Reading – An Open Letter to My Childhood Friends
“Whenever I bump into you in the high street, in the gym, the pub, uneasiness washes over me. I don’t know who to be: the school child me, with high grades but a rebellious streak; young adult me, flirting with socialism and madness; or “mature” me, literary, tired, and slightly jaded.
The truth is, depression has pretty much wiped me of my identity. I don’t know who I am anymore, so I don’t know how to relate to you. I’m worried that you’ll judge me, size me up and condemn me for not making a decent effort with my life. You’ll ask about my annual salary, if I have any kids yet, where am I holidaying this year. I’m not willing to share details with you, and sorry, but I have no interest in how you are doing either.
Depression makes you selfish: you need to concentrate so hard on getting yourself through the day, that other people can be pushed out onto the peripherals. Close friends remain; it is true that I have kept in touch with a few select people, who float sporadically in and out of my life. But even these folk I sometimes avoid, or do not return their calls. They all know about my illness, they understand that I could have a bad week and not feel like talking. But how do I explain that to someone I was once in the same class with and I haven’t seen in over a decade? Will you understand, will you pity me, or will you politely end the conversation and back off, go home and tell fellow ex-classmates, ‘Guess who I met today, and is now completely insane?’”
I found this article very interesting. Coming out of the other side of depression, I no longer feel this way when I run into people I know, pretty much I try to be approachable anytime now. But, when I run into people who knew me before, I do have that anxiety about how to relate to them. I’m not the same person I was back then, and I have no desire to be that person, because I was trying so hard to hide what I was going through. It’s one thing to be connected on social media, where I can slowly consider how I relate to people, it’s quite another to be face to face with someone. So forgive me if I seem to be a bit awkward and overly thoughtful. That’s jut me trying to figure out who I am in relation to you and our shared history, today. If you can understand that though, I’m more than happy to reconnect!
Reading – An Open Letter to My Childhood Friends – http://t.co/8LS3OTPnM3 via @Survivornetwork
Excellent article. This sums it up for me in a nutshell!!!!
Danny Rhoten liked this on Facebook.
Michele Braisted Gambetta liked this on Facebook.
When I was a child, I didn’t realize I was emotionally and verbally abused. I was led to believe that all of the problems my family had was because of me. Everything I did or say was wrong. I was told I wasn’t smart, I had mental problems and I would never amount to anything. When I became a teen, my mother would get mad at me for things like, not washing the dishes. She would say mean things to me, I would get mad and argue back. We always ended up fighting. From what my mother always told me, the fights were because of my temper. To make matters worse, my mother would have my older brother beat me up. I guess that was her way of not taking responsibility for all the black eyes I had.
I didn’t know how to interact with people. I had very few friends in school. Nobody, even I didn’t know I was in an abusive home. Everybody just thought I was weird. I never thought I was normal. I was desperate to be like the other kids in school. I would watch TV to try to learn how to act normal.
I’ll never escape the abuse. I deal with it every day, “did I say something wrong”? Or, “why is that person not talking to me, is he/she mad at me”? I now feel the need to let all of my past and present friends know that I was an abused child. Hopefully they will understand why I was the way I was.
Carol, it is difficult to relearn the things we are taught as children, but it can be done. Keep working to learn the reality of your place in the world, that most things in terms of how other people act have nothing to do with you, and even if someone does decide to stop talking to you, its mostly about them, not you.
Neesa Rae liked this on Facebook.
RT @SurvivorNetwork: Reading – An Open Letter to My Childhood Friends http://t.co/9VF41J1fzM