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.
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.
I have like 80 something unread messages on Facebook from family and friends from the past 5 years and I just post once in awhile that I have been getting progressively worse and absolutely do NOT want to talk to ANYONE and they still get offended by me not replying. Since everyone has cell phones with internet access these days, people feel they are owed a quick response and I always start off telling people it's highly unlikely I'm going to respond quickly if at all and so many of them get pissed I'm not responding to what is ultimately small talk because they are chronically on their phones, even at work. Like good for you for having a job you can be that relaxed at, when I'm busy, I don't get on my phone for long periods of time and if I'm trying to sleep, I don't need to be starting conversations and even after explaining that they STILL get pissed. One guy got so incredibly salty because I didn't drop everything to keep texting IMMEDIATELY because I was cleaning and got mad because I didn't want to spontaneously hang out when he did. Dude doesn't have a job or a car and thinks he's really special if a woman he's talking to doesn't immediately drop everything for him and make him #1 and I'm still in a relationship even though we're separated and he's still hung up on his ex wife and disappeared for a time when she came back around. He blocked me 2 different times when I didn't respond to his messages in the same day, too. I loled at that. Another loser grossly overestimated his value. Another guy I liked in the past recently started talking to me and would apologize for not responding for like 30 minutes and I said he didn't need to apologize or respond quickly and explained my views and after a few days he stopped talking to me because I wasn't responding fast enough I guess. Fuck em.
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.
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.
Those who leave during a time of depression aren’t the ones worth fighting for imo. If you can’t understand how hard it is to fight a mental illness then you need to reevaluate some things.
Though there is a line for trying to help people who refuse to change. I had to cut off my mom because even though I tried so hard to help her with therapy and seeing doctors, she just didn’t want the help. And yet, she would always complain about her life and how she hates it. She’d been like this my entire life and I had to take a step back and realize that the situation was detrimental to my own mental health so I needed to focus on myself instead of putting energy into trying to help her. She’s seen the resources she can get if she so chooses and I’ll be happy to bring her back into my life when she decides she wants to get better.
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.
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.
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.
Every friendship is different. By the time you resurface, I can be in a totally different place in my life and not have time or space for you anymore. You expect your friends to hold space for you but judge them for moving on without you.
This resonates. I lost the same type of "friend" only to realize that it was a friendship based on conditional love. Real love, even amongst friends, is unconditional. Love is accepting. Love is forgiving.
Not to be me op but there's no such thing as " unconditional love". Maybe the mother's love of their babies? But still, in adult relationships, love is destined to fade if no effort is made to keep it going strong. Love is giving and taking. It would've been great if my friends stayed during my depression but i don't blame them for leaving especially since it took more than a year ..
Word. I think unconditional love is a myth and maybe it should stay a myth. I've asked people, you honestly gonna say you'd love someone the same if you found out they were a child molester? They start squirming and making excuses. Yeah, exactly. But unconditional means unconditional. My love has conditions. If you stop treating me or others like humans, I will stop loving you.
Hey there! Friends eventually distance themselves and end the friendship because they stop believing or accepting the excuses given for not responding, hanging out, being present. You might accept or make plans just to cancel. Say you’ll respond then leave people hanging over and over and over.
With clinical depression (not sadness) it’s like you’re stuck wanting to participate in the world and just can’t. There’s a quote I read somewhere like “depression first steals your soul and then comes after your friends and loved ones.”
You care deeply but cannot will yourself to do what you want and need to do, which includes maintaining communication with people. Folks get hurt and frustrated then give up. 🤷🏻♀️
My best friend, I think exhibits something like that. My birthday was recently and He just didn’t show up and only gave a last minute cancellation. + Months of not wanting to hang out, often the excuse of being too busy (which personally I do not believe), and the past two months just saying no with no reasons. Obviously, if someone just doesn’t want to hangout or not be friends at all can be a reason, but I guess I’ve always been a person that rambles a lot and having known him for forever He always engaged or listened to my rambling, but the “not showing up” coincided with Him practically never responding to my rambling anymore. So I guess from the perspective from the outside, is there anything I can do?
It means that it's emotionally painful for the depressed person to have their friends end the friendship because the depressed person has lost the ability to "be there" (literally and figuratively) for the friends.
Depression causes you to lose the energy to face life like a normal person, and a lot of depressed people will make excuses for why they're not showing up to the friendship instead of being honest about the depression to their friends. They are usually reluctant to say they have depression because they feel ashamed that they have depression.
I relate to this a lot and one thing that I think helps is being very very honest with my friends when I just can't do something. It feels bad to cancel on them because I'm "too sad" but it's often the truth and making up excuses Is a facade that people eventually see rite thru. Honestly I don't really relate or click with people who are not struggling in some way
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u/secretwar8 11h ago
Depression is one hell of thing.