| "All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit < in a quiet room alone." Blaise Pascal |
People Make Me Lonely.
I've always believed strongly, though can't say for certain when or why this became part of my belief system, but I do and have for eons, that "you can be in a room crowded with friends, and still feel lonely and alone." And this has been so very true in my walk through life. At one time, I could not go anywhere, even the supermarket, and not feel sure that people were staring at or talking about me. And it wasn't an egocentric thing, it was the dread of standing out, or being different to the crowd, and over time it became almost paranoia, and if I was having bouts of hearing audible voices no one else could, hallucinatory activity, this dread would take on a living nightmare as I heard laughter and mocking and taunting, that at the time seemed real, but was manifested by my own brain. But moving on, and before I completely lose where I was going. People make me lonely. It's been a long road to that discovery over the last three and a quarter years, and more noticeably two and a bit years. When ones life is falling apart, you don't want others to be in the same boat you are, but you don't want your nose rubbing in by their tactless flaunting and insensitivity to your overwhelming losses in life which most will take for granted of never losing. When I first was ill, I was a raging bull a lot of the time, taking smacks at people who didn't deserve it, and yet feeling helpless to not be silently raging when loss after loss incurred and medically, emotionally and in any way that mattered felt no one could understand or be a friend to me in such a time of grief and loss. I even wondered for a long time, if my two closest companions both before the illness and still after it developed, stayed out of pity, and not because they cared about me any more, or out of love. And they took smack after smack which in part may have been trying to drive them away, so that if they did go, I would have some control over it, and not be a helpless bystander as they went. Until one day one of them told me I'd made them gun-shy to say anything to do with my situation. Those words stopped me dead in my tracks and pierced my heart. And time has rebuilt something that could have been lost or ruined by my anger at life and taking it out of those who stayed and stuck by me regardless of how angry I was. And yet, in many instances in life, and with other people who think they aid, comfort and console me in some way, they don't. They actually help to make me lonely, the more they are around. I am no longer so raw to the circumstances of my life, that every little thing feels like a knife, but its more than a little annoying when people may spend 30-60 minutes every week or two with you, and they come in, make a completely false assertion based on their very limited and often unrealistic observations, and then deem to offer you advice or tell you what they think you should do, and will think badly of you if you don't, based on these unrealistic observations. Some times, during highly charged emotional times, when things have once again gone from bad to worse, they can immediately reduce me to a sniveling wreck, as soon as the words leave their mouths. And I'm not and never have been the kind of person who cries or sheds tears with other people around. My weeping has almost always been done alone. But yes, people make me lonely, in these instances, as it feels like fools rushing in where angels fear to tread. And when it comes from people who are living rich, healthy, fulfilled lives, who can do anything they please within normal limitations, you want to scream at the injustice of how there crass advice and well-intended yet ill thought out diatribe is a case of "don't do as I do, as I tell you". And "oh if I could walk a mile in your shoes, but I'll never have to, so will tell you what I think based on a purely ignorant opinion." Yes, people make me lonely. Those wounds can go deep when our own lives are falling apart and we are just holding on by a thread from day to day. Unfair expectations is another thing. They think you say you can't do something, with some other motive besides you are not actually able to physically do it right then, or you will put your already fragile health at greater risk. It's as if, ones illness exists to just make a perfect excuse to not do something that others would like us to do. A "no I'm sorry I can't," is not well received and often not heard, or a pause and then the question rephrased in another different, more vague way. And you end up trying to not sound as irritated as one feels, and say, "you're not listening, I can't right now." Which completely throws them, when they are so used to you being compliant to their wishes, and after a few seconds of composing their thoughts, they say "ok," but you know its only a resting point, and the subject will be bought up, more forcefully in the next day or two. And you want to scream, just for some peace and quiet. Whereas alone, you will feel less lonely than in this kind of well-intended but misguided company. When alone, and when my health is only at its normal dreadful levels, rather than terrible dreadful, I am fulfilled, in doing the things I enjoy and communing with people I enjoy and who we mutually give to each other different things in the relationships, and no unfair demands or expectations, or assertions based on things they can't possibly know. A good book, which offers reassurance and shows the love of Jesus, plainly is often better than an hour with one of these misguided often off the mark, "good friends" formerly mentioned. So yes, people make me lonely. Or the wrong types of people do, and yet some of these people were amongst those who I thought we would share the closeness and affinity we did previously till we were no longer both alive. But when you know you are accepting the changes that have taken place in ones life, and accepting is part of adapting to it, you can find ways to enjoy life that one would have thought silly, vain and just plain boring before. The small things in life are the things that mean most. The big things, they no longer matter because they are no longer part of the equation of your life any more. But when you are on the way to accepting the changes, even knowing how far into the grave each worsening can seem to take one, and yet those around you who expect to be given the same rights as friends as they've always had, and they won't accept it, and just make life so much more difficult, by unfair expectations, misguided judgments based on unrealistic assertions, and are totally oblivious as to why you are so curt with them, and in conflict about being in situations which involves letting these friends have a large access to your lives, and if they assume to have some authority perhaps by their standing in the community, job, position etc, and still make the demands that because of their jobs, position, s etc, to say no, risks you all kinds of unfair come backs because of saying no to them, then you realize that aloneness is better than being around people who ultimately, make you feel dreadfully lonely. As aloneness can be fulfilling in what one achieves during it. Being lonely, to the point of it being like a deep festering sore, because you know the cause of it lays at others doors, and there continued interference in things they don't and can't understand, is not fulfilling, and is none-productive, and can only serve to tear a once cherished relationship asunder. When I heard the words of my friend, that I'd "made them gun-shy" my heart was pierced with grief and sorrow, and a longing to put it right, which over time has been done. When I see the syndrome of words without action, except misguided actions based on their ignorant opinion of reality, and just making an already bad situation at times seem unbearable, I long for solitude, to be away from careless hands and the affects that careless words has, especially when there is no sense of what they are doing to this once cherished friendship, So, I pick up my gun to not make them gun shy, but to blow the relationship apart, as to not do so, encroaches on and risks my sanity, by the sheer tactless, and what are hurtful words when living with the reality, and the fact that as long as I stay in the friendship/relationship, I will feel lonely. To remove myself from it, and to be alone is more fulfilling and ultimately less painful.
DISCLAIMER: I look NOTHING like Biggles!! 
