On being a project

I'm trying to deal with the understanding I've come to that a friend of mine simply considers me a project - someone to support because I have bipolar. And that hurts.

I've always considered her one of my best friends, feeling her love and care. She has been there as someone I can talk to - someone who wants to learn about my disorder (which I value). I've always talked about how important it is to have a support network. And yet, when a friendship is simply built on a person's struggle with a disorder, something seems to be wrong. I want to be her friend too - to be a support for her - yet she doesn't often allow it. She talks little about her own needs. It is a very unbalanced friendship.

So hard to find a balance in a friendship.

I have another friend who is there for me - I know partly because she knows I'm often a needy person. Her support for me has been huge and has helped me become strong and to grow and accomplish things. But she has also let me into her life, telling me about the things she's doing and the things she's reading and thinking. She talks about the things she wants to do. Our friendship is not simply built on her caring for the bipolar me.

Yet I care a lot about this person who has been considering me a project. We have to try to turn this friendship around. It needs to be a me for her relationship as much as it is a her for me relationship. God grant us the wisdom and the ability to do that.

It hurts to simply be considered somebody's project.

Cold complaints

I need to have someone to complain to. I have a bad cold. Seldom get one of those but today - on the third day - I'm not good at all. Fever and a cough that scares the cat off my lap and - actually - would scare anyone. It sounds like I'm dying. I don't feel like doing a thing, yet I'm bored too.

What bothers me most is the loneliness that comes with being sick. Wish I could talk to someone - complain to someone. I just don't know what to do with myself.

Yesterday my husband and I managed to do most of the dishes that had been piling up for a couple of weeks. I couldn't do them earlier because of some burnt fingers and my husband was sick. But yesterday, after doing most, I left a few to soak and there they are today, still soaking. I'm also way behind on my laundry and no energy to gather up the bedding and everything else and throw them into the washer. My husband has offered to help me a bit. He doesn't know what he's doing, but just to have him at my side will help.

Lonely - especially with my two best friends out of town. One of them - the very best for me to talk to - has been gone for almost five weeks and will be gone for six or seven more. That's real hardship. A person I share almost everything with and with whom I talk almost daily when she's in town - now far away.

I've done quite well though - kept busy - so I haven't suffered too much. Yet today it would be so neat to talk to her a bit.

Full of complaints, aren't I? Good to have this blog though. Good to have someone to talk to.