Friendships in times of Crises. How many crises can a person go through? How sustainable is it for anyone to support someone who is quite perpetually in crisis?
I have always kept a wide circle of friends, in fact, often enormous as compared to others. There is safety in numbers. I thought by having friends in and out on a rotating basis, no one friend would get overburdened. Even when shit really hit the fan, it was hard to depend on anyone, my family had trained me to believe that my mental health, if it got ugly, and needy, and emotional and irritable – as it is bound to — will only be met with rage and resentment. I wore a straightjacket on my emotions, reaching out for help only when I could still exert some sort of emotional distance from the way I was devolving. But intimacy is hard to build, and it’s also uncomfortable to lean on new people in your life, people who don’t know your history, don’t know the context, who might just offer up basic advice that’s infuriating in its naiveite, as if some wellness solution or self-care will magically cure a lifelong mental illness, and hasn’t been tried in every incarnation before.
I often have to hold the torch in my relationships, and I never minded, being the one to remember to reach out, to connect, to make plans. I had enough balance with few people who’d take initiative that it didn’t bother me, and I always got reassurance that someone appreciated me taking steps to reach out…. But I’d be the one to travel and to visit, and I’d exert the effort and money and whatever else. Otherwise things often would just fade, if I wasn’t the one actively nurturing the relationship.
But at the other end of the spectrum, is this idea, that I’m “a lot,” that I need too much, that supporting me is draining and taxing and work. And that a friend can’t take care of themselves and “take care” of me. And this upsets me to no end. I develop intimacy quickly and widely because I am authentic and real about my life and struggles and that is often what makes people willing to open up with me, but then when shit goes down, when I am in pain, when I am suicidal, then me reaching out is too much. It erases everything I give to relationships. It all feels lopsided and I get resentful, and I scream, I am self-reliant, I hardly actually depend on anyone, and I WAS isolating myself, I didn’t talk to anyone, I only opened up after the fact. And it somehow makes it impossible that if someone is dealing with their own shit, that I can indeed be supportive, and that there’s a place of mutual support in times of parallel hardships.
And then, I don’t know, I clam up, I apologize for needing too much, then I get angry for them thinking what I’m asking for is too much, and then I cut people off because I get too emotional with how the back and further affects me, and it’s the only way I can protect myself. And then I regret cutting people off, b/c I realize their reasons are valid, and it’s not about me, and people cope with life in different ways and it’s fair to feel overwhelmed by anybody, but then if they get mad that I cut them off, then I get resentful all over again, that why couldn’t they give me space and forgiveness and understanding to be weird and emotional when I’m dysphoric hypomanic and suicidal and maybe accidentally take it out on them.
I can’t tell if I’m fucking up my friendships, my unfortunate series of events in my life is fucking up my friendships, my mental illness is fucking up my friendships, or my friendships were fucked up and only when push comes to shove, do I realize how fucked up they truly are.
The last few years have really tested my friendships, decades old long friendships. When I decide to cut off a friendship, I’ll see all the flaws that I never acknowledged over time and decide it was doomed. When I regret ending a friendship, I’ll consider how my raging emotions clouded my ability to see the good. I worry that I have bad boundaries, and that I never give myself the right to be mad or hurt, by objectively hurtful and mean things, but then I worry that my mental illness makes my emotions run on high octane and that I’m hypersensitive. Unlike dating, my friends are well-liked by others, generous, thoughtful humans and not “assholes’ that are easy to discard and dismiss as it is when romance fails. So where do I stand?
Some friendships made it through hard times, some friends I probably shouldn’t have forgiven or never confronted their mistreatment, but I swept shit under the rug, some friendships I wish I could repair but are irreparable (and their lack of forgiveness makes me wonder if that was a sign it was bad and not good after all), some friendships fell apart, and then we were able to pick it back up. Some friends there just has been no drama.
I don’t know what the right formula is, I don’t know what I’m doing in this life. I know that the isolating myself from people in my suicidal times, is actually what might cause me to go through with it at some point, but I know that opening up about suicide drives people away. I know people say triggering things and need guidance for support, but then I know honestly expressing my frustrations with certain sentiments that are counterproductive makes it hard for people to even want to try or fearful they’ll say the wrong thing. I know I hold a lot in and ultimately take care of myself, without truly relying on anyone else, but I know my oversharing undermines this truth, that somehow we view “resilience” as repression about vulnerability and the truth of suffering, that silence connotes strength. I know I perceive more criticism and judgment from others than they might actually feel, b/c I hear my mother or family’s voice and my inner critic is the meanest of them all.
One of my favorite people told me she can’t talk to me b/c she can’t support me b/c of her own life’s hardship and she doesn’t want to be inconsistent or inconsiderate so she’s cutting off contact while she takes care of herself. I respect her honesty and the care in which she communicated it. But it hurts. I want to shower her with love for the things she is facing, which are big and real and awful, but I feel like this awful bastion of negativity she has to cut loose from bringing her further down.
I feel too negative, a drain to people, a burden, too needy, an attention seeker who overshares.
I cut out another friend who felt blind sighted. Who I praised endlessly about her generosity and unconditional love but who at the same time perpetually made me feel inferior, insignificant, small and awful about myself. She was the only person who could have cut down the noose, and she did not take the act of me hanging it up and test driving it as a serious threat to my health and safety. She was content to tell me her first availability to see me was four days after the urgent call from a mutual friend. Right now, I can’t have someone in my life, who doesn’t believe me, that doesn’t value my personhood. I’m too vulnerable. And I question whether she ever did. Will I regret it? Is my judgment clouded? I don’t know. But the way I see it, she was ready to let me die. She was willing to take that gamble without any expression of regret or concern. She communicated very clearly where her priorities lie, and it eclipsed any act of kindness before it because it was the ultimate enunciation that I am indeed inferior, small, and insignificant. And even if more people would have done the same, I don’t know that, I didn’t witness that.
Yet the other friends I let go, did something that made me feel a milder version of that, blew me off after trying to hang out or call them, didn’t call for months after my suicide attempt … and I changed my perspective with time.
It all feels contradictory and hypocritical and nonsensical and I wish I was joyful and a source of happiness for all others and things weren’t complicated by illness and hardship.
But when a person sees me, really sees me, I know how much it means to me. A friend, a truly inspiring fearless, fierce friend wrote this to me:
“Girl—yes not only you do enough, you are so brave. Being brave is to hold on when the darkest storm hits. You hold on onto it. I will never ever comprehend what you are going through. But I do faced many defeats and failures in my life- it’s hard to hold on- it’s easier to give up. But then, giving up is not the option. Those of us who struggle against many odds in life, we know and appreciate the tiny beauty in life in the shadow of the horrors and despises that hit us. You know–the tiny beautiful things in your life keep you alive and that’s enough. Living a life – a simple life with many struggles is actually a life.
I think we often see the superficial lives that are imposed into our imagination. Those are not real. You are living through the reality of life—tears, hopelessness, loneliness, happinesses, a bit of hope—they all are the parts of the deal—the deal that is a “living”.
I am so glad that you are brave enough to live on—please do that for all of us—”
And then I know the power of friendships. Not all of my enormous amount of friendships will shine all the time. Some will dim and shine at different times in our lives and others will fall away. The person I need to love and nurture my relationship with most, as cheesy as it sounds, is myself, and offer myself some compassion for all the positives and negatives that emanate from me and stop striving to be a person that isn’t messy and complicated and hypocritical and contradictory sometimes.
Inside My Madness 