Tag: isolation

How often do you “need” to spend time with others?

I’ve been trying for a long time to arrange to meet to catch up with a particular friend. We used to be close and live in the same city, but we haven’t met since a very brief meeting at Christmas, and before then the last time we met was at a an event at her Church in September. I miss her a lot and have been feeling very sad that we live so close but meet a handful of times a year and never in such a way we can catch up properly.

Part of the reason we don’t is that she has a family now, including young children, and I completely understand and agree that family comes first before friends. Still I’m sad to see her so very little – and also (and this is a big part of my feeling) worried for her. She gives all her time to her children and various numerous volunteer works at her church and parish. She home-schools her two older children. She almost never suggests meeting up, she never seems to socialise except for seeing other mothers at home-ed groups, and she told me she hasn’t met up with a friend for over a year. She never takes any time for herself and she does not seem to have any desire to socialise.

Should I be worried about her? I am, very. I feel like she must be so tired and drained and stressed and never have a moment to take care of herself or do something she wants to. Most of all I fear she never has any time that really is for talking and sharing with her friends. I know I wouldn’t be able to cope with even one day of her schedule let alone the foreseeable future.

I think she is amazingly strong, dedicated and generous to her family and she is responsive to their every need (let alone all the time she volunteers). She has clearly made big sacrifices. She says she loves it and never feels the need for any break or to see any one. I just can’t see how she can possibly be well or happy and it seems really isolating to have so little contact with others.

At first I was hurt that she had no interest in meeting – i made no end of suggestions and she declined them all and didn’t suggest any alternatives and pretty much said she doesn’t do that kind of thing. I was lonely and upset already and I’m sad that we are no longer close friends. She really matters to me and I care for her and miss her. There’s only so much you can keep a friendship going and only so close you can be when you only text message and email. And I’m worried for her welfare, as I said.

Perhaps I should just accept that she says she’s happy and she is. It got me thinking, perhaps it’s a difference of personality. She’s happy not to leave the house for several days at times, whereas I usually feel compelled to go outside, see the outdoors, be around people,  even if I’m not meeting or speaking to anyone (except when I’m very low and not going out is then a sign I’m very unwell). Meeting up with someone is of no interest to her, whereas it’s very important to me, although there are few people I trust and am able to be with at the moment. That probably is a particularly bad combination and makes me particularly needy with the few people I do trust! I need time alone too and have times it’s all too much but loneliness is a big struggle for me. So I’d silence, which is another thing she loves. Perhaps it’s as impossible for her to understand my needs, or values in a relationship, as it is for me to understand hers and how she can be well and happy in her current situation.

I wonder whether she doesn’t value meeting in person, spending time together in friendship, catching up, doing some things for herself outside the family and so on? Or does she just need less of them?

This got me thinking, do we all have such very different needs firstly for contact with other people, and secondly beyond that, what I somewhat inadequately call deeper or more meaningful interactions (a good conversation with a friend you trust and can be “real” with,  as opposed to eg a passing interaction in a shop or talking to a work colleague – all are important but I know I very much need to be able to share how things really are sometimes, not just keep up the acceptable businesslike front where I seem to be well and in control of myself! ).

What do you find that you need? What is important to you in a friendship? How do we know which is normal?! I think my therapist would say that’s one of those questions where there isn’t a definite answer right or wrong. … I’m left wondering in this friendship,  firstly if she’s really okay or not and then how can I be there for her, when she has no interest in regular contact? How do we keep up a friendship with someone whose values here are very different from ours?

Ginny xxx

Alone again, naturally

What do we do when we desperately wish someone could hear us? When we know fully that it is not anyone else’s responsibility to save us, yet we wish there were someone beside us. Is it disallowed, not to find oneself alone in the end?

Why do we keep trusting when we know what will come and know soon enough they will no longer choose to be there and why does the alone hurt more every time?

When we know nobody would choose us first, nobody would willingly turn and open to us, nobody really thinks we can bring good, but we long most desperately to give, give at any cost, and we are always here, for it is just obvious and right to us to be, though we are almost always dismissed – where can we try to be a friend?

When we’re screaming and hiding and hurting and clinging by a thread and falling over the edge, fragmenting, when maybe we dared share a little to someone or count on a tiny thing – and even that doesn’t come or they don’t respond – what do we do as we fall apart?

Is it terrible to be angry when we’re left there?

I don’t ask anyone to rescue me but just someone to answer and sometimes stay a little while beside me and please, please not disappear. To sometimes name the first move, come willingly and share and please not hate me when I cannot do all you think I should, please remember it is not an equation and I can’t always give out what you think I should.

I so so much need you right now and I am so much here if only you would allow me.

But perhaps most of all I should stop longing because I’ve learnt well enough what the end will always be – gone away, left alone. Alone should cause less pain as there would be no more losses so why does my inside scream and make alone so painful too?

I wish I could trust someone to answer. To ask how I am and actually want to know the answer, nor just the portion of it they deem acceptable or allow to be considered. To maybe call me or send a text if they know it’s a very bad time. To keep to an arrangement to meet and know how I will shatter if they cancel at the last minute because I was clinging so very very tight to that little bit of strength the meeting would give.  To stay a little while in understanding when I’m terrified, not just say it’ll soon be over.

All these little things are obvious  to me and so natural to give to a friend I would not think of doing anything else. Yet so very rarely do I ever encounter them myself. I suppose this tells me again if I had any doubt that I’m not if any value in a relationship to anyone and am not allowed even these most basic things.

And anger burns behind the hurt, with everyone who left and with myself, for needing, yet again.

 

(Title from song ‘Alone Again’ by Vonda Shepherd)