Reconnect

One of the most interesting things I have found when dealing with these conditions is how lonely and insecure you feel – as they say, you can be in the most crowded room in the history of the universe and still be alone (well it’s something like that anyway).   The times you are alone wanting someone to talk to but not wanting to bother them – “they have their own problems to worry about, they don’t need me whinging in their ear as well”. So you sit there alone, scrolling through your list of contacts on your phone, looking for that one person who you might call.

I find it fascinating how the mind works – so many friends say to call them if you need to talk but you are reluctant to do so because you don’t want to bother them or be a burden.  Help is there but we just can’t see it or accept it.

One of the most amazing things I have had happen to me since making it known I have the conditions is the reconnection with people who I haven’t seen or heard from in so long.  Yes people, your old friends are out there on Facebook watching you – they may not respond to anything you post but they are there.  When I went public with this stuff, I started to get messages on Facebook and even phone calls of support from people I thought forgot about me a long time ago.

These people probably don’t realise just how much this contact meant to me and how much I appreciated hearing from them. It showed that people do care and can show compassion and love when it is needed – I really do have a great bunch of friends – and many of them also suffer similar conditions. I am so pleased that me getting on here and speaking honestly about the crap I am going through is helping them see that they are not alone.

One particular incident really moved me.  Since 2011 I have been a partner in a business that developed stage shows and managed tours for performers. Recently my business partner and myself had a disagreement on some issues in the business and we decided to end the partnership with me taking over the business.  This event brought my masked conditions to the surface – they had been bubbling away under the facade for 10 years.= – and I lost all interest in continuing with it The thing I loved doing suddenly had no interest for me so I decided to pack it all in.  After-all, nobody had ever told me they liked what we did, how we did it or how creative and good at it we were.

So anyway, I went around the office and packed up all the papers, posters, books, files, etc and put them away in a cupboard – eventually to be thrown away. I just couldn’t be bothered walking out to the bin with most of the stuff.  As a last minute thing, I took a photo of the stuff in the cupboard and posted it on Facebook with a very simple comment, “And so it ends…”. I thought nothing of it really but the response I got was incredible, so many people saying not to end it, we were good at what we did, they enjoyed working with us and lots of other positive comments.  I was overwhelmed by the positivity and love that came from through the screen – I thank everyone who responded. It even got responses from people I never knew were watching…

So anyway, the key to this is there are friends and acquaintances out there you may not have heard from in a long time but they still care about you – try to reconnect with them in some way – talk about the old days, the trouble you got into as a kid, the sport you played together, the business deals you worked on – anything at all.  Remember with them the positive things you have done and the effect you have had on their lives and they have had on yours.  Then you will start to understand that you do make a difference and you do have worth – you just can’t see it when you are in the depths of depression.