what you mean to me …

What YOU mean to me & ME …

I don’t think I can articulate exactly what I want to put into words, but with this post I will try.

Hopefully, between the waffle, you will see that what I really want to tell you, my reader and community, is what you mean to me.

Actually, …

y o u m e a n a b s o l u t e l y

E V E R Y T H I N G . . .

Without this little online space to share all the shit going round in my head, and the incessant and ever growing loneliness, of being continually sick with severe ME I have no idea what I’d do.

Knowing that YOU know, where I am at and how I feel, means so much to me.

how I roll & loss …

I want to jump right in and get this bit out of the way. Important as it may be, I really hate having to acknowledge the loss I’ve had in my life because of ME, but for you to realise how much you mean to me I have to set this out first.

By nature, I am a very quiet kind of person and a person who is uncomfortable in crowds. So I have never had loads of friends like some. I am too deep to form the kind of bond that I form with that many people. It would be utterly exhausting. So those who I call my friend are very special to me and are people who I will call friend forever. This is important to bear in mind when you read the next bits.

loss loss loss & more loss …

I lost nearly all my real life, in person, friends, and even some online ones too, a while ago amid the judgment and expectations. I can honestly say I only have two friends left from my past. Both live far away and I only have online contact with them. One I’ve known since I was 18 and the other since I was 23. Fortunately, I feel blessed that I can still call them and view them as very good and dear friends. The rest … well I’m afraid good riddance to really rotten rubbish …

a difficult loss & a hard lesson …

I heard that one ‘used to be’ very special and close friend said to another mutual person we knew:

I always visit her, it’s her turn next and if she doesn’t visit me, that’s it our friendship is over!

Not very nice at all. It hurt. And, for such a long time, I tried so hard to see things from her point but it kept coming back to me how sick I was and that she clearly didn’t believe me. Had she believed then she would never have put those expectations on, or into, the friendship.

the sad detail (skip if you want to … ↴) …

Eventually, the friendship naturally came to an end. The ending actually stemmed from something I posted on Instagram highlighting, well I can’t actually recall right now the exact detail of the posts. I post so much on there, mainly for awareness. But, I know I had been posting a series of posts highlighting things that she was clearly uncomfortable with. I had on more than one occasion had to soothe her and explain the posts were not directed at her. However, after these specific posts she must have felt too guilty of whatever they were about, and she went and unfollowed me, without any discussion or opportunity for me to explain them. If that’s not an admission of being guilty, of whatever they were saying, I don’t know what is …

You can go to Instagram and look through my posts. I’ve never deleted any and none of them are personal unless you take them as being about you and you are guilty of whatever it is they are saying.

This was a friend of over thirty years. A friend who I had been at the birth of her son when everyone else had forsaken her. Anyway as soon as I noticed, I very quickly blocked her. It was becoming harder and harder for me to accept loss and this was the final straw. Someone, who I really did call my best friend and someone I would have done anything for. She had previously broken friends with me on several occasions before this time and I had always accepted her back. But this time, I decided, it was done, good and forever gone.

She lost more in me than I could have ever lost in her. Although, the friendship had always been very important to me. When I look more clearly at things. Once I got sicker she really was only ever around, or ringing me, when she needed a babysitter, or needed a moral boosting or was having issues with her sister, her kids and their GFs, another friend of hers, or her other half. Yes she had lots of problems with lots of people. All of that aside, she never ever rang to see how I was. Never, not once. And once when she rang about something, I cried because of being so poorly for so long, and she went and blamed it on my other half. She had no idea how to see me, to see how very sick I was. Everything she saw came from her warped sense of relationships. Because the people in her life caused her so much emotional heartache she thought everyone was the same and that could be the only possible reason I would ever cry.

Really, how sad is that?

moving on …

From then on I made a point of only having, or getting close to, online friends. Ones who knew, and fully accepted, how sick I was and so wouldn’t expect anything like return visits or anything, that I was unable to give, back.

I need to be enough, just as I am. We all do …

a special kind of friend …

I do believe that this illness requires a special kind of person to get it. His is because, most people simply don’t understand the concept of ‘not getting well’. They expect us to get better and when we don’t, we maybe even get worse, for some friends it’s too much for them to bear and too much of an ask.

I am not a selfish friend by any means. I will always give as much as, and sometimes more than, I get. However, my giving just maybe in different ways than someone might be looking for. I will always be equal to any friendship. I will value, cherish and love you all.

The thing is, I will never ever expect it to be all one way. And that, my friends, is what I’ve found in you.

A friendship that will accept what I say I am suffering, feeling, or have wrong. A friendship that will know I will be honest about everything and that will accept me for that too.

a personal concluding note …

… Thank You …

all for your wonderful acceptance and for providing a safe space for me to share. I sincerely hope you are having a day you can cope with. And, please remeber I am here for you too, feel very free to contact me anytime.