MY FRIEND SUPPORTS MY BUSINESS, BUT DISREGARDS MY PERSONAL BOUNDARIES. NOW WHAT?

Throughout the entire run of this blog’s life, which is only a year, I’ve been writing a lot about friendships and the effects they can have on you and your mental health. Just like with everything I do on this blog, I tell you all about it through my own personal experience. Today, it’s no different. Friendship is a very complicated matter. You meet people in your life that seem great, and they end up being just that for a period of time. That period of time can last several months or several years. It all depends on the two people in the friendship itself. Life constantly moves forward, and with that, we all change as people. That change can either be a positive change or a negative change. OR it can be that one person in the friendship changes, but the other doesn’t.

Then there are those friendships that you feel as though you’re stuck in because your significant other is friends with them, but you feel like you have nothing in common with them anymore or you never did feel like you had anything in common with them in the first place, you’ve outgrown them, or you just don’t like them at all. All in all, there are a lot of reasons why friendships end. Back in May, I wrote a blog post chronicling THE TOP 5 EASONS WHY FRIENDSHIPS END, and in July, I wrote a blog post analyzing the 5 QUESTIONS EVERY WOMAN SHOULD ASK HERSELF ABOUT HER FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS. It’s definitely a lot to process. No matter the case, however, there’s no shame, or at least there shouldn’t be any shame, in saying to yourself that a certain person in your life isn’t good for you anymore. There’s no shame in putting yourself first by putting foot down and actually end the friendship no matter how long you’ve known the person, no matter how close you were to that person, and no matter how much you’ll miss them.

I had to put my foot down just recently, and I don’t give a f*ck if anyone thinks I overreacted or if anyone thinks my reasoning wasn’t good enough. The fact of the matter is – I wasn’t feeling good about that specific friendship anymore. I felt disrespected and belittled by that person multiple times, and even though I told him that after each time, that person continued on doing it regardless. I had a talk with my husband about the matter, and all he had to say was that it wasn’t done for gossiping purposes, but rather educational purposes. Here’s the thing though: I don’t care what purposes it’s done for. If I ask for something not to be done, I expect it it to be listened to and for it not to be done. Period.

I guess I should explain the backstory a little bit for you to understand where I’m coming from, which I will in full – from the very beginning, starting from three and a half years ago to just a couple of weeks ago. This particular person will most likely see the post and will know that it’s about them, and hey, it’s a good thing. The reason that I’m almost certain they’ll read it is because I know they read my content on a regular basis, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a good thing because it means this person is being supportive, but it’s a bad thing because it’s partially the reason why I ended the friendship in the first place.

You see, this blog that I created is my platform where I tell you my story and chronicle my life with multiple disabilities one blog post at a time. I’m truly happy to do it. I’m happy to do it. It’s like my own little diary that is up for anyone to see. This little diary is like an invisible psychologist. It helps me analyze whatever I’m going through in my own ways and at my own pace. And I wanted to truly thank you, the readers, for being on this journey with me. In my real world, outside of this blog, I’m a very much different person.

In my personal life, I’m actually a very shy, and yet a direct person. I have a ‘no bullsh*t allowed around me’ type of attitude, and I expect nothing less. There’s no way I’d ever tolerate any type of behaviour that is unacceptable to me. I’ve been through enough in my life for me to ever accept it. My husband and I met that particular friend back in July 2019 through a friend. He was a very wise and kind person. He had his own set of problems and quirks about him just like all of us do of course, but he was wise and kind nonetheless. At least I saw him that way. He was also extremely supportive of all my endeavours, which was much more than I could ever say about most of my former friends. He was the first person to purchase my book, 12 YEARS A WOMAN: MY JOURNEY TO HAPPINESS, when it came out in November 2020 You can purchase here. When I first started this blog, he’d always be the one to give me advice and nudges to keep going no matter how slow the progress was, and he’d be the first person to read all my blog posts. I knew because he’d always tell me that.

That enormous amount of support never went unnoticed. I always appreciated it. But that enormous amount of support came at a price. He was supportive of my business ventures, but with that, he completely crossed my personal boundaries. I’ve written about my personal struggles in my autobiographical book, and I continue to write about them here on the blog. I really attempt to write about them in a positive way, and I hope you, as a reader can see that. Outside of it, I’m not one to ever have even the slightest bit of an interest to talk about my personal struggles with my friends, specifically about disability and illness, as well as how it’s shaped me as a person throughout my past and in my daily living. That’s something I only speak of in detail with my parents and my husband.

For instance, I’ve written on this blog that I had two grand-mal seizures throughout my pregnancy – one at 21 weeks, and the other at 33 weeks. Around the time I had the seizure at 33 weeks, I made plans to hang out with a girlfriend of mine that I hadn’t seen in months. Because of the recovery period that comes with having a seizure, especially considering it was already the third trimester in my pregnancy, as well as the amount of doctor’s appointments and checkups that needed to take place after the seizure, I completely forgot about the scheduled hang out with her. It was completely fine, though. We rescheduled time pending to a later date. I didn’t even tell her I had a seizure. She said she figured I was busy, and that was it – end of story. No further discussion necessary. It felt so good to not feel the slightest bit of a need to explain myself, nor my health, for a change.

Now, I don’t like to compare my friendships because at the end of the day, you’re friends with different people for different reasons. But here, in this scenario, I certainly have to. For each chapter that my supportive friend read in my book, he wanted to discuss it with me, specifically the topic of cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Each time he read a blog post, he wanted to discuss that blog post further. He even once said he felt sorry for me and all the hardships that I’d gone through in my life. That should tell you that he completely missed the whole point of why this blog was created in the first place. When my husband and I would see him in person, It’d be the same thing. Every conversation we’d have was either about cerebral palsy or epilepsy, or even both. He once attempted to be funny and made a joke at my and my health’s expense. The very last straw for me was the last time the three of us hung out. Again, the topic of disability came up. This time, the conversation in person was short, but he wanted to continue discussing the topic the following day privately and asked me personal questions that had to do with my trauma and experiences.

Having anything to do with that friend became tiring, exhausting, and, in some ways, plain toxic. It wasn’t as though he wasn’t asked not to discuss and not to ask any questions regarding that specific part of my life. He was asked 4 times, and he still continued on doing whatever it was that he wanted to do. My husband said to me that for that friend, it was for his own educational purposes. I didn’t care. I don’t care what the reasoning behind anyone asking is. My disability and illness were discussed before for such purposes as gossip, someone attempting to be a ‘psychologist’, or someone attempting to save me or change me. Whether my life is discussed for educational purposes doesn’t change the fact that it’s being discussed, and I feel like I’m being defined by me having cerebral palsy, epilepsy or both. I deserve to be respected, and if I’m ever not respected, there are no discussions or warnings – you’re out of my life for good.