Hi all,
anyone finding a change in friendships? I find it hard to be around anyone who can't commit time or place and wants to keep it open. I find it hard to b3 around people so when I do I need to know the person wants to be there and that they won't cancel due to feeling tired. All ok excuses normally in busy adult life but when you are feeling so anxious and torn by things I find people who are bit flaky just not good enough. Maybe these are the friends who make life pass by normally but when life has stopped you in your tracks and made you question greater things. There just is not the time for such casual friends. I suppose writing this has me feel I only need committed and longer-term friends, or people who are willing to sit with discomfort of having a terminally ill parent.
Sorry if above a bit sombre but I suppose writing it has helped me to answer my own Q. We should always have boundaries and do what we feel right in general and with friends, but may be I didn't do this before so now I need to listen more to my inner-self more. True friends will understand this and get when you need them there. The flaky kind will just let you wash by with out caring and cancelling plans to suit them. I don't have time for these people right now as I feel i have so much emotionally I can't take "lightness," as feels like rejection and more isolating to cancelled on.
Anyone else had some upset and general reflections on friendship? P.s I'm on/off caring for my mum, with terminal pancreatic cancer at present.
Take care and sending love to all. X
Hi ,
I can certainly recognize what you say and from my experience caring for my wife I can certainly reflect on the meaning of "a friend in need is a friend indeed". Some of my friends who were "whatever you need" but then when I had a real need were "but not today".
I have heard of some people who set up a kind of rota so someone is always on hand and that could be a way of working. For us on family always stepped up and I could never, ever thank them enough. Some members of our family were quite helpful, some not so much including massively upsetting me and just piling more stress than ever on my poor wife.
Perhaps being a bit more charitable I could say something like forgive them for they know not what they do - but then probably at some point in the past I probably did something similar - nothing like caring for someone at a time like this to change our lives.
<<hugs>>
Steve
