“I will never do anything to deliberately to hurt you”. I heard those words for the first time when my friend and her boyfriend got into a fight. The details of the fight are in an inaccessible place in my memory, but I remember he did something that upset her and was genuinely sorry about it.
The words stuck because that is how I felt about my friendships at the time. My friends would call me and I’d ignore the calls. Or we’d make plans to hang out and I’ll flake out. It was very late when I realized this, but I realized that it wasn’t something I was doing on purpose. To be honest, I felt irritated when the same was done to me.
Now, here’s what was happening. I was going through the worst time of my life. It was difficult for me to feel happy and I often wrote about how sad I was. My friends were always there to cheer me up and tell me to ‘think positively”. They offered to spend time with me and even threw me a party on my 25th birthday. I did not show up to the party. There was always an excuse of me ‘being busy’, and I just always ended up in my room watching something or crying.
I wanted to be alone in my head all the time and felt like I was spreading sadness and negativity everywhere I went. It started to feel like I was a burden to my friends, even when they assured me I wasn’t. Then the thought of being a bad friend was added to my already existing dark thoughts and it consumed me, made me get into a more depressed state than I was before. And I get it, everyone has things they are going through, so bad mental health is only an excuse for not being a good friend, right? Wrong!
It was only after years of this happening that I blamed my mental health. The whole time, I saw myself as the ‘fake friend’ or the ‘snob’. Because while they were there for me, I was never really there for them emotionally. I learned later that I couldn’t be emotionally ‘there’ for someone if my own emotions were not taken care of first.
If you ever feel like you do not have enough to give to anyone, know that it’s okay for a while. Give your love, time, energy and devotion only to yourself. I don’t regret a moment of it and have lost no friends during the period. Maybe I’m just pretty lucky I have friends who understand me.
The most important thing is to make sure to communicate clearly with your friends about what you’re going through. Be honest about your feelings.“Friendships increase feelings of purpose and happiness, reduce stress, and can even help you live longer. And research shows young women with the healthiest social relationships have the lowest risk of depression.” – Carrie Arnold
