Tend and Befriend

I had several friends call me this week to check up on me Somehow, I found that I was much more interested in reaching out to talk about their difficulties than my own. They all said things along the lines of "Oh, but your having such a hard time, you don't want to hear about me." But I did. I found that the mutual whining really helped.

I told one friend, "I'm all out of faith in me and this treatment, so I'll borrow yours. In return you can borrow my faith in the fact that you're terrific at what you do and you'll be okay."

I got off the phone and, far from feeling more burdened, I felt lighter, calmer. One of the problems with chronic illness is the tendency to become isolated. If there's one thing I've learned in my protracted dealings with this leviathan is that I can't deal with it alone.

I've suggested to other people suffering from chronic diseases that they need to get a support network of some kind. Even one online counts. There's a curious resistance to it. Perhaps it comes from our culture's value on individualism or something, but I always hear "I don't want to sit around and hear other people whine" Yeah, but then you'll get a free pass to whine! And then, because its reciprocal, it stops being whining and turns into stress relief.

A caveat to this, is the person who whines but doesn't give you the chance to whine back. This is at best rude and at worst destructive.