One thing in my life that I'm blessed is friendship. However, I must say that fortunately I met the best friends that I'm having in my life when I was young and in school. If I had to start making new friends when I'm already an adult, out in the working world, and sick with depression and anxierty, I would have no friends at all, only acquaintances. Here are the reasons why.
The world of working is not like school. There are profits, benefits, power, and positions for people to grab. I learned the hard way that people have something behind their back although they maybe smiling to me. When we were young, we just study. Each person makes his or her own grade. It is very easy to make friends because nothing drive us to step on each other's head in order to win. Insincerity that I have experienced in my adult life somehow made me distrust people and I realize later that I have not made any new friends after I graduated from university.
I believe many other people have similar experience. They learn not to trust. So, it is not surprising that they do not trust me or they may have reasons to run away from me once they hear or see something about me that they find disturbing. The things they hear maybe true or not true, but people tend to avoid other people that they do not understand. Maybe it's a part of playing-it-safe strategy in this society. It could be possible too that the lack of trust in me brings out the lack of trust in other people. I don't blame them.
My mental illness also drives other away. I have mild social phobia that lurks its head from time to time and it is not surprising that people don't understand why I tend to withdraw myself from the community. And I don't know how to explain it to them. My anxiety makes me doubt their motives and many times little things people do, like an acting cold or ignoring or a few uncaring words, can make me feel hurt for days or even have bad dream.
Finally, I have to say that it hurts to trust. Although I learned a lot of hard lesson about people, but I'm still somehow gullible. I let myself get hurt again and again. There are moments, sometimes in my life, that I want to open up and talk about me, the real me, my real problems, to those who seem as though they are sincerely care and want to help. The latest incident was last month. There was this group of people that I saw sometimes but not close to. One day, all of a sudden, they acted caring toward me, asking me to tell them my problems, offering many advice and opinions. I trusted them and I opened up about my problems and my view of life (which is rather dark, of course). They seemed ok about it on that day. One month later, I met them again at the same place. Most of them just gave me a faint smile and then walked away. One of them evidently tried to avoid me. It hurts really badly. I felt stupid trusting and telling my problems to them. Maybe they are just curious about what is going on in the mind of this weird-looking person. Once they are satisfied, they have no reason to care about me anymore. Their coldness put me to tears today and made me unable to sleep tonight. I wish I had not trusted people so easily. This is another event that I should learn from.
Nevertheless, deep inside of me, I wish one day I could have a new friend, a real friend, just like the best of friends that I have since I was a youth. I know that people are not all bad. There are many good people out there. If I could make friends in my adult life, I would be so happy. Life would be more beautiful and I might have more courage to do something important about this life I'm living. Sadly...I really don't know what to do with my lack of trust and I really don't know who I should trust, except the old friends who have been with me through thick and thin for like 20 years. Maybe what I should put more effort on is to preserve their friendship because it worth much more than gold.
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