image: jeroen van oostrom
You know exactly what I’m talking about. You bump into a friend, or they call or text and they ask how you’re doing. Let’s just say you’re having a bad day/week/month (delete as appropriate). Your cat has died, you’ve lost our job, your partner dumped you, you can’t pay your bills, your body is misbehaving, whatever. You have a choice.
You can either slap a smile on your face, nod your head and say that everything is fine, or you can tell them the truth. You go for option two. You let the whole sorry story of your misery pour out, after all, you know this person, even think of them as a friend. They’ve asked, you think they care, why on earth shouldn’t you tell them the truth? If you’re face to face, they usually look at you as if you’re slightly insane before making an excuse and exiting stage left as quickly as their little legs will allow them. If they’ve called you, many will leave a pregnant pause, perhaps tell you that it pays to remember that there are people worse off than you – which really won’t help drag you out of your dark space – or if they’ve asked via text message, they simply won’t respond.
The latter, the text situation, has happened to me twice recently. Granted, the first time it happened I hadn’t been asked. Feeling and vulnerable due to pain, I texted someone who I used to be very close to – nearly-delivered-her-baby-at-home-close – saying that my body was pounding me and that I was really down. That was nearly a week ago. I still haven’t had a text from her. I shouldn’t be surprised really. Our friendship ended after she thought it was funny for her date to try and feed me from a dog bowl on the floor one evening when I was unable to stand and could only move by sliding myself along the floor on my knees. Believe me when I say that this is humiliating and degrading enough, without having two people standing over you laughing and miming scooping pet food out of a tin. There were a few other issues, but this was just about the last straw for me.
Said ‘friend’ and I had had the kind of relationship where we would speak every day, see each other weekly and share our secrets and sorrows. After the Dog Food incident, we didn’t speak for a few years. Then we bumped in to each other and started meeting up again. I thought we were getting back on track, despite her letting me down and not visiting when she promised she would (she apologised profusely afterwards). She’s told me she’s sorry for not being there for me those years ago and for the Dog Food incident. I forgave her. Water under the bridge. I want a friend. I want some good friends. I get lonely. Not going out to work means I don’t have the chance to meet people and build friendships the way most normal-bodied adults do.
So I sent her an unsolicited text. An SOS SMS. An “I need a friend, a few kind words, maybe a hug” kind of text. She has her life. She has her problems. She’s a single-parent with three kids and a psycho ex-boyfriend who is fresh from prison. I understand all of this. I wasn’t asking for a chunk of her time. I was asking only for a text. She has time to post on Facebook, she has time to text to me. But she hasn’t? Why is this?
Then I have another friend. I texted her to tell her that I am trying to learn a new website building application so I can build a site for her business. “Great”, her reply. “How was your Easter?” she asked. I chose option two. I decided to tell her the truth. Coming straight out with it, I replied it was awful, and that my pelvis is agony, I feel very unwell and that part of my wishes I could kill myself just to make the pain stop.
Heavy.
Unpleasant.
Harsh.
I know. But it was the truth. There has been no reply. Why is this? Why do people ask if they don’t really want to know?
You see, if someone I cared about sent me a message like that, I would reply. I would probably call them. I would sit and listen, and let them cry for as long as they needed to. Perhaps that’s part of my problem. Maybe I judge others by how I would react to a situation, ascribing them with too much credit. It could be the case that if I didn’t do this, I wouldn’t be so disappointed. Could the reason they don’t reply be that they can’t really cope with the truth? That they care so much the truth panics them, so it’s easier for them to ignore it? Even if this is the answer, it’s selfish. Just selfish. If you don’t want to know, don’t want to deal with the truth, reply, then don’t ask in the first place. Ignoring the issue, not replying, just adds to the feeling of being alone, is more isolating than not asking in the first place.
For some, I’m sure the problem is that they are helpless. They care about you but are helpless to help you, and that they cannot bear. But I have come to see that as a weakness. A selfish weakness. Rather than look at me when I am in pain, my Mother turns away. Physically turns away, even leaves the room. Yet when she was in hospital with a suspected brain haemorrhage and was having a lumbar puncture, I was there. When she had cancer, I was the first person she told while sobbing. It was me who had to tell my older brother. I attended the appointments she would let me attend, I sat watching her low breathing rate with the worried nurse as she came around from a general anaesthetic, held her hair back, held the bedpan and wiped her mouth as she vomited after her second surgery. I called her consultant and arranged getting her admitted to hospital after she called me, crying begging “Get here, just get here”. I faced it all without letting her see my fear, without letting her see me shed a tear, while I dealt with being a single-parent and a disabled one at that, in chronic irretractable pain. I figured that as much as her having cancer upset me, it was she, not me, who was going through it. It was her life at risk. Her body that was butchered on the operating table. Her who had to endure chemo- and radiotherapy.
My Mother I can forgive. She loves me and I love her. She is always there for me in a crisis, and without her I would be lost. I've used her to illustrate my point, that being, I sucked up my feelings. I could have not coped. I could have let my fear overwhelm me. But that wasn’t what she needed. She needed me to be strong for her. To hug her. To tell her I was there for her. To sometimes take control. To be her eyes and ears with the doctors when she was indisposed. To make sure her wishes were listened to when she was vulnerable. It was my place to cope for her when she wasn’t always able to.
Sometimes, I just want a little bit of that given back.
And sometimes I do get it back. I have two male friends who have asked how I am and taken the tears, the self-pity, the sorrow. One did so just today when he called. “How are you?” he asked, me immediately bursting out crying, sobbing down the line at him for a good fifteen minutes. The other hadn’t seen me cry in the five and a half years since my accident until he came to see me at the end of last year.
I don’t know how the conversation started, but it began not long before he was due to leave. I sobbed and sobbed and let everything out. He delayed his departure, sitting and holding my hand for over an hour. He did looked shellshocked, I will admit. Fearful of the emotion, maybe? I thanked him repeatedly, apologised profusely for falling apart. He hugged me tightly and told me that he and his girlfriend have said to each other many times that they don’t know how I always seem so cheerful when they come. He was surprised that I hadn’t broken down before. He took it all. He sucked up his own misgivings and let me vent. And for that, I will always be grateful. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you cry. We don’t know how you hold it all in” he told me.
I, like many others, hold it all in because experience has told us that weak, selfish people who ask how you are, really just don’t want to know.
You can either slap a smile on your face, nod your head and say that everything is fine, or you can tell them the truth. You go for option two. You let the whole sorry story of your misery pour out, after all, you know this person, even think of them as a friend. They’ve asked, you think they care, why on earth shouldn’t you tell them the truth? If you’re face to face, they usually look at you as if you’re slightly insane before making an excuse and exiting stage left as quickly as their little legs will allow them. If they’ve called you, many will leave a pregnant pause, perhaps tell you that it pays to remember that there are people worse off than you – which really won’t help drag you out of your dark space – or if they’ve asked via text message, they simply won’t respond.
The latter, the text situation, has happened to me twice recently. Granted, the first time it happened I hadn’t been asked. Feeling and vulnerable due to pain, I texted someone who I used to be very close to – nearly-delivered-her-baby-at-home-close – saying that my body was pounding me and that I was really down. That was nearly a week ago. I still haven’t had a text from her. I shouldn’t be surprised really. Our friendship ended after she thought it was funny for her date to try and feed me from a dog bowl on the floor one evening when I was unable to stand and could only move by sliding myself along the floor on my knees. Believe me when I say that this is humiliating and degrading enough, without having two people standing over you laughing and miming scooping pet food out of a tin. There were a few other issues, but this was just about the last straw for me.
Said ‘friend’ and I had had the kind of relationship where we would speak every day, see each other weekly and share our secrets and sorrows. After the Dog Food incident, we didn’t speak for a few years. Then we bumped in to each other and started meeting up again. I thought we were getting back on track, despite her letting me down and not visiting when she promised she would (she apologised profusely afterwards). She’s told me she’s sorry for not being there for me those years ago and for the Dog Food incident. I forgave her. Water under the bridge. I want a friend. I want some good friends. I get lonely. Not going out to work means I don’t have the chance to meet people and build friendships the way most normal-bodied adults do.
So I sent her an unsolicited text. An SOS SMS. An “I need a friend, a few kind words, maybe a hug” kind of text. She has her life. She has her problems. She’s a single-parent with three kids and a psycho ex-boyfriend who is fresh from prison. I understand all of this. I wasn’t asking for a chunk of her time. I was asking only for a text. She has time to post on Facebook, she has time to text to me. But she hasn’t? Why is this?
Then I have another friend. I texted her to tell her that I am trying to learn a new website building application so I can build a site for her business. “Great”, her reply. “How was your Easter?” she asked. I chose option two. I decided to tell her the truth. Coming straight out with it, I replied it was awful, and that my pelvis is agony, I feel very unwell and that part of my wishes I could kill myself just to make the pain stop.
Heavy.
Unpleasant.
Harsh.
I know. But it was the truth. There has been no reply. Why is this? Why do people ask if they don’t really want to know?
You see, if someone I cared about sent me a message like that, I would reply. I would probably call them. I would sit and listen, and let them cry for as long as they needed to. Perhaps that’s part of my problem. Maybe I judge others by how I would react to a situation, ascribing them with too much credit. It could be the case that if I didn’t do this, I wouldn’t be so disappointed. Could the reason they don’t reply be that they can’t really cope with the truth? That they care so much the truth panics them, so it’s easier for them to ignore it? Even if this is the answer, it’s selfish. Just selfish. If you don’t want to know, don’t want to deal with the truth, reply, then don’t ask in the first place. Ignoring the issue, not replying, just adds to the feeling of being alone, is more isolating than not asking in the first place.
For some, I’m sure the problem is that they are helpless. They care about you but are helpless to help you, and that they cannot bear. But I have come to see that as a weakness. A selfish weakness. Rather than look at me when I am in pain, my Mother turns away. Physically turns away, even leaves the room. Yet when she was in hospital with a suspected brain haemorrhage and was having a lumbar puncture, I was there. When she had cancer, I was the first person she told while sobbing. It was me who had to tell my older brother. I attended the appointments she would let me attend, I sat watching her low breathing rate with the worried nurse as she came around from a general anaesthetic, held her hair back, held the bedpan and wiped her mouth as she vomited after her second surgery. I called her consultant and arranged getting her admitted to hospital after she called me, crying begging “Get here, just get here”. I faced it all without letting her see my fear, without letting her see me shed a tear, while I dealt with being a single-parent and a disabled one at that, in chronic irretractable pain. I figured that as much as her having cancer upset me, it was she, not me, who was going through it. It was her life at risk. Her body that was butchered on the operating table. Her who had to endure chemo- and radiotherapy.
My Mother I can forgive. She loves me and I love her. She is always there for me in a crisis, and without her I would be lost. I've used her to illustrate my point, that being, I sucked up my feelings. I could have not coped. I could have let my fear overwhelm me. But that wasn’t what she needed. She needed me to be strong for her. To hug her. To tell her I was there for her. To sometimes take control. To be her eyes and ears with the doctors when she was indisposed. To make sure her wishes were listened to when she was vulnerable. It was my place to cope for her when she wasn’t always able to.
Sometimes, I just want a little bit of that given back.
And sometimes I do get it back. I have two male friends who have asked how I am and taken the tears, the self-pity, the sorrow. One did so just today when he called. “How are you?” he asked, me immediately bursting out crying, sobbing down the line at him for a good fifteen minutes. The other hadn’t seen me cry in the five and a half years since my accident until he came to see me at the end of last year.
I don’t know how the conversation started, but it began not long before he was due to leave. I sobbed and sobbed and let everything out. He delayed his departure, sitting and holding my hand for over an hour. He did looked shellshocked, I will admit. Fearful of the emotion, maybe? I thanked him repeatedly, apologised profusely for falling apart. He hugged me tightly and told me that he and his girlfriend have said to each other many times that they don’t know how I always seem so cheerful when they come. He was surprised that I hadn’t broken down before. He took it all. He sucked up his own misgivings and let me vent. And for that, I will always be grateful. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you cry. We don’t know how you hold it all in” he told me.
I, like many others, hold it all in because experience has told us that weak, selfish people who ask how you are, really just don’t want to know.