I was thinking about friendships. You see I don't have any. It is not that people don't want to be around me. One co-worker said "who could not like carrie?" So it isn't that I am unpleasant to be around but when I am not around people don't think of me. It isn't that I haven't tried to make friends with people. I have called them on occassion and asked them to do things with me. I ask co-workers to go out for a drink after work. And we have gone. We had a good time...at least the way they talk about it afterward it sounds like they had a good time. So why is it that I am not remembered when I am not in their presence as a person who may like to hang out? Am I too calm and comforting (their discription not mine) that I leave no impression so they don't think to ask me to go do things? I don't know. Maybe I should have a major freak out at work. But that doesn't work either. I had a gal help me to the hospital and she says I am one of her only friends but we never talk, we never call one another. It is weird. Is it me? Do I put up a wall of some sort? I don't get it.

Perhaps it is because I rarely talk about myself. Most of what is me right now is this intensive work on getting better. I have been so imbroiled in mental illness that it seems to me it would get rather boring and tedius for them to have to listen too because it is the same whining about the same thing over and over again so I don't talk about it. It has nothing to do with lack of self esteem. I used to think that I was a useless lump but now I feel good about myself, proud of the things I have accomplished, proud of the kids I have raised and so forth. But I don't talk about that too much because it is a private thing. The pride I have is for me alone because only I can be affected by it in a good way. I try to share my troubles and tribulations but I never ask for advice because no ones advice can be as good as my own and perhaps my therapist's though I am beginning to think that his advice comes in second to mine. Am I too big? I mean, is my belief that I can take care of anything eventually and if I muck it up it isn't the end of the world because everything is a process, something that people just don't connect with? Perhaps they need to be needed and quite frankly I don't need them to help me with anything...not on a personal level. Perhaps that is the problem. I just don't need them to help me fix anything. I don't need them to care for me. I just need them to be around and be themselves. They don't have to prove anything to me I just sit back and watch who they are and enjoy being with them flaws and all, without expectations. And because of this they don't feel the pull to call me, they don't have the urge to invite me along because there is no need.
Carrie