So I haven't updated in a while, sue me.
Recently I went through an emotional crisis. I won't go into the details here, that is what live journal is for. The short of it is a confluence of financial, social, emotional, and psychological stress formed a perfect shit storm and hit me pretty hard. Very hard. The point however; is that I turned to my friends in my time of need and most of them "weren't there" for me. *note the quotes*
Two of my friends that I turned to were "no help at all". They said all the wrong things and made everything seem so much worse. Most of my friends wouldn't even answer the phone when I called. I came to be sure that they had turned their backs on me, that I was too much trouble for them to deal with so they had abandoned me. Finally I did find a couple of friends who were there to talk and didn't say the wrong things and after crying on their shoulders a bit about my problems I found myself ranting about how horrible I had discovered my other friends were. I felt my depression and unhealthy thoughts worsening because of it.
My thoughts turned to the people I know and how unfair everything was until I thought of this. Two weeks ago I visited a friend in the hospital. During that visit I told her that I would visit again before she was sent home. At the time I had planned on visiting Wednesday not knowing that there are only visiting hours on Tuesday and Thursday. I was busy Thursday so I did not end up going. A simple thing really not extraordinary in any way, but when I didn't show up for a visit I wondered, might she have thought I forgot, or even abandoned her?
I clearly hadn't it was just a small honest mistake but if she was worried about such things already, might she have thought that? At first this just made me more depressed thinking I had hurt a friend of mine inadvertently, but then it hit me like a sac of bricks...
If your problems are so great that you can see any solutions or think of, then your friends probably can't either so they may say the wrong things, and that's okay.
Batteries die, things come up, and ringers get turned off, someone doesn't have to be avoiding you not to answer your calls.
People who care about you are affected by your problems. They can worry they wont know what to do or say so they can become to scared to do or say anything at all, and while that's not great, it's okay.
I'm not sure how universally helpful handing out that advice to people in crisis may be, but it sure snapped me out of my downward spiral. I still have all my problems, but at least for now they don't seem so insurmountable, because I know that I have a whole host of friends who try.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that you're alone.
