2004. Um, that's a whole other story. I said from 2003 to 2017, I was off and on in college and usually working and going to school, but I finally graduated in 2017. With my English degree from IU. And after I graduated, I moved to Portland, Oregon, with my boyfriend was there at the time. And once again, I, I was— I had my boyfriend, I made a few friends at work, but even after all that therapy and self-healing of these traumas, I still wasn't quite sure Like, how do you ask somebody to go out to coffee? Well, obviously you just ask them, but I, I didn't have the confidence and I didn't know how to do it. I literally like lost that skill. And I worked with these two beautiful girls, but they were like 10 years younger than me. And that age gap, even though they were amazing and I would love to hang out with them even today— call me, you'll actually get to meet Benet, and I interviewed her You'll see that interview in a few weeks, but I didn't know how. And that's kind of the sad part. I think a lot of this goes unspoken, that I'm going to speak for women, but I know it happens to men as well. When you're in an abusive relationship, a lot of times they do keep you isolated. And it's beautiful to get out of that, and that is exactly what you should do. And but it takes years to heal from and to relearn the skills that you lost. And that's kind of what I want to address with this whole video, which it's taken me like 20 minutes to get to. So if you're still with me, thank you. But how do you heal from it? My whole time in Portland, I lived there for like 3 years. I didn't heal it. I was aware of it. I took some steps. I eventually ended up working at home, and I was like, I know I need to make friends. I'm not quite sure how. So I joined— I started volunteering with Ride Around Portland. If you live in Portland, Oregon, and you're a rider totally check them out. They are amazing people. But even me going in there, and I even became a facilitator of, um, well, what Write Around Portland does is they host writing seminars or workshops really all around the city, mainly for low-income, um, because it's a nonprofit, and it's to teach the gift of writing. And storytelling to everyone because it's for everyone. So I became a facilitator. I— the training, I was like, okay, if I'm in this training, maybe I'll make some friends. And, and I got along with everybody in the group, and I think nobody would realize I had this issue. Or in my mind, I hid it very well. But I didn't, I didn't ask them out for coffee. I didn't do anything. It was like we would go there, we would meet, and then I became a facilitator and I had to kind of keep the distance, right, with the people I was leading the workshop with. But even then, it was— I could tell people wanted me to hang out, and the beautiful people, volunteers at Ride Around Portland, wanted me to hang out, but I just I wasn't sure how to take that step. And, um, eventually I left America. I'm where I'm at now in Colombia, but that's when the healing happened. I— my first month outside of the United States, I spent in Mexico City. I ended up in a Spanish class with fellow expats. I was taught by an American guy named John, I think, and there was an Irish guy and a British girl and me and John the teacher. And I remember thinking to myself, I was like, okay, Joy, you're only here a month. This— we're all outside the box now. We're outside our country. We're doing our own thing. Why don't you, after class, casually suggest that you all get lunch. And we even had a group chat, so I was like, I could even just put it in the chat. And I did. I did it. It was so out of my comfort zone. I was scared to death. But they both were really cool people, the British girl and Irish guy. And I was just like, I want to do this. I want to push myself out of my boundaries, out of my comfort zone, and just ask them to hang out. We ended up not hanging out as a group. They, they both had other things, but I ended up going to lunch with both of them one-on-one, and it was amazing. We had a beautiful time. We laughed, we cried, we, we laughed. We didn't really cry, but, you know, we had a great time. Get to bond with them. I even invited the Irish guy to this meditation group I was in with Michael. Hopefully I can learn to tag the video. You can see my interview with him. And yeah, I was really kind of stepping out of my comfort zone. And Dan, the Irish guy, actually invited all of us to drinks before he left, and I went I was really nervous. I mean, I only knew Dan and John, and I ended up being one of the only females there. There might have been one other girl eventually, but like, there was some Korean guys, there were Mexican guys, there were other Irish guys, and then there was me. And I mean, I drank— it wasn't tequila, it was some other Mexican vein. It was delicious. Anyway, I drank a lot, I had a lot of fun, and I was so proud of myself for, for going and for taking those steps. So that's how I healed it. That's how I got over this trauma. And I've taken that everywhere I've went. So here in Colombia It's a little harder because I don't speak Spanish a lot. And I've gone out with a few of my teacher friends here, but I also have a group meeting today. The video is airing where we just play board games. We play Dungeons and Dragons. I get to just not— I can talk as fast as I want. I can play board games, you know, which apparently is an American thing. And I love it. It's amazing. I have so much fun. I get to be myself, and it's like, oh yeah, this is what friends were like. I, I kind of forgot how fun they are. And now I really think collectively, especially for us in the spiritual community, we're coming together. Like, I have a phone chat with a friend at least once a week. It's always a different friend. And I talk to other friends every day online that live in other countries. And even today, I'm, I'm working with a group of women to build this amazing thing. We're not quite sure yet, but like, I'm making so many friends online. I have more friends now than I think I've ever had in my life. So to go from I don't know how to make friends because of this trauma, because I was forced to be isolated and like it was a little too scary to make friends. And even freeing myself from that, I still wasn't sure right how to get back to that. And let's see, I was divorced. It took 5 years, guys. It took 5 years to heal that one issue. So if, if you're in that zone that I was in for 5 years, please, like, know that it does end and know that you can heal this. Okay? Now, it's not going to magically heal on its own. There's work that you have to do. And this is where I want to get into, like, the how. So for me, the first step was doing inner work, which I, I started with a therapist and then I did on my own. I'm not saying you have to get a therapist, but you know what's best for you. And if you're in the spiritual community, you know what inner work means. That just means like healing these wounds, your inner child, your trauma self, your past self. And kind of feeling these emotions, right? I remember how lonely I felt and isolated and like I had no one to talk to. And that was really sad and depressing. Just saying it, I'm like, oh, poor Joy. But it's okay, you know, accept where you're at. No, it's not going to be forever. And do that inner work. And then when you're ready, it's still gonna feel scary, okay? But take action. You have to put yourself out there no matter what age, whether you've had trauma or not. If you have trouble making friends, really the only way to make friends is to put yourself out there. And that's a scary thing because a lot of times we just fear the rejection. But here's the thing. When you're your true self, you're going to attract the right kind of people. Okay? It doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter what you sound like. Your vibe, your energy will attract them, and they're going to want to be your friend. I promise you. It might not be the people you think will be your friend. But they're gonna come to you. I guess another thing I should mention since I've been on this journey is just a few months ago, I befriended a girl, and she felt like a best friend. And I met her in the spiritual community, and it was amazing. We had this group of friends, and I thought I could tell her everything. And so I did, which I told you earlier, I'm an INFJ, there's layers to me. And I let her in and she ghosted me. She straight up ghosted me. And it felt like a knife in the heart, in the back simultaneously. It was one of the most painful experiences I've, I've had. Literally, I didn't. That one took me about a month and a half to kind of heal. I was very angry at first. I wanted to know why. I wanted to, you know, let her know how, you know, how I felt. But I also knew, like, I don't actually want to talk to her, you know, like. And so I'm not saying bad things can't happen even when you've healed these things. People could still betray you. This— I'm gonna make a video later this month on the risks of friendship where we'll dive into this more. This is part of the risk, right? This is part of healing. But here's the thing, you gotta understand, like, I feel like, yeah, it really hurt, but I learned a lot of lessons. I learned that I ignored— I ignored signs from that relationship. There were red flags for me, and I wanted to be— her to be my friend. I wanted us to be friends so much, I just ignored those red flags. Um, and maybe that was because I had this desire for friendship. I was trying to make friends. I was putting myself out there and stuff. But that's another good lesson, right? Like, just because you want the friend and you're ready doesn't mean they are. And we're all operating from the level of healing we've had. We are all operating from the level of healing we've had, and she wasn't ready, I'm assuming, for that level of intimacy that I was offering. She judged me. I don't— I honestly still don't know exactly why she ghosted me. She ended up ghosting like our whole little friend group. But I don't— it could have been a karmic relationship, is, is the vibe I'm getting, that It was like a soul contract or something that she did this, but spirit's gonna take out anybody that's not for your highest good. It might not be right away because there's a lesson for you, but eventually they're gonna leave if they're not for your highest good. And here's the thing, as soon as she left and as I was healing that, like I told you earlier, I have more friends now than I know what to do with. Like, literally, I, I do. And I'm like, what an awesome problem to have. And like, if I can handle that, the stab in the heart, stab in the back simultaneously, and jump back in a month and a half, and now I have more friends than I know what to do with— I mean, to me, that's just such a testament to to my growth because I know 5 years ago that would've stunted me and I probably would've not been where I am today. So it's a process, guys, especially if you've had like that isolation experience like I did. It's gonna take time and you need to be your own friend first. I probably should have said that in the beginning, but if you can become your own friend, which I feel like this is probably harder for extroverts than introverts, because us introverts, which I'm actually like 50/50 on the spectrum of extrovert/introvert. Well, not quite 50/50. I'm like 54 introvert, 46, right? I'm really not good at math. 46 extroverted, but basically 50/50. It's okay. Learn to be your own friend. Go take yourself on a date. If you can go to a restaurant by yourself and enjoy it, you're good. You're good. You really are good. And that, that's that inner healing when you can do that and experience it. Like I said, I left America on my own, by myself, and I knew when I left that I was going to force myself to put myself out there and make some friends. And it was scary and hard. Not as almost— it was almost the level of scary of like leaving my home country and everything I knew. Like, that's how scary it was for me. Okay. And I did it. So you can do it too. So that's kind of the end result here that I want to talk about is No matter what you've been through, whether you've been stabbed in the heart or the back, totally been there, right? I get how painful it is, but there is life afterwards. And trust me, it's just the universe. It's God. It's Source. There's another term I like to use for God. It's them clearing out the way for these new friends because we're all coming together, guys. We're all coming together. It is happening now. It is done deal. Okay, do that inner work. Put yourself out there. Use discernment. Okay, if you see red flags with someone, they make you uncomfortable, set a boundary or distance yourself in a respectful way. I would not suggest ghosting unless you really have to. To me, there's a more adult way to deal with that, but Do what you gotta do to protect yourself and use discernment and just watch as this abundance of friends and relationships come to you. Oh, because we've been doing this alone for a while and it's time to come together. It— and we are. So embrace the friendship this month. The whole month I'm going to be doing meditations every Monday on the YouTube and Insight Timer on friendship and healing friendship, opening up to friendship. I can't remember the other topics, but they're all gonna be on friendship. And every Sunday I'm going to talk on a topic about friendship and, and what it means and how to heal it and all that stuff. So that's kind of what I got going on. Also Saturdays 12 o'clock. We meditate together. Come join us. There's a Facebook group, a Discord group, take your pick. We meet at 12 Eastern. In a few weeks I'm going to be switched to Central Time myself, but I feel like I'll keep it at 12 Eastern and I'll just hop on and learn. I'm also— if you want a meditation reading for me, I'm open for those. I also make personalized guided meditations. I've been told they're very powerful, um, something about my voice. And if you wanted, those are in my Etsy store. You can check it out below. If you're not sure what a meditation reading is, just check out the link. It's called Services, and you can read all about it. Okay, so that's kind of what I got going on. This is so cool. I'm so proud of myself for sharing this because I don't really talk about my past or myself a whole lot. And so this video alone is kind of me putting myself out there like a friend, and I hope you're feeling it. So I love you guys. Thank you so much for joining me. Like and subscribe. I love you all. Namaste.
