Different kinds of friends:
• An acquaintance.
• An ally or comrade. Someone you are allied with in a struggle or cause.
• A person you know well and whom you love, and feel loyalty toward.
• Someone you can talk to freely about anything. Someone you can call anytime.
• Someone sticking closer than a brother.
I have friends in most of these categories – from acquaintances I like but see only now and then to those sticking closer than a brother. Being ill, it can be hard to make friends of any variety. But sometimes we make it harder than it has to be. Sometimes we set too many restrictions on who we believe our friends are. We might overlook what may be under our nose or what we may already have. Over the past 15 years of being ill I have learned to rethink who can be my friend.
With the above definitions in mind, friends can include:
• Family – both close and distant relatives (including parents, grandparents, and grown children.)
• People older or younger than you
• Pen pals (email pals)
• Your spouse
• Quiet or outgoing people
• Healthy or ill people
A friend does not have to be:
• Super Fun – you know, only interested in having a good time or partying
• Super serious
• Just like you
• An every day friend – we might have every week or every month friends. And we might have friends we only hear from every couple of months.
Some of my closest friends are family members. Most of my friends are not my own age, many are older, some are a lot younger. Some are people I used to shy away from because we were not alike.
After losing several friendships it came as a surprise to find out who my true friends were. They weren’t who I expected. But I am so grateful for them.
For more on the difference between true friends and flaky friends see the post Friendship is a Basick Human Need - Part 1 (The Dilemma).
And stay tuned for part 3 - How to be a Good Friend While Chronically Ill.
You may also enjoy: Coping With Chronic Illness - It's OK to Grieve Your Losses
Coping With Chronic Illness - Knowledge Is Power
Coping With Chronic Illness - Cultivate Other Interests
And the posts in the section Energy Economy - which has practical suggestions for everyday living with illness.
And now it's your turn. Have you every been surprised by who turned out to be your friend?
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I really agree with everything you said in this post. One of the most difficult parts of being ill is lack of personal contact. But second to that is losing friends because of illness. And third is making new ones. But it can be done. Two things I have learned. 1) Generalizing makes things worse. Saying things like "people don't care" or "I don't have any friends". When really only some people don't care and maybe you haven't had contact with someone outside your family this week. That is not the same.
ReplyDelete2) Illness teaches patience. There may be whole time periods where you have to accept some loneliness because of not having the energy (emotional or physical) to talk even to those within your own household. When that ill sometimes you just have to say to yourself... 'I will be able to listen and talk soon.' And a little loneliness is OK. It will get better. Because it does. At least for me, my energy eventually improves as I find answers. But sometimes all the energy I have is used for keeping alive and trying to find how to get better. Thankfully, I do get reprieves.
Thank you for chiming in, Joanna. I appreciate both your points about generalizing and patience. Very good to keep in mind
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