Animus hit button

My animus hit a sore spot with me today.  Lonliness is one of the worst side effects of prolonged illness.

I was a practicing alcoholic for a while when my children were growing up.  My daughter has never forgiven me, though I have been sober sixteen years now, and a lot of her childhood was great...we often only remember the negative in life.  My son has been affected more by the suicide attempts of this illness over sixteen years ago.  He has become silent and secretive with me.  This is a horrible lonliness.  I wanted children so badly when I was young and this illness destroyed my dream.  I hardly hear from them, and my daughter is hateful.

I had a car accident in 2001 and that set off a relapse of the p/sz.  Because of the sudden craziness I lost two of my dearest friends.  Both were my friends for over ten years...more like sisters than my own.  When I am ill I become needy and that drove them away.  I don't blame them, though often I think they weren't such great friends when they could just walk away from such  a longtime friendship because of my illness.  Where was the compassion and understanding of friendship?

I have begun to understand that there is no such thing as my definition of friendship.  How I am  I cannot expect others to be.  I am a grateful and loyal person.  I praise and build others esteem up.  I am always there when needed.  I have very high expectations of what kind of friend I am.  In fact, I help too much!  That is not always good.  I set people up.

One of the questions that I have learned to ASK MYSELF IS: Just WHO are you dealing with?  One of the friends had relapsed and was smoking pot and drinking again.  The other friend was married to a real son of a @#$%^ and had her own problems.  Plus, he wanted to keep her isolated...afraid of losing her.

No one is healthy in this world.  I AM lonely.  I am ill with various problems that people judge very harshly.  I can't hide these illness's.  I certainly WOULD if I could!

The real question is what do I expect?  Can anyone meet MY expectations?  What are the lies I tell myself?

The bottom line is that I don't have the energy to go out into the world to meet people any more.  AA was one of my outlets, but I am no longer considered sober because I must take narcotics for the pain of the nerve damage.  That door is closed.

I am now 54 years old and p/sz has ruined my life.  I am not whining, but it is the bare obvious TRUTH.  Life is life.  I can't lie when the circumstances glare it like a neon sign.  I am NOT lucky to have this disease.  I resent it, but I accept it.  I have no choice.

Lonliness is not the worst thing in this life.  Failure is.

Thanks for reading

Love

Dellea