Basically, I have been judged disabled due to my mental illness, however I won't be recieving any medical insurance or government aid for it until I go through a few more hoops.  This gives me relief that I'm on the right track as far as taking care of my health.  A disability pension will be an even bigger assurance that I can achieve stability in my life so I can have a better quality of living my life.  You have no idea how good it is to feel like finally people are listening to me and are taking me seriously.  That makes me feel a lot less like a loser and more like my problems aren't impossible to take care of after all.  It's one thing for me to complain about what I go through and far better to do something about it, and in my case the only way I can do something about things is with professional assistance.  There is nothing wrong with this.

So today I want to talk about how some friends of mine in the past misunderstood me when I vented to them about my problems.  Now, when I say "my problems" I'm referring to any obstacle in my life including, but not limited to, my mental problems.  Have you ever experienced a time when you've turned to someone you love and, after expressing your most heartbroken emotions to them, they turn to you after quietly listening to everything you've expressed and say something like, "I don't know why you're turning to me because I can't help you."  Yet they expect you to help them with any little emotional emergency they've had? 

I've realized that not everyone out there is emotionally equipped to handle someone in distress, let alone deal with their own emotional upheavals, however the best thing to do is to just be there for someone.  Of course you can't wave a magical wand to completely cure someone else's ills in one sweep, but providing moments of moral support during a crisis goes such a long way.  To say you can't help a friend out when they are down is a cop out.  Everyone has the ability to help someone, but when we request our friend's helpful attention it does not mean that they have to drop everything for us at our time of need.  Just a moment to hear a friendly voice telling us that they are there, that even if they are too busy yet still able to tell us briefly that they are keeping us in their thoughts and prayers can lift so much worry I'm surprised it doesn't move mountains!  But moral support can give us the motivation to get strong enough to juggle mountains.  A person who sits there long enough to listen to you and then tell you they can't help cuts that strength down.  When we hear a friend talking down on us like that, our burdens get heavier, and there's a loss of reassurance, a terrible feeling that we aren't as loved as we thought we were by someone we love.

I also know how it is to be on the other side of this situation.  You've just gotten home from work, your lover is yelling at you, kids are screaming, there's bills to be paid, and you're next Great American Novel is due at the publisher's tomorrow, so the last thing you want to do is get bothered about one more little thing.  Sometimes a friend in need calls at a bad time and you're just not willing to give anyone your ear, let alone advice.  To give moral support to someone else while you are lacking that very thing in your own life is like giving up strength you don't have.  The best thing is to be honest about how you feel and keep things brief with your friend.  Don't sit there and pretend to listen or listen and feel helpless.  If you're freaking about your own shit, let your pal know and you'll find that together you can provide each other with the strength you need to get through the next day.  If you can't do that, who knows when come your next crisis you'll have someone there to listen to you.  Telling a friend you're helpless in the face of their problems is like telling them they have too many problems for you to care about them at all.  Proving that you don't care, a friend will no longer rely on you for a shoulder to cry on and, in return, this means you will no longer recieve their support in the future.  A little caring goes a long way for yourself as well.

There needs to be a little forgiveness going on in friendships at times like these, too.  I can forgive a busy friend whom I have accidentally stepped on their last nerve, but it's another thing to hear that "I can't help you" comment every time I'm venting.  There are many times when I just need to talk and am not looking for assisstance.  Yet too often other people will assume I'm asking them to solve my problems for me.  Bitches, I know you aren't a professional!  But that's the beauty of me sharing you my shit.  You're a companion, someone walking with me in this thing called life, and of course we are going to shoot the shit to pass the time, right?  That's just the way it is.  If I need assisstance I will directly ask for it and, believe me, I don't like asking for that because I don't like shoving my burdens on people I love.  There are times when I'm more secure emotionally helping someone else out than being the vulnerable one who needs support.  I don't do that out of pride, I do that out of the fear of not being needed, that somehow my need will find me in moral deficit.  Yes, that's it; I want to be needed, not needy, if you get my drift.

I've also learned recently that friends of mine can get hurt when I don't share my burdens with them.  When later they find out that I've gone through a major crisis all on my own, they get upset and wonder why I didn't bother to even just tell them what was wrong.  Sure, they've got problems of their own, and they don't have the money or time to give me the assistance I needed, yet they deserved to know what was going on with me because, at the very least, they could've given me some strength.  I've got to remember that I'm not alone, yet too often I tell myself that this is my problem and I don't have the right to bug them because I was hurt by fair weather friends in the past who were too selfish to even blink an eye in my direction when it didn't serve their concerns.  I guess I have a lot to figure out yet about how to recognize and honor my true friends!