this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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To be fair, I'd understand if someone don't want to be close friends with someone with depression. In my worst days (depression and other stuff on top of it), I don't want to be in the company of anyone either. It would be very taxing to someone wanting to be close friends with me, so yeah, I'd understand why they'd just opt out of it and stay away.
That's fair, hurtful but fair. I've found that I tend to become frustrated or ashamed due to my lack of ability to help. Certainly completely blaming oneself isn't ideal, and yet the personal investment gets me all sentimental :/
I'll reach out and invite them and try to have talks in depth, there's only so much one can do given the circumstances and I operate in the grey area of 'not knowing where' to justify the extent of my involvement. This isn't well received by others, rightfully so, and though they'll admit I mean well how amenable is someone to someone else who they've known only for a bit to their excessive interest in themselves? I try to focus on providing bits of information as that is closer to being evidence-based rather than rhetoric to persuade them but it doesn't seem to work and I'm a bit clueless on how to continue. Working with orgs makes it much easier, I don't like the depersonalized approach and would like to find some way to incorporate it.
Indeed. It's really sad how it happens: someone's depressed and is either too sad or irritated to be able to, or want to deal with anyone, which pushes people around them away—people who are in the best position to help them. Worse, while the depressed person can do something about it, the depression makes it hard to do anything about it! The path of least resistance is just to let people be repulsed. However, the path of least resistance leads downhill.
Divining the forces of depression (and in my case, the vagaries of bipolar disorder) is already taxing enough for myself, let alone for anyone around me who has no idea what's going on in my mind. Hence, I understand why someone would give up on me. It's not their fault, and I understand that. There's only so much people around me can do, and if my condition lightens up, it's on me to reach out, let people know that I'm better at the moment. And if I can, alert people whenever things are turning for the worse.
Having said all that, I'm not sure I understand what you meant by the latter part of your 2nd paragraph.
Reading over it I also kinda don't know. I was rambling more or less.
I think I was trying to say I have issues connecting with people who have struggles of their own because they way I try to connect. When it's done personally by myself it doesn't work as well compared to doing the same through an organization. Like if you go to a food bank vs going to someone's house you know for food. I could drop off the food at the food bank and the person who is struggling could take it and not feel as ashamed because it is depersonalized (no one single face to attribute). Whereas coming to my home to get the food directly would be perhaps more shameful or difficult since there is someone (i.e. myself) who can direct focused judgement upon them.
I hope this didn't make it more confusing. I might cut my losses and try not to explain it more before I get even more confused.
I think I get it, the gist of it anyways. I understood it as faring better in a more formal, but still being a social setting, e.g.: a mountaineering club meeting once a week, and occasionally goes up on group hikes. It's way easier to connect with someone in that situation, since there's already some common ground to stand on. It is a lot easier compared to trying to connect with a neighbor you know next to nothing about, much less a common ground.
Yeah. I want to say that everyone has enough in common to get along and be friends but that doesn't seem to be the case in practice :/
And even if we do have things in common, unfortunately, at times it is not enough to build a friendship on.