I realised today that my best friends all have mental health problems. Two have bipolar, one of which just got out of hospital. The other one has anxiety and her daughter has BPD, so she’s all too familiar with mental illness.
I get really anxious around normies (for want of a better word). Being around them wears me out. I don’t know anyone else to talk to with sz, but would like that.
Anyone else find it hard to be friends with normies? I have a couple of normie mates but just don’t feel as relaxed around them, like I have to keep up a facade.
Lots of “Normies” or as some would call them neurotypicals, are arrogant. There are a few who show compassion but from my frame of reference such compassion is in most cases not long lived.
I prefer to be in the company of someone who had a severe struggle with MI and who have gained some insight into their illness.
What I find hard is dealing with them for sustained periods having to be ‘on’ constantly. Some are arrogant, but a lot of them just can’t understand I think.
I also prefer the company of other people who’ve struggled with MI, even if we don’t talk about it, conversation is just easier and more relaxed. I think there’s less pretence.
I have work friends, but none of them know about my MI. I do feel extra sad sometimes on bad days, because I have to hide that I’m struggling. I feel like I’m keeping a big secret and that they’d think differently of me if they knew I was sick.
I just remember telling my best friend, and then within a few months i was a pariah. Five years later still the same as I cannot break the cycle of being alone.
I tried a group yesterday discussing anxiety. In the break I had to leave. Didn’t go so well. If I cannot even communicate with others with relatable issues, I am pretty screwed. I don’t feel I can go back.
This is something I have to do also. It really annoys me as people with physical illness are able to freely talk about their problems, yet because of MI it’s taboo. My manager knows, but she cannot even bring herself to say the word Schizophrenia. She is also my aunt…
My problems with normies include the fact that along with schizophrenia I am also unable to drive, and was unwilling to have kids. So on a normie level there is little I share with them in common.
I find it hard to be friends with the MI too. My friend is Sza and she’s absolutely impossible to deal with. She’s always either irritable because of either her depression or her mania. And on top of that she never feels good because she suffers from migraines due to the stress of her gargantuan financial problems brought on by her manic spending sprees.