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Friends or no Friends?
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Hi Tickle,
I'm sorry to hear that you've lost your trust and faith in people. Mental illnesses like depression can make it so difficult to communicate with and relate to others. I lost contact with my friends when I was very unwell several years ago. It was a personal choice: I was ill, and had no mental or emotional energy to give to others. I now have a great group of friends, I am really close to my best friend again, and I have a caring boyfriend. This only happened after I had recovered from my illness, when I was ready to reconnect. Many people need the emotional support of friends during recovery, but struggle to keep relationships going. You are not alone. Keep close to your family. I needed my family so much when I was unwell, and I wouldn't have recovered like I have without their help.
If you don't mind me asking, do you see a psychologist or counsellor? Going to your GP first to make a depression recovery plan is a wise idea. If it's needed, they can refer you to a good psychologist or other professional.
Hopefully you can meet people, now or in the future, who you can trust. Believe me, there are always trustworthy people out there. These people may not be polished, outwardly successful, or outgoing. If you join any groups, clubs, organisations, or classes, you will meet all kinds of people, some of whom could become genuine friends.
I hope you can trust again 🙂
Best wishes,
SM
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Hey Tickle,
Im sorry to say that distancing yourself from people in order to protect yourself from being hurt will only hurt you more in the long run.
I can relate to being hurt and betrayed by those closest to you, and not just once but again and again like a viscious circle... Unfortunately this will always happen. We wish for true friends and happiness but the truth is there will always be someone who hurts us.. All you can do is decide whether or not they deserve forgiveness and your continued friendship, or if they need to go... And unfortunately more often than not they do need to go..
Giving up on friendship completely however is a very very bad idea, you can not be alone like that, ive seen what it does to people. You must try and replace what you loose or you will always feel like your falling backwards having less and less to hold on to.
A good trick here is something I beginning to employ, get yourself out there on the internet, meet people that don't have the opportunity to screw you over. We are in the internet age after all and its not that hard to meet new people. They may not hang around or they may turn out not to fit in with you, but the safety net is, their not standing behind you with a knife to your back hey... Their somewhere unknown and can disappear AND be replaced at the drop of a hat.
If your on Facebook, increase your public presence, as in get involved in some discussions on pages that interest you, right there, there are people interested in the same stuff as you. Good start right? You'll soon find random people sending you friend requests (if you allow it on your profile).
Now with 'strangers' it can be a bit difficult to get motivated talking to them sometimes, its ok, get back to them the next day or something when your feeling more settled. Some of my CLOSE friends know that I wont even reply to them for days sometimes if I'm in a rut.. Those are the sort of people who wont backstab you, the people who have patience for you...
Some people meet through online games, become life long friends, yet never meet face to face...
For example I'm from Australia, met this guy on the xbox one day from the UK, that was about 3 or 4 years ago, hes now in the army, we talk a lot and he sends me pics of where he goes and what not.
Never give up Tickle
I know its hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes, but trust me, its not the headlight of an oncoming train okay =P
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Hi Tickle, welcome to the forums and thank you for sharing with us.
I am sorry to hear about your struggles with friends. I'm having a guess you're perhaps still in school? School-based friendships tend to seem much stronger at the time, but can also seem like the world is falling apart when one fails, because of having to see each other 8 hours a day, five days a week - any kind of friendship or relationship is strained when you're stuck in the same spot with the same people for long periods of time. If you distance yourself from them a little, try and mingle with some others through a club or sporting group, you'll find the time you do spend with people is much more important and cherished when it's in lesser amounts.
As for the trust, you cannot let your fear of being hurt make you run from it; life is full of ups and downs, and yes, you will get hurt, but you'll also love and be loved - you can't have a rainbow without the rain. Trust is a two-way street, and as you connect and talk to more and more people and make new friendships, you'll learn more quickly how to spot the signs of a dodgy friend.
Don't give up!
Crystal
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dear Tickle, this is a very interesting comment that you have posted, and the three replies that have been sent into you are all very good, with different views.
You say that 'I have been more fragile more sensitive', yes and probably more aware, and that's a lesson we all learn from having depression, because we begin to realise who are friends are, and remember all those 'past friends' that deserted us while we were in depression.
Your past 'friends' are not worth trying to regain friendship with, because there's an old saying 'when the chips are down you know who your friends are', oh how powerful that saying is, and true it is.
I wouldn't even try to contact them and inevitably if you do, it won't make them closer friends than before, simply because they will still be deceiving, so it would be more heartache than before.
I hope that you can try all the suggestions that have been given to you by those 3 generous people above.
Let us know how you are getting on. Geoff. x
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