I am very socially isolated, and am finding it unbearable
I have been extremely disabled for eleven years, ever since my liver suddenly went bad. By being extremely proactive in my health care, I have managed to stay alive. (Barely.) But, this sort of illness generally gets worse, not better, and I am not able to do much of anything. I have to spend a lot of time resting in bed. I need a ton of sleep, and also spend a lot of time lying down daydreaming or listening to music. Currently, I can sit up for part of the day, but leaving the house is difficult, and i can only do it once a week or so. Other people go to work and talk to coworkers, and maybe get lunch together with a fellow employee, but I just don’t have that in my life at all.
I am well enough to meet someone for coffee maybe every week or two, and most days, there is at least an hour or so I can talk via phone. The problem is, I have no one to do these things with. Whenever I suggest to a local friend that we go for coffee, or text a friend further away and suggest catching up via phone, they almost invariably say they are busy. They generally say they might have some time in a month or two. Then, the month or two passes and they don’t get back to me. If I contact them again, they say they are still busy. I don’t think they are avoiding me, because when I do manage to meet up with one of them, we almost always have a great time, and they say how much they want to meet up again.
Time after time, I have had wonderful lunches or dinners with friends where they say how great it was to see me. Then, they get a new job (one friend moved from the US to Australia) or have a baby, and I never hear from them again. Over the years, I have lost more and more friends, and now I am barely in contact with anyone at all, except via Facebook.
I think if my friends knew how lonely I was, they would make more on an effort to contact me. But, I don’t know how to tell them. A few years ago, I posted on Facebook that I would really like phone calls, emails, and cards from my friends. I didn’t get a single one. I am tempted to be much more direct, to say that the social isolation is so bad that I want to kill myself. But, that sounds manipulative and stalkerish. What should I do?
I have been extremely disabled for eleven years, ever since my liver suddenly went bad. By being extremely proactive in my health care, I have managed to stay alive. (Barely.) But, this sort of illness generally gets worse, not better, and I am not able to do much of anything. I have to spend a lot of time resting in bed. I need a ton of sleep, and also spend a lot of time lying down daydreaming or listening to music. Currently, I can sit up for part of the day, but leaving the house is difficult, and i can only do it once a week or so. Other people go to work and talk to coworkers, and maybe get lunch together with a fellow employee, but I just don’t have that in my life at all.
I am well enough to meet someone for coffee maybe every week or two, and most days, there is at least an hour or so I can talk via phone. The problem is, I have no one to do these things with. Whenever I suggest to a local friend that we go for coffee, or text a friend further away and suggest catching up via phone, they almost invariably say they are busy. They generally say they might have some time in a month or two. Then, the month or two passes and they don’t get back to me. If I contact them again, they say they are still busy. I don’t think they are avoiding me, because when I do manage to meet up with one of them, we almost always have a great time, and they say how much they want to meet up again.
Time after time, I have had wonderful lunches or dinners with friends where they say how great it was to see me. Then, they get a new job (one friend moved from the US to Australia) or have a baby, and I never hear from them again. Over the years, I have lost more and more friends, and now I am barely in contact with anyone at all, except via Facebook.
I think if my friends knew how lonely I was, they would make more on an effort to contact me. But, I don’t know how to tell them. A few years ago, I posted on Facebook that I would really like phone calls, emails, and cards from my friends. I didn’t get a single one. I am tempted to be much more direct, to say that the social isolation is so bad that I want to kill myself. But, that sounds manipulative and stalkerish. What should I do?