One thing I realized about who my real inner circle is. What i refer to as my inner circle are my real people who truly care about me and love me. They believe in me. They uplift me. They believe that I will be well again someday. There’s no doubt in their minds about this l. They don’t care what state I’m in mentally. Like they want to know that I’m ok but it doesn’t change the way the feel about AQ as a person or what she can accomplish. They are sometimes family but often they are close friends. Friends are the family we choose.
What i noticed is my inner circle has gotten smaller and smaller. I’m ok with that. It’s about quality and not quantity. But I noticed certain friends, who at one point were in my inner circle liked to be around me and congratulate me when I had achieved some type of success. When I was in the mountain top. But life has peaks and valleys. I found these same people when I was in the valley, struggling, in some kind of episode, unable to work as a result. All I heard from these people were crickets. In their defence I know some people can’t handle it when I’m not doing well. They don’t know what to say. I get that. But just say that! Don’t just stop communicating with me completely. Send me a text that says you’re praying for me.. send me a joke, send me pics or videos of dogs and horses (because I know that horses are really unicorns in disguise! Don’t let the secret out! Lol.. I’m only half joking though 😊). One of my friends who has a few kids said maybe this one person is super busy because she has a lot of kids. I totally get that. Kids keep you busy. But what I said to my friend that made this comment was.. did you have the time to speak to me for the last hour? She said no. Which I knew. (I kept asking her if she needed to go because I could tell she was busy with her kids) initially she started to say she had to go but then she said no it’s ok let me know what’s going on. She’s one of the friends I don’t call often so when I do she knows something is up plus there were lots of things she wanted updates on. So when I said to her did you have the time to speak with me just now for over an hour? She said no. And I said that’s the point. You have kids, you’re super busy.. but you made the time when there was none. That’s the difference. Then she understood what I was saying about my other friend.
One of my friends will just say “I listened to/read your message but I have absolutely no idea what to say. I respect that so much. My issues are so complicated no one can “fix” them. I don’t expect my friends to fix anything. But being able to acknowledge your limitations is huge. And being able to articulate that although you love me you’re out of your depth but you’re always here here for me even when you don’t know how to respond. I have so much respect for that!
Yes I have an amazing psychotherapist but she is new to me. So she’s been doing a lot of damage control. Trying to figure out who AQ is and put out all these little fires first. it seems when things go wrong with me it’s not just 1 thing it’s like 97 different things at the same time. I get incredibly stressed and overwhelmed. My therapist was like try to focus on what you DO have control over. That way you won’t be so overwhelmed. It’s fine to be angry about how your agency screwed your over but if that’s where you put all of your focus and attention you’ll get even more mad and nothing will get accomplished. You’ll feel more stressed and overwhelmed. So helpful.
Let’s just say someone was helping me put a case together and I had grounds to make a human rights claim. But the process of putting a case together is so incredibly stressful. So much so that I’ve been breaking out into hives. Stuttering (which I never have before). The person who was helping me was concerned because he’s helped others put cases together and they had no mental illness. Some still had breakdowns as a result. My family was very concerned. I was struggling with depression and a billion other things. They were like you’re on sick leave you should be resting! But I was like I have to fight this! This is an injustice and it’s really messed me up in a lot of ways” in the end I realized it was literally (and figuratively) making me sick. But I’m glad I at least tried. So many things in the past I did not report, did not advocate for myself. So this was very important to me. I’m totally disgusted with the agency not just from this incident but in general there were a whole bunch of issues. I had made my mind up to leave a year and a half before but I was so burnt out from the very job I wanted to leave, I just didn’t have the energy to do a job search. That’s like another job in itself. So Many people around me are disgusted by the agency. The consensus is that this is an agency that prides itself on advocating for people with mental illness and teaching other agencies about the importance about workplace accommodations and work life balance.. stress management. This is how they treat an employee that has a mental illness??. Fuck them.. and their mothers and I hope they get mauled by wild, rabid, syphilis infected racoons. Did I mention I’m angry af and also incredibly irritable? Because I am! No I don’t plan to hurt anyone depression is anger turned inward. That’s been more of my problem. Plus if I hurt someone verbally I’m just hurting myself. I’ll just let the racoons do it lol.
Anyway this took a turn but that’s ok. Just blame it on the “crazy” it must be useful for something lol. But I feel much better now because I let go of the legal stuff and I’m focusing on my recovery right now. What a weight off my shoulders.
Anyhoo what I started to say is I have an amazing inner circle who supports me and holds hope for me when I don’t have it myself. FYI not having an ounce of hope is a horrible place to be.. I do have some hope now though.
I say all this to say that it’s so easy to celebrate with someone when they’re on the top.. but where are you when they are struggling? My people are amazing. They’ve been incredibly loyal and consistent through the struggle parts. So when they celebrate with me it’s even more special because they were there with me in the valley and they know how far I’ve come. Amazing!
I am so blessed! So grateful and thankful to the amazing, phenomenal, compassionate, empathetic, hilarious, understanding, supportive, loyal, patient and caring people in my life. Wow some people don’t have one person like that and I have several?!?! So humbling. If that isn’t God I don’t know what is. I don’t mean that in a religious way. Some people came as a big surprise. They love me so much and I didn’t even know!
Have a wonderful weekend my lovelies. Be grateful for the amazing people in your life. Even if it’s just one person you are blessed!
Peace & Blessings,
AQ
Just Mai 2 Cents 