Chronically Ill, Life

How To Lose Friends In One Easy Step.

It’s Simple!

Photo by Eryk Piotr Munk on Unsplash

It’s the first day of school and you are worrying; Will they like me? Will I make any friends? Do I look alright? Will I fit in?

All the important questions — Right?

You make friends, you have some ups and some downs and all the other emotions that come with having friends when you are young — and when I say young I mean, teens!

Adult friends are more difficult to navigate, as you grow up from spending every afternoon with your friends, and every weekend and every moment that your parents let you or even sneaking out to meet up with them in the middle of the night.

Life changes around you, college friends, want to go get food, and the cinema, and study nights too and then in Britain, we turn… 18 years old WOOOO bring on the clubs! Officially legal to drink!

Every week revolves around Friday and Saturday nights, scrounging together what cash you can so you can have a good night, and begging your mum or dad to lend you a tenner. Talking about what we are going to wear with the other girls and co-ordinating our looks, doing new hair techniques to try and stand out amongst the crowd. Ah, the good old days.

In Britain, we go from high school ending at 16 years old to College which ends at 18 and then University can go on forever depending on which courses you choose and how long you want to study them for however usually ends around mid-20s if you are going on to a Masters degree.

We have Facebook and WhatsApp, we will keep in touch!

You graduate from college, and some go to University so you lose some people due to them moving away and you are pleased for them, and we have Facebook and WhatsApp, we will keep in touch and catch up when they come home for breaks.

Some people go and find a job, and their lives change to shift work or the bustle of a 9–5 job which is more of a 5 am-7 pm job with commutes and getting ready, so bedtime becomes around 9 pm rather than 3 am.

We have Facebook and WhatsApp, we will keep in touch!

When you spread out either to University, Work or whatever path calls to you, you find a new group of people who fit your life now, the people who work with you, their life revolves around being on time for work, being well rested-ish and enjoying their off time.

Your life changes, hopefully for the better, and then that niggling pain you’ve had for almost all of your life gets worse, it’s time to see a doctor, so after many phone calls and an appointment later you are sat before your doctor who asks the question ‘What can I help you with today?’

You take a large breath as this is going to be a long appointment, things have been adding up year by year, but they were never bad enough to stop you from doing what you wanted to do, you just need a little extra time to recover from nights out, or a walk with friends etc. After a lot of conversation and different questions, a referral to a specialist consultant and the normal bloodwork.

You let your friends know what’s happening and for how long it’s been happening and you are met with, ‘Oh I’m sure it’ll be fine, a good night’s sleep will do you well!’ and reassuring smiles.

After years of these conversations with Doctors and Consultants and Specialists and many different emotions and diagnoses later, you learn, it’s not fine.

What’s worse is it’s chronic, what’s even worse is it’s not just one illness, and one of them is degenerative it’s not curable. Pain is just THERE all the time and bound to get worse, not better.

You try to explain this to the closest people in your life, Mum, Dad, Boyfriend/Girlfriend. Friends and their parents if need be. Everyone gives you the same look, a half smile, with a head tilt. Which says to me, I have no idea what it is, or what it means, but I’m sorry. Which is a nice gesture in itself at the beginning.

In the beginning, everything is still the same, life goes on and you make a few changes to accommodate your new way of living. Your friends still come around for a cuppa and in the evenings for an adult beverage or two!

We still go out for dinner with friends and enjoy the time spent together having a giggle.

You make note of the new niggles and pains that show up the next morning after these nights and then you try to do something you would normally do like flushing the toilet — and your shoulder dislocates for the first time.

You know. Nothing is going to be the same.

You let your friends know what happened, and they say ‘It’s not like being in your 20s anymore haha’ as though it’s a bad hangover. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard hangovers are bad, but is dislocating your shoulder part of it?

Everyone expects things to go on as usual, even though your health has been declining over the past ten years they have known you, they still think a 9–5 job is doable, along with errands, shopping, house care, self-care and taking time to enjoy yourself.

If I complain I’m tired, I’m met with “Me too”, if I tell someone I can’t do something on the way to somewhere else, I get “But it’s on the way, why not?”

They seem to forget that when driving to one place, you have to expend energy to do whatever is needed there. Going to another place involves more energy you no longer have! Then you are expected to continue with the rest of your day; it’s impossible. The energy has been used to ‘call’ into the additional place.

Spoon theory is one of the best things I have come across to try and explain how a chronically ill person spends energy. Read more about that here:

[embed]What’s spoon theory? The metaphor helping people with chronic illnesses and disabilities plan their… The #spoonies hashtag unites people who struggle with energy management due to fatigue and chronic illnesses.www.thebraincharity.org.uk

Getting people to understand is the easy part, changing the way we behave when something unusual happens, such as having to say no to something that seems so simple but in reality, is more difficult is how you lose friends.

In my personal experience ‘friends’ have only stuck around when it’s been mutually beneficial, these are people who were more on the fringes of friendships, who weren’t emotionally invested in you or your life.

However, being chronically ill pushes people away without us even trying.

Every time we say No, I’m too owie, too tired, too painy, too lethargic, I can’t walk as I have a dislocated hip; all of the things that come with these illnesses they take as a sign you don’t want to hang out with them, (which is not true) and they stop asking, stop texting, stop checking in.

The conversations are exhausting for both of us because a simple “How are you?” isn’t a simple How are you?

Sometimes all they want to hear is ‘I’m Fine, how are you?’ and if we consider them good friends, we tend to tell the truth which is usually not fine and then we start to realise they are calling less, we start masking, and everything is Fine… for a while. Even masking doesn’t fix it.

We want to do all of the things with all of the people who ask us, when we have to say no to popping around for a ‘catch up’ we feel guilty. We feel like we are letting you down, and then when we stop getting as many calls or texts and invitations from you, we wonder what WE did wrong.

When in reality we just got Ill.

I understand all of this, because this is me, this is how my life and relationships have changed over the years.

Then in the second half of the pandemic, my chronically ill best friend stopped talking to me for around a year, we have similar conditions they helped me through a lot and I helped them through a lot over 12 years of friendship.

They lived with me when homeless, and I helped them move to their new place; I did errands for them when they couldn’t, and I helped them transition. That last year we sent TikTok’s daily, but we never spoke.

That’s how it was for a while, and because this was during the pandemic we couldn’t see each other either and we were both doing our own thing.

Trying to find a new way of living and coping.

Then a TikTok is posted by them about toxic and unsupportive people, and I had this niggling feeling this was meant for me. I messaged and said, “So which one have you labelled me as toxic or unsupportive?”

Their reply? “I thought you would have got the message by now, both of them.”

My Reply, “OK.”

Twelve years down the drain, the person I thought I could count on until I was old and grey, (OK grey-er!) The person, who knew what I went through daily and got it, the one I could talk to about absolutely anything and it was fine. Ask questions, send funny jokes, dark memes. That one friend I’d have forever. Gone, in less than five minutes.

So, even Chronically Ill people can walk away from other Chronically Ill people for a variety of reasons, I don’t know their reasoning for it to this day — I am still incredibly confused, angry and saddened by it. This is incredibly raw, still. My gut feeling is that they walked away.

I am closer to my 40s than my 30s now and I have 3 people in different areas that I could call at any time or for help if needed. I wouldn’t call any of us close anymore, however, it always feels like no time has passed between us when we finally do get to see each other.

Most of my friends are online now, all over the world, which is great, but sometimes even that can be a struggle. On bad pain days when you don’t want to be a burden, it’s hard, but that’s a tale for another time I think.

I am grateful for the people I have in my life now, my Husband is my rock, my Mum and Dad help out a lot and I love them very much.

My online friends are an eclectic bunch of people, but they make every day different and very interesting for me. If I need to vent about the day’s niggles/pains/frustrations they are there to listen and moan with me, we have our own soap box now!

Pets are freely and frequently photographed and shared amongst us with lots of ‘loves and pets’ distributed between all the animals and sometimes people — depending on who it is.

If I need a distraction, video games are great and I have a lot of people who all play different games, so distractions are always welcome and easy to come by for me.

If you’re feeling alone, reach out and find those friends who will be your support system. They may not be where you expect them to be, sometimes they are across an ocean and on your screen, but they are there for you regardless.

If you’d like to read more on how to be a good friend to someone who is Chronically Ill I would suggest the following:

[embed]How to Be a Rockstar Friend to Someone with Chronic Illness Hint: It’s not what you think it isellebecker.substack.com

Much Love and Gentle Hugs