Getting acquainted with Laurie took some time. I did not jump in feet first, I not did spill my guts about my history the first time we grabbed a cup of coffee and I most certainly did not crowd her or push my way into her life. What did I do instead? I took little steps like this one:
I'm not sure if it was at the church picnic or after a church service when I asked Laurie if I could talk to her some time. In that moment, I was very conscious about how I was feeling: sick to my stomach nervous, scarred, ready for rejection, not worthy of a high caliber friend and so on.
To my shock she said, "Sure. Can you give me a hint?"
I said something like, "I have something I want to run by you."
And that's the beginning of a beautiful friendship. For the next couple of years or so, I would send Laurie an email asking for a chat time. She'd email her availability then I'd pick out a convenient phone time. A few years ago, Laurie and her husband moved to Arkansas. I wondered if our friendship could endure the move and if not seeing her would be too hard and too sad. The only way to find out was to keep going.
I had to confront my fears of insecurity and abandonment, tackle them and beat them into the ground. My dysfunctional talk was sending negative messages from my brain into my heart. If I didn't admonish those unsubstantiated fears, I would miss out on a friendship I thoroughly enjoyed.
I asked Laurie for her insight into this subject. Here's what she had to say:
"I imagine it's hard for some with mental illness to maintain quality friendships for a couple of reasons: people are freaked out by what they don't understand and can't fix, so they run away because they feel self-imposed internal pressure to fix the situation, but can't; and there are some struggling with mental illness who inflict pressure on their friends because they just want someone, anyone, to fix what's wrong, and it drives them away.
I think our friendship continues to "work" because I don't feel any pressure from you to "fix" what's wrong, which is great, because I can't! I think the physical distance between our homes reinforces that, too, and also helps to keep me from putting that pressure on myself. So there's freedom to just talk about life as it is, to encourage each other, to pray for each other, to laugh together, cry together, to listen to each other, to share about our families, to speak truth to each other....to just be real.
Mental illness sometimes re-schedule those conversations, but so does the flu or a nasty case of bronchitis, or just the business of life. It takes adjustments on the part of both friends to love one another where we're at....but don't all friendships?"
The answer to that question is, "Yes."
On the final page for tomorrow, I'm going to try and identify some positive behaviors all of us can put into practice regarding friendships. I, for one, have lost close friends. I didn't know why until I started self-injuring and ended up in behavioral health hospitals.
