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The Passage Of Friendships


I am one of those people who always seems to never be able to keep friendships. I have very few friends that I’ve known for more than 5 years, and that’s pushing it. I’m no longer in contact with anyone that was in my friendship group at primary school, or secondary school, and I have kept exactly one friend from sixth form. Even when it come to university, which I left less than two years ago, I am only in regular contact with one person. I spent a lot of time wondering why this was when I was younger – am I inherently unlikable? Was I only friends with these people because of proximity, rather than any real connection? Does everyone secretly hate me? (That one pops up a lot).

I think I’ve finally come up with an answer.

I struggle with debilitating mental illness, and one part of that which quite heavily affects my life is how it changes my perception of time. While initially that doesn’t sound like it would be a huge problem, the issue is that it strongly affects how often and well I communicate with others, because a few months or even a couple of years can feel like a pretty short time to me.

This leads to instances like people getting frustrated because they feel as I don’t care about them, since they are always the ones to initiate a conversation, even if it’s been months. It’s almost like I don’t have the ability to miss people, not because I don't care, but because time doesn't pass the same way in my head as in the real world. I just never feel like I’ve had enough time to miss someone, and even when I finally do miss people, I am then convinced it's been too long and they no longer wish to speak to me, because if they did surely they would have contacted me since it had apparently been so long. It can be difficult for me to believe that anyone would want to be friends with me at the best of times, so coming back from a long silence is especially difficult as my illness is doing its very best to convince me I'm not worthy of companionship and that this type of incident just proves that. 

I am lucky. I do have friends, I have people who are willing to put the effort in for me even when I struggle. I am grateful beyond belief to the people who have stuck with me despite my frustrating lack of proper communication. I often wonder what my life would be like had I managed to stay in touch with other people too.

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