Some friends disappear…

It seems that everyone with MS has at some time experienced the loss of friends. They just evaporate, fade away. This does not relate only to casual friends, in fact some casual friends become closer. A close friend since our teen years was supportive of me for a decade, the last time I saw him was the first day he saw me in a wheelchair.

It does not seem to have anything to do with the MSr, but everything to do with the insecure friend who apparently cannot accept the sometimes brutal reality that is part of life. Rather than feel angry we need to pity them.

5 Comments

1. Hey, everyone experiences the loss of friends for various reasons. I’m sorry you feel that your “insecure friend who apparently cannot accept the sometimes brutal reality that is part of life” has disappeared. Perhaps your friend has other reasons and that it is not about you or your issues. Maybe your so-called insecure friend has had enough of listening to you whine.

   Comment by Ruth - April 7, 2008 @ 10:34 am

2. I am very fortunate, all my friends are still my friends whether I’m using my chair walker or crutches
   There are all kinds of people out there who are handicapped in their attitude to things that are not of the norm in our society. Their loss.

   Comment by Deb - April 7, 2008 @ 10:54 am

3. I think many people subconsiously think that it’s the end of a person once they are in a wheelchair. I KNOW they wouldn’t feel that way, if it was pointed out to them, but I truly do feel that’s how they feel. They delete that person from their subconscious list of friends.
   Carol

   Comment by Carik - April 7, 2008 @ 1:14 pm

4. Ruth,

   You have a point, whining is a great way to drive friends away, along with seeking pity and being very needy. Not the case here though, I am no whiner.

   People who cannot face their own mortality look at a disabled person and see the terrifying visage of themselves and run away. Have you never noticed how many people are even afraid to look a person in a wheelchair in the eye?

   Has anyone else experienced this?

   Comment by Jerry - April 7, 2008 @ 2:21 pm

5. When my disability became apparent,I lost contact with many so called “friends”. But true friends always stick by you and I’ve made new ones. People fear the unknown. Once friends see you haven’t changed, they stick around.

   Comment by Christine - April 9, 2008 @ 5:33 pm

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