Halloo,
Did you know that one of the saddest parts of living with chronic pain or any long-term illness is seeing your nearest and dearest getting tired of you and your never ending sickness?
Heart-breaking!
A part of you wants to understand and accept their attitude, probably because you are fed up with the illness too. This is what years and years of complaints do to us.
But the other part of you is wounded.
This is not something you love having in your life. You also have enough to deal with without the rejection of those that matter to you.
How do you know they are losing interest?
A good and classic example is that automatic ‘SORRY’ that comes without the person giving it looking up from whatever they are doing when you are having a severe inflammation.
Sometimes they are so fed up that they don’t bother to even offer the disinterested ‘SORRY’.
Or, you are home in pain, the closest person to you leave home all day for work or whatever without calling to check how you are faring. Which wasn’t the case before.
A soothsayer is not needed.
Another one is trying to explain your troubles to someone who is eager for you to finish your story and desperately looking for ways to escape.
It could be a story about the info you just acquire on pain management, something you have been dying all day to tell the person.
I think it’s hard to miss the sign when you don’t get invited to events from your friends. They are tired of you canceling on them. If you are lucky some will even say it to your face.
Not to bore you with examples. But it’s so easy to pick out when someone is tired of you and your never-ending sickness.
If you don’t talk about it, you will drive yourself crazy. If you talked about it your friends and family will start avoiding you? You can’t win.
Some people will not even give you chance to talk; Like not letting you air your troubles but quickly advised you to seek help.
What help?
Sometimes, the best help is active listening. Most of us know you can’t cure our condition. But listening and making us feel we matter will really help.
Someone who is feeling crappy already do not need people making her feel crappier.
I am not very good at opening up. So, I tend to blame myself for people’s lack of interest.
We tend to blame our self a lot, I know I do. These kinds of attitude from people just reinforce my fears that I am inconveniencing them.
That is why if I got the slightest hint that I am inconveniencing someone I will leave them be. If I am wrong the person will show it by making contact. If I never hear from the person again, then I was right. No hard feelings!
But in the last couple of years, I have really matured. I have accepted that we human-being constantly change just like as Seasons do. I am more than happy to entertain people as long as they want. When they are tired they are free to go with me being at least as bitter as possible.
If someone feels that I am not worth it, why should they stay? I don’t hang around people that are not worth it either. It works both ways.
I don’t invest as much as I used to into friendship. I tried but it just not coming to me anymore. Maybe when I meet the right person. Who knows?
I think that comes from being burnt so many times. What do you think?
Are you wondering why I write about my life with Chronic Pain? You can read my story here.
Stay with me,
Ruka
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