I’ve come to realize as someone who deals with an “invisible illness” people are afraid to be friends with me, and some people aren’t even interested in it, to begin with. Let’s face it, we can be a handful. We get that. Believe me, we do, but I’ve learned to stop apologizing for it. Instead, I just stay thankful for the friends I do have, especially the ones that have stuck through the ups and downs of this roller coaster ride that is my life. Here are a few reasons you SHOULD most definitely be friends with those with a mental illness.
1. We are great, great listeners.
Often time’s people like to vent. They like to express their feelings and emotions and for some reason, that’s viewed as taboo in well over a dozen situations. Mostly because people don’t want to hear about your problems because there are so many more important events taking place throughout the world. People tend to mitigate other people’s problems and say “Well you don’t have it as bad as the people in another country!” It makes them feel bad for feeling bad about what they already feel bad about, isn’t that bad? We know what it’s like to worry and be anxious about literally everything, so we won’t judge you for any of the stuff you need to talk about. We’ll be there and supportive and we’ll empathize with you.
2. We won’t judge you for anything
I mentioned it briefly in the first reason, but I mean that from the absolute bottom of my heart. You’re going to mess up and everyone does at some point. We won’t put you down for it because we always feel like we’ve messed up. People come and go and we’re almost always blaming ourselves and wondering what we did to mess up, so we will not judge you or your decisions.
3. We know when to keep our mouths shut
This has two different meanings. The first, and most obvious, one is we can keep secrets. We’re really good at hiding our own so we will hold onto your secrets. Honestly, the majority of us will treat your secrets so much better than our own. Your secrets are so valuable to you and you’re so valuable to us. You can trust us with any information and as soon as you tell us we immediately lock it up inside and that’s that. The second meaning comes into play during discussions. Let me elaborate. We know that everyone needs to talk about their lives, and we know how frustrating it is to not be able to. We understand that when people vent that don’t necessarily always want a solution, they just want to be heard. People often try to fix other people’s problems when in all reality not everyone wants a solution.
4. You will always feel appreciated and needed
This is honestly a double-edged sword for us. On one hand we love letting people know what our close friends mean to us, but on the other hand, we hate feeling clingy and needy because it pushes everyone away. We do our absolute best to not be clingy and only let you know what you mean to us. We know that we need space every once in a while, so we understand that you need yours.
5. We will go out of our way to make you smile and feel okay
We know what it’s like to lose the ability to smile. We know how much it can hurt to lose that part of us but we won’t give up on trying. Making you smile, makes us smile. It’s okay to not be okay, especially around us. We’ll do our absolute best to bring out the sun when you’re weathering out the storm.
6. We are all about fighting your demons
This one might be a hard pill to swallow because most people know that people who struggle with mental illnesses have their own demons to fight, so why would we want to spend more time fighting them? The answer to that is we have a lot of experience coping with them, and people that don’t, might not know how to fight back. We’re really good at standing beside people when they feel like they’ve hit rock bottom. We know what it’s like to have to face the hardships alone and we want to make sure you know that you don’t have to.
7. You will be loved unconditionally and eternally
We love everyone who stands by us. We love making them feel wanted and we love having them. You make life worth living to us, so we want to make sure that you know you have such a special place in our hearts. We’d travel endlessly to make sure you’re okay and we’d spend days trying to make you feel as loved as possible.
