Sick Friends

 As someone who has traversed back and forth from the kingdom of the sick to the kingdom of the well many times over the past few years, I experienced firsthand the toll chronic illness takes on friendships.  Just a year ago I would have told you a loss of relationships is just one of the many unbearable and yet irreparable crosses to bear in illness.  I thought a sick person’s best hope was finding a quality support group, or learning to nurse their wounds alone.  

But as the years have gone on, people have surprised me.  I found out that many of my long held grievances might not be the full story.  And to my delight, as I gained greater awareness and understanding of my friendship-induced heartache, I was gifted with my original longing: renewed heartfelt connections.  

Before I was diagnosed with Chronic Lyme Disease, I had more friends than I knew what to do with.  In fact, it was often a point of contention within numerous circles that I would rather spend the night winning over a stranger than engaging with loved ones.  But any semblance of a social life was a distant memory within a couple years of my illness’s onset.  People held strong for the first six months, with perky visits and gift baskets, but over time their compassion ran out.  I felt uniquely alone and I longed for this fact to be understood. 

My parents tried to console me by explaining that my devastation and isolation partly stemmed from my being fresh out of college.  While most people my age were concerned with their careers and dating lives, I was distraught with pain and panic most of the time, something my peers couldn’t relate to.  Even on my best days, I had trouble taking care of my basic needs and was somewhat depressed.  In short, in reaching for my friendships, I was asking and hoping for a lot.  Still, I was filled with shame when many close friends shrank away from me.  I privately felt I had brought it upon myself by needing too much.

Fortunately, I am now in a period of relative respite from the demands of my disease.  As I quasi rejoined the land of the living, I not only forged new friendship circles, but in a surprising turn of events, became the healthier person in many friendships for the first time.  Experiencing life on both ends of the spectrum has revealed the totality of the dynamic to me in a way I could never see before.  

Whenever I inhabit this healthier version of myself, it is easy to get caught up in myth making.  I spin stories about how my chronically ill friends are choosing to isolate themselves and choosing to focus on worst case scenarios.  I often don’t see them for months on end and I start to feel as though they don’t care about maintaining our friendship.  I take the tunnel vision and self-absorption necessary to endure serious illness as a personal affront.  My ego, and I suspect many of our egos, flares against a living manifestation of my worst fears come to life.  I have to constantly work through my own discomfort, in order to be of much use at all.

As these ideas toss and turn in my head late at night, I find myself thinking of the Chinese Finger Traps from my childhood.  The only way to get the toy to release your fingers is to understand the mechanism of the contraption and loosen.  If I let a chronically ill friend’s long absences grate one me or rail too hard against her cynical outlook, the band will snap.  And if my sick friend, or my own sick self, binds my perspective to the times people failed to visit or said the wrong thing, I’m just going to feel even further away from the people I love.  I know now that there is always more than one truth to any situation, and true connection has to make space for both members’ realities. 

If you’re someone like me who holds friendships near and dear, who lights with joy to love and be loved by others, then it can be worth a try to loosen your grip.  It can pay off to let the bitterness rise within you, and continue to love that person with your whole heart anyways.   Sometimes, it is true that the friendship will not be able to withstand the new weight of illness, and surprisingly I have found that is okay too.  You’d be amazed how much can grow in an open space if you give it time and attention.  

I know there were periods in my life where obtaining anything close to peace in my friendships was impossible, and still now I have to let go of perfection and reach for it.  I wake up each day and remind myself that I’d rather have enduring relationships than be right all the time.  I’d rather feel at peace than constantly running a tally of the faults of those around me.  And I’d rather give love freely instead of only when people get it exactly right.

The truth of the matter is that real connection can withstand difficulty, and even grow from it.  In my opinion, the best, most intimate types of friendships are ones where they know all the icky and wonderful parts of you.  Once you understand that hardship is an inevitable part of human connection on this earth, it’s easier to frame your friendship’s challenges within a larger balance.  When difficult feelings inevitably arise, I tend to think of the somatic healing class I took where we danced around the room and shouted, “I forgive you!”  It helps remind me that I get to choose how I’d like to respond to my lot in life.   And I refuse to hold on to a single unnecessary smidge of suffering.  Although I know my frame of reference will continue to wander, I still get to make the final call on how I view and hold on to the people around me.  What a gift it is to truly know someone and love them anyways.  I forgive you!