Friendship…with caution

I bleat on incessantly about the lack of real people in my life. Friendships are no longer the emotional rollercoaster I used to navigate. Instead I experience silence, and sometimes I just have to find a way to be ok with it.

So why have I turned into such a recluse? Does agoraphobia alone give me the space to choose whether or not I experience social situations? Or is there something rooted deeper into my subconscious that makes me want to repel people…and the conversations I’d inevitably be involved in?

What makes friendships good?

Look, I’m not an idiot. I’m in the teeny tiny minority of humans who exist without Facebook friends and messenger pings. I don’t get texts, instant messages or phone calls from others who want to talk about their relationships / family quarrels / pet food intolerances / weight gain and everything else that comes with it. Imagine removing those conversations from your life – you’re probably thinking I’ve chosen the right path.

Well, no.

When you remove the incoming narrative, you also remove the opportunity to have an outgoing one too, and that’s something I genuinely miss. Conversation. Hit and miss. To and fro. Backwards and forwards. Chatter is critical to stress relief and self worth, especially when you are focussed on someone elses life rather than your own.

Example – I recently had several articles published in Spoonie Press, and I have more coming. I’m incredibly proud of the work I’m doing with this publication, and I’m even more proud that I’ve found somewhere willing to take my words and use them authoritatively. I’m not thrilled to be a spoonie for several complex reasons, but I am happy that I’ve found a voice as one.

When the first article was accepted I wept a little. It was an honest and open account of the negative relationship I have with my mobility aids (named The Weight of My Wheelchair) and I genuinely put my heart and soul into getting it right.

But when I wept those tears of pure joy, it was done alone. There was no one to call or send a message to, no social media page to post a picture of the article to, no video chat talking about the article and what I want to do next. It was silent, and that missing connection with anyone else is sad.

Yes, I have a partner, but he works hard and to be brutally honest, as the only person I have real-life conversations with, it’s only fair that I let him open a dialogue with me when he’s not tired, stressed, wanting to do his own things or worried about everything else in life. He needs space too, and it’s part of my responsibility to make sure he has it, even when I’m desperate for a conversation.

Trust me, this is an occasion when you truly don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone, and it magnifies any loneliness you feel as an agoraphobe.

Sometimes, it’s good to talk.

And no, I’m not the self-centered arsehole I sound like. I also miss hearing the news of others. While the burden of worry for people you care about might be heavy, it is far outweighed by 2 things – silence and happiness. When you share joy you double it, when you live in silence you drown in it.

A double edged sword with only one answer – companionship.

Why do friendships go bad?

So why did I give it all up? Why, when I’ve made it clear how huge the benefits are, did I choose a life of social isolation?

It became too hard and too painful.

Most people have no idea what it’s like to be indoors constantly, and I’ve found that even when you are explaining a situation like this to someone close, someone you trust, they still don’t get it. It causes embarrassment, shame, and a tsunami of sadness because the people you need support from aren’t there. The people you trust the most in the world…don’t seem to care.

Friendship levels vary from person to person. In the past I knew someone who was one of 3 people I made regular contact with, one of 3 people I trust, one of only 3 people I talk to. In stark contrast, that friend was already busy with work, rushing around as a parent, maintaining her own relationship and working a huge social circle. Their much bigger group of friends and generally fuller life pushed me way down their list of priorities, so there was a total mismatch in our neediness for each other.

This is an example that played out several times for me. A few of the closest trusted friends I had left weren’t able to reply to my messages because they were too busy with other things. Whether right or wrong I ended up hurt by this, especially when I’d waited weeks for a reply to something I saw as important. In the end, I stopped sending messages altogether. It was the final nail in the coffin.

Those people are now all gone. Some just gave up quietly, some went in a blaze of glory. In all cases I miss them, but I doubt any of them miss me and my complicated lifestyle because their lives are already fulfilled. I’m not needed, and I have no right to expect to be.

Then there’s the relationships that are toxic, and these are the ones where I learned the biggest, deeply embossed lessons.

Toxicity is measured on very meagre things today. Comments on social media, the quality of someone’s clothing, their social circle, their job title – all pretty innocent aspects of anyone’s life, but if you get it even slightly wrong then you might be labelled toxic.

For me toxicity is a much more dangerous thing. This is anger and aggression caused by drinking, abuse caused by a need to be popular, failure to keep in touch for many years with a friend or family member, telling someone to ‘fuck off’ then expecting to be able to pick the relationship back up, taking advantage of someones good nature then failing to offer your own support when the tables are turned.

I’ve experienced all of this to varying degrees throughout my life (many of these stories form part of the foundation of my long-term mental illnesses), and after watching others being reduced to a shadow of themselves and feeling useless, and after being unable to stand up for myself when I was being pushed too, I got to my 30’s and I’d had enough.

Things became crystal clear when I left my husband and my social circle stayed with him. Not a phone call or text message in sight. That’s when the silence started and it’s spread like wildfire over the last decade.

Frankly, I think I’ve earned the right to protect myself from people who pretend to care when, in reality, they either cause damage or don’t show up when it matters. Let downs are one of the worst experiences you have to plaster a fake smile over. Let downs and funerals. You’re pretending you’re fine with something when, in fact, that person didn’t do what was expected and / or promised, and you are hurt, you are broken, you are depressed, you are a shell of yourself because of huge disappointment that they are probably blissfully unaware of.

Sometimes, social situations are a fucking nightmare.

Why do I care?

So why don’t I shut up and fade into the background? It’s clearly all I know how to manage now.

Well, my child has got to an age where she’s noticing that I don’t go anywhere and I don’t have any friends. She’s making friends herself, and I’m proud of her for taking those steps so bravely without a parent to emulate, but it makes my own social gaps more noticeable and even a bit shameful.

I don’t particularly want her to grow up thinking I’m weird, nor do I want her to have to face criticism or ridicule for my lifestyle (although she’d handle it handsomely, I’m sure), but this way of life, this quiet loneliness, is honestly all I can manage right now. The idea of another social let-down like those I’ve mentioned above sends a shiver down my spine. These negative exchanges have the potential to send me into a pit of depression that would be hard to return from, and I want to be here (even though my brain disagrees from time to time).

For now at least, I’m having to look at new ways to find friendships that I can maintain. When I do find a route that feels comfortable, i’ll have to work out where I find new friends at the age of 41. After that comes the conversation and level of honesty I need to balance in order to gain trust and understanding. Providing advice to someone else on their trials and tribulations is another road less travelled for me, and I’ll need to work on it.

But first I have to find the courage to leave the house, and I have no idea where that courage is hidden.

The picture

I chose another picture from my Instagram DTIYS challenges to accompany this image.

I’ve taken some time off of writing and illustrating recently, mainly as a mark of respect to the death of Queen Elizabeth II, but also because my own brain and body are suffering, and my family have needed my attention too. It’s not easy to find creativity when you’re feeling this low, but I took some of my own Creative Coping Strategies advice and picked the tablet back up last week.

This was a challenge with some kawaii characters floating on some fragile but beautiful bubbles, and I liked the similarity to the fragility and comfort you find in friendships.

I hope you enjoyed this article about my lack of socialisation and how difficult friendships can be for agoraphobics and those with social anxiety

For us this is normal, so it’s a shame it’s so difficult to find companions who, at a minimum, empathise with this ‘normal’.

Thanks for reading!