YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Hello, I'm hoping someone who has chronic health/mental health issues can give me some advice. I live a plane or ferry ride away from my best friend. I can fly to her city in an hour, or drive/ferry over in 4 hours. 3 years ago we met up "half way" where I drove for 2 hours and she took a ferry for 2 hours. That's the last time I've seen her.

She has both physical and mental health problems that can come up unexpectedly. This makes planning a visit very hard. We've been trying since May to get together, but she feels she can't plan anything because of these unpredictable issues. I've said Let me know when you're having a good week, I'll book something and take my chances, but it's never going well enough for her to want me to. I know she's not avoiding me, that is truly not the issue here. She has mentioned that sometimes she thinks the excitement of getting together can bring on dizziness or anxiety or whathaveyou.

So, okay, all good, I can support that. What is difficult is getting a text from her, "I'm in *sometown*, came along with my husband on his business trip", or when I phoned her Christmas morning and she was tired because she'd been out for dinner the last 4 nights in a row. I get so mad and so hurt. Why can't she rally for me?

I don't know what to do with these feelings, and I feel like if I say something I will hurt her, but I feel myself pulling away because I'm not saying anything.
What do you think? What do you suggest?
Thanks,
Heather

I feel so bad that you feel discounted by your friend. You don't deserve that.

If I were you, I would fly to her city by the 1 hour flight, one last time, to try to "reset" the relationship.

But with the possibility in mind that she is just not committed to this relationship in the right way.

Please take care of yourself, your friend is under the burden of chronic health/mental health issues, but you deserve peace of mind too, and you deserve to feel valued in the right way.

Please use this little forum as a resource, please keep the lines of communication open.

All the best

Thank you for confirming that I have a right to some expectations in this relationship, despite my friend's challenges. I think I'll start by just letting her know how I feel and see how she responds. You're not the first person to tell me I should just fly in, but having it come from someone here, who I know is reflective and sensitive, means more.
Thank you for listening!
Heather

Hey just wanted to update on the outcome of this. We got together last month after 3.5 years of not seeing each other. I guess I've changed since then because I noticed massive boundary issues! When I would ask her to please stop, I'm not comfortable, she would just laugh and continue. I finally got angry, and then she was hurt that I would talk to her that way (not yelling or belittling, but a bit of ranting I will admit). When we tried to talk it out she essentially said my needs were silly. When I talked to someone at work they asked if this was a pattern and I was shocked that I hadn't noticed it all these years. So, I asked for time apart and that's where it still stands. I'm not sure the friendship is worth saving.
Heather

I am so glad you were loving to yourself in setting up self-respectful boundaries for yourself. That makes me so happy for you.

Agreed.

You used your words. Well done.

Hello Heather,

(Just a few comments from a fellow traveler, feel free to ignore.....).

I guess seeing your friend face to face made some of this dynamic more obvious?

Don't know about the history or emotional importance of the friendship, but maybe a "re-calibration" is needed. (Actually what appears to have happened when you met. Wonder what each of you got out of the relationship over the years.... thought you got, and actually got....)

Maybe a handwritten letter to her might help?
Just an idea....

I've had to cut off a friendship or two over the years when I felt the relationship becoming a drag, and they didn't want to move forward. (relates to the fundamentalist group experience I had from many years ago....

SD

The stumbling block for me is her dismissing my needs. If she said I don't understand but I will try, that would have been different.
Heather

Dismissing your needs
Now?... After years of friendship?
What the hell is that??

(Sorry, but the haiku just popped out...)