SansPretense

 I’ve never been too keen on blogging about my personal life. I’m not even all that great about sharing my inner thoughts to those closest to me, let alone to the public, and there are very few people I let get that close to me. I don’t feel the need to have tons and tons of “friends” that are only in my life to give me someone to hang out with or make small talk with that never gets any deeper and more personal than a conversation I’m willing to have with someone publicly. I value the strong emotional intimacy that comes with strong friendships and being able to open up to someone fully without fear of judgement or having to bite my tongue (which I suck at, by the way). Without that openness and honesty, those relationships aren’t real friendships to me, and they just die away. All of the people in my life that I consider a friend share that intimacy with me on some level. It doesn’t mean we open up to each other all the time about every little thing, but there’s always an openness and room to grow present. And the people that I consider my closest friends are the ones I go to first for advice, a friendly ear, or just to chit chat. When I drunk dial/text, they’re the ones I send messages to before any others. I agree heavily with Dr. Mellisa Clouthier’s post about the definition of friendship the beginning of which can apply here:

What is a friend? This definition seems good to me and describes a beloved few in my life:

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” - Anais Nin

I am what you could call selectively social. That is, in my private life, I have a few, intense, long-time friends rather than a vast collective of “networks”. Some formative experiences caused me to be rather slow to trust and so, even people who consider me their friend often don’t know a good part of who I am for a very long time, if ever.

Thankfully, I’ve been fortunate enough to accumulate friends over the years.

I expect most of the people in my life to come and go. It’s nothing personal against them; it’s just life. I don’t keep in touch with anyone from my high school days, and except for seeing their updates on facebook (which I do enjoy seeing), I really have no idea what goes on in their lives. There is a small handfull of friends from college that I believe will always be in my life, even if we go in and out of touch with each other (again, a natural part of life) from time to time.

Over the last year and a half to two years, I have met many people, some of them friends. There were three women, however, that very quickly became important friends in my life. They live far from me so our friendships were very much based on communication, but I have met them in person. Because I don’t just let anyone get that close, it’s hard for me when it comes to losing friends that I am that close to.

At the beginning of September…(lots more after the break), I lost one of those three friends because she decided to redefine that close, open friendship in such a way that was designed to greatly distance herself from me. We’ll call her “#2″. She then proceeded to try to be friends under her new terms, my resistance and opinion be damned. (First of all, who the hell decides to put terms on a friendship and box it in and still expects to be friends?) I guess that’s what happens when you get too close to someone with intimacy and trust issues. Anyway, because she made a pretty good effort to lie to me and hide what was going on, of course all of my trust issues that I had long buried came flying out which just made things worse. I remember, very clearly, once promising her that I would trust her until she gave me a reason not to, regardless of her past. Unfortunately, she gave me lots of reasons to not trust her, but to this day, I do believe her to be one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met on the inside. It’s just that wall of defenses she puts up to protect what’s on the inside that causes all the problems. And knowing that, it made things even harder. My heart keeps forgiving her and wanting her in my life, even when my head keeps telling me to run screaming away. I also made another promise to her that seems pretty meaningless now considering we’re no longer talking to each other; she probably forgot about it and didn’t think much of it at the time, either. I promised I wouldn’t let her and her issues push me away, no matter what she did or said. Sometimes I wish my heart would let me break that promise. It’s not an issue of me wanting to be more than friends with her, it’s an issue of not being able to be less than friends with her and still able to handle her being in my life. It would be analagous to my sister telling me she’s no longer wanting to be part of my family, but still wanting to be friends. I just cannot be friends with someone who has intentionally closed herself off and isn’t open to rebuilding that lost friendship. I especially can’t handle a “friendship” with “restrictions” in place. This isn’t something that I’m just going to need more time before we can be friends again - it’s not time that’s the factor, but the conditions. There’s not a day goes by I don’t think of her, and I cannot for the life of me, understand why I can’t just “move on.” Is it really possible to grow to love someone so quickly and strongly - not be in love with them in a romantic sense (though there was tension there at one point) - that they stay with you (haunt you?) for the rest of your life? Or is it just me going mad? I miss her.

Over the last few weeks, it seems that a second of those three friends (friend “#3″) have decided to cut me out of her life, but this time for a totally different reason. She’s pissed off that her last suicide attempt didn’t work, and says that she wants to not talk to me or anyone else anymore “because it’ll be easier that way.” She downed a whole bottle of Viccadin last Saturday. The reaction from the doctors was shock that she ever woke up from the coma she was in, much less being fully aware of things. It seems she’s done some serious damage to her lungs or something, though, and so she’s in ICU. Which sucks for her since she wants to go home and finish what she started. How do you reach out to a person who has decided that she no longer wants to be helped? She just wants it all to end. She won’t even talk to her therapist. After facing years of sexual abuse as a child and in high school, having her “first love” in college sexually assault her in some of the worst ways (which occurred only a couple months after I first started talking to her), and then a few months ago having someone she trusted sodomize her, who can blame her for her issues? Like most (if not all) victims of sexual violence, she blames herself. She refuses to tell her family, who are part of the problem whether than a means to a solution. Her friend and I, who are the only ones in her social circle to know everything that’s going on, are at our wits’ end as to what to do (he’s the one who saved her life last weekend…we’ll save the “guilt” I feel for not catching on what was happenning since I was on the phone with her most of the day Saturday after she took the pills for another day). I wish like hell that friend #2 was around to talk to about this since she has first-hand experience in related areas about this topic, including maybe even legal advice. However, friend #2 is more accurately described as “former friend #1″ at the moment, and my own stubborn pride is insisting on not asking her a (pagan) god-damned thing ever again. So instead, I’ll solicite advice from so-called experts…

Anyway, what both of these friends have shown me is that one shouldn’t take friendships for granted, since even the closest friendships are subject to strife and rough endings. Anyone who thinks that one shouldn’t have to work to maintain friendships is a damn fool. Sometimes, you DO have to put effort into them. I think I would do just about anything to have both friends #2 and friends #3 back in my life, without having them both DECIDE to exit it. They’ve also reminded me that “saving someone” from their own issues is impossible for anyone but that person to do. All friends can do is be there and support them when they need it, scold them when they screw up, help them hold the pieces together when they start to crack, and help them pick up the pieces when they completely fall apart. But in each of those cases, it starts with the friend being willing to help themself and accept help from you. If you cannot be honest with them or have them be honest with you over issues and events, then it’s not a friendship.

In my head, I have pretty much given up on ever having friend #2 in my life in any meaningful way from this point on. I’m having way too hard of a time convincing my heart of the same thing, but eventually, I’m sure I’ll manage to do just that. I’ve given up on her, and she’s doing just fine without me (not having any of the trouble I am with this). I’m not willing to give up on friend #3 since I’m know the outcome won’t be her doing fine without me (at least not as long as she wants to die).

Now, I do want to end this very long post on a positive note. There is a third friend that I haven’t mentioned. Friend #1. She has been there helping me get through all of this. She gets to hear a lot more about things than my other friends since she’s more aware of the persons involved. I’ve seen her on numerous occasions set her own issues aside to help me deal with mine (and I try to do the same for her - that’s real friendship, afterall). All I have to say is: Thanks you. You know who you are.

And also thanks to all my other good friends as well. You and my family make my life worth living; it’s what’s missing from #3’s life (in her own head, mostly) and why my life is so blessed. Thank you all.