Well, once again I am writing about the loss of our friends. I have been out of the hospital for over a week and we have only heard from 4 people who care and want to know how we are doing.
Nobody is emailing, calling or anything. The ones we thought we could rely on the most have deserted us. We were at church today and some spoke to us but not in the normal way, others ignored us altogether. Not a word.
It hurts me deeply that they are treating us like this. When we need them the most they have left us hanging out to dry and quite frankly, it sucks.
The friends that I am talking about are supposed to be our core of best friends and are the only ones who know what has happened and what is going on. We shared with them our deepest personal problem and the dump us like yesterdays trash.
It hurts so bad and I am so upset, that at this point I don't care if they ever contact us again. I am tired of trying to deal with what we now have to deal with and not have any support from the group that is supposed to be our best core of friends.
Anyone else out there deal with this? I just don't know what to do. It hurts me so badly that I have spent time crying over this. Now, the tears are gone and I am just mad.
If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. At this point if things don't change I think we're going to have to find a new group of friends, which is hard work in itself.
Guess that's it for now. Love you all.
5 comments:
I'm sure other people will have different answers, Tye-Dye, but here's mine.
People are very timid, and very hopeful, and very forgetful.
Being timid causes them to be afraid to mention anything bad, especially in public.
Being hopeful causes them to see you in church, looking oh so very normal, and hope that things are so good and so happy for you right now that to mention anything would just cloud an otherwise lovely day for you. Combine hopefulness with timidity, and most people will see you over in your pew looking "in control" and decide not to discourage you with a visit. Silly, but completely true.
Being forgetful allows people to look over at you and just not see anything wrong. We all work so hard to look normal, and then it hurts our feelings when we succeed. :-/ We all hate to be forgetful, but it gets us anyway.
It's us curmugdeonly, pessimistic pests who sometimes are rude and confrontational enough to be encouraging once in while. And who wants to be one of them? :-)
You asked what we might recommend.
Here's my recommendations:
+ Always be gentle with people. We're timid enough without ever being made to feel like we've intruded.
+ Go to them, and tell them what the truth is for today. Be sure to tell them that every day is different, and that you love it when people ask. Let them know you appreciate their optimism, but that being asked "hard" questions never ruins your day. If everything's good, it just makes you feel better to know someone cares.
+ Remember things about what they're going through. There's noone at any of our churches who isn't going through something scary. Your scary thing is at a peak right now, but everyone's going through something. If you remember what they're going through, you will brighten their day (which is very important) and give them a chance to brighten yours along the way.
I promise you your friends all love you. They're just human is all, and humans have a hard time knowing what to say.
CP is right folks just don’t know what to say. I’m going through some stuff in my life at this time and I have found that some are great in acting like it’s all good while others are looking away from me. I love the ones who are clinging to me with tears in their eyes. As I try not to join them and look to be sure that my kids are seeing them or hearing them.
I think that for now you need to give a bit of grace. I know it’s hard trust me I know it’s very hard to do. I almost walked from my church not long ago and one guy going off on me about my husband didn’t help. The next time he saw me he approached me to talk I was so thankful that he did because I needed for him to tell me that he was sorry. I needed to give him some grace. Those men who ran my husband off are men and I owe it to them to realize that they too are human.
I think that we learn from stuff like this. I’ll bet that you’ll be a better friend from now on to those in need even the ones you hardly know. I know that I will.
I’m holding you in my heart friend.
I understand what you both are saying. Would people react the same way if I had cancer instead of what I have? I guess maybe so. It's still hard and lonely. God is working on me and I am trying to learn what He wants me to learn from all this, including not hearing from friends. There is a lesson here somewhere. I will learn it. Thanks to you both for being there and being such terrific friends and supporters. I love you both.
> Would people react the same way if I had cancer instead of what I have?
Honestly?
I think they might think they knew what to say about cancer, and come up to you and say it once. Then they'd realize that they had no clue what to say, and go back to being timid, hopeful and forgetful again.
We love each other. We're just afraid of not doing it right.
Hi Tye-Dye,
I'm so sorry to hear of how your friends and acquaintances are treating you during this difficult time. When I was diagnosed with cancer 3 yrs ago, every one of my closest friends whom I've known over 20 yrs ignored and abandoned me esp. when I needed them the most after surgery. They knew that I didn't have any living family members to help me and that I didn't have the financial means to hire a full time nurse. They promised to help me physically and financially until I was able to return to work. Well, the last time I ever saw these friends were at the hospital after surgery and never again. I was severely depressed and didn't want to live knowing they abandoned me. Through it all, and after my anger subsided, I've come to realize and I hope you do too, that the strength inside us helped survive this ordeal and disappointment. Isn't it amazing how you are still able to cope with this and you are aware of how others are feeling towards you. I do accept the excuse that some people are afraid to face uncomfortable situations and do not know how to react to you, but also, I've come to accept that it's okay not to forgive those who never were true friends.
I hope you know you are not alone and there are some selfish people out there. You seem to be such a nice person that you will attract better friends who will stand by you for life. I'll be praying for your health and happiness Tye-Dye!
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