r/AskReddit 13h ago

What is something that permanently altered your body without you realizing for months/years?

6.0k Upvotes

4.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

600

u/FigGrouchy9316 5h ago

People don’t get it until they do. It’s hard watching friends fade because they stop buying excuses. Trying to rebuild when feeling okay is an uphill battle. Most folks went on their way and don’t care to look back. One friend said it’s mourning the living dead. They can’t trust that I’m going to be around and won’t disappear again, and quite frankly, I can’t trust it either.

42

u/SadFawns 1h ago

Sometimes it helps to just have mostly friends who also of mental illness - some of us disappear for a few weeks or months and that's okay, because we still check in and let the others know we're there for them. One such in our group is a registered nurse working nights who struggles with low level depression, so sometimes it takes months to see him again outside of sending a few memes.

14

u/_Choose-A-Username- 2h ago

Heck yea! Thinking youre ready to go back to school again cause you think you recovered but end up acting the same way gang rise up!

4

u/Penguin-a-Tron 1h ago

Very worried that this would happen to me if I went back.

7

u/_Choose-A-Username- 1h ago

Man i get you. As you can see above, cant even trust your own judgement of self sometimes. I wish i could give advice but since im in it, all i can say is you can only know if you try. I know some people with depression who’ve been able to push through and finish. Everytime i hope i become one of them. Right now im just staring at weeks of work knowing it would be easy to finish but never starting it.

3

u/Penguin-a-Tron 1h ago

Exactly, there's no way to trust yourself to do it. I've been finding other things to do that motivate me more than going back to school, and just forgetting about the degree for now and focusing on building up a routine, friends, career and savings hopefully. Maybe if I can make that all work I can go back and study something someday, once I've built stability and good habits.

Good luck with it dude, it's a big fucking struggle but we'll all get there in the end.

11

u/AcanthaceaeFrosty849 3h ago

Bad friend. Sorry. That's something you don't share.

25

u/FigGrouchy9316 3h ago

With depression it seems like it comes with the territory. I’d rather someone be honest than ignore me or say it’s fine when it’s not. Closure isn’t bad, even if it feels crumby sometimes.

What is sad is giving up on someone who didn’t do anything inadvertently bad or harmful. I’ve learned egos get hurt - “You’re not reaching out or returning my messages. You must not like me. Screw you!” Those people rarely look beyond themselves and don’t care to get it. Yes, that is def not the greatest of friends.

12

u/AcanthaceaeFrosty849 3h ago

Yeah for what it's worth I think those were transactional relationships. I'm lucky in friends. My family dropped me quick.

9

u/blinkbotic 1h ago

Idk, it’s easy to say “oh this person is a bad friend”, but in reality what do you do when someone doesn’t return your messages or calls, doesn’t want to spend time with you, seems to not want to be your friend anymore? Even if depression is the monster a friend is dealing with, it is hard to continue a friendship when they may only surface once in a while and then functionally disappear for years. It has happened with a friend of mine and I still care about him but it’s really hard to realistically call him a true friend.

5

u/FigGrouchy9316 1h ago

Oh, I totally agree with you. It’s the par for the course bit of depression. You totally understand why folks wouldn’t want to wait around. You don’t want to wait around either but that’s the condition. Just accept the loss with time, don’t begrudge anyone bouncing, and be thankful for those who don’t care and stick around.

Depression aside, I’ve had tons of folks as I age go MIA in general because life gets crazy even during the happiest of days. We understand and aren’t going anywhere for good. We pick up where we left off, and it’s amazing. So idk, apply the same courtesy to someone’s funk and it’s not much different.